I'm planning a second trip down to Los Roques off shore from Venezuela after a seven year absence. From the pictures and videos I've looked at it seems to have been considerably commercialised, has anyone out there been down recently?

There may be better options - what fish are you after and why are you choosing Los Roques?

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Hi Chris

I fancy another crack at the monster bones by the boat moorings if they're still there. I'm not sure how busy the pancakes are these days, when my three friends and I went we were the ONLY rods on Gran Roc for a whole week! I thought that we went 7 years ago but it was actually in 2001 (getting senile).

The other option I'm looking at is another trip down under to Cape York and Arnhemland but the price of flights has gone crazy.

regards

Phil

There are other options in that region that may offer a wider range of fish for you to target. Somewhere like Turneffe Flats in Belize would give you Bones, Permit and Tarpon.

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I don't fancy Belize,two of my friends fished there and didn't really rate it alongside Los Roques. If I decide upon the Caribbean it will probably be Cuba or Costa Rica.

Anyone else been down to LR recently?

Phil

Some of the guys I fish with have been there once. Now they prefer Cuba.

If you want another (albeit biased) view - talk to Pete Mcleod at Aardvark Mcleod - he rates the place and sends many clients there. He's not so keen on Cuba - so it is very much horses for courses.

Hope this helps.

And how about Mexico? There's some great fishing for tarpon, snook, permit and bonefish in Ascension Bay. Probably one of the best places in the world for a shot at a super grand slam!

You tell 'em Clive! Did you get a picture of those two 200 lbs tarpon from the other day? Get them on here then!

Cheers

Bob

Thanks for all of the advice fellers - Mexico is an option that I hadn't considered. As much as I try, I can't forget seeing so many double figure 'Bones in one place as LR. One interesting aside, after a very long and hard days fluff flinging into 15mph winds and wading a boggy section of mangrove, the four of us were enjoying a well earned cold one at a beach bar in LR when a ten year old kid began to throw his cast net right in front of us. First chuck he got eleven bones between 6 and 10lbs. It kinda put all of our expensive equipment, considerable experience, not to mention over inflated opinion of our abilities into perspective.

He proved to be a surprisingly good swimmer as well!

One other astonishing event that some of you may have witnessed. We had watched as some of the larger bones had waited until the diving Pelicans had surfaced with pouch fulls of bait before ramming them to dislodge free food instead of having to chase live minnows. One of our number decided to cast as close as possible to a surfacing Pelican with predictable results. We can now report that a 9 wt RPLXI attached to a Lamson Litespeed handles a Pelican pretty well. (photos to prove for the doubters)

What I will probably do is try to find out where Robson Green is filming next and then put as many thousands of miles between me and him. What a cock!

ho hum

Phil

Don't be too hard on yourself Phil. He was probably using a 2011 model Sage net