Once sailing between the Canary islands and Martinique, I hooked a monster Mahi Mahi and while trying to get him aboard saw my cheap no-brand gaff hook go from hook shape to not hook shape and watched sixty pounds of Mahi filets slide off and go bye-bye as a result…
A while back I lost my good gaff and as everything available on island was silly expensive, bought yet another no-name cheapie gaff which if it were to encounter a fish greater than about twenty pounds would more than likely fall apart. So I’ve been searching for a couple of gaffs to beef up the team.
Since Amazon is my choice for getting gear and suchlike down to the Caribbean in a frugal manner, I did a search on “gaff” and the results were some kind of surprising as it returned a lot of “exotic apparel” apparently for cross-dressing men… Who’d have thought? By adding the word “fishing” to “gaff” I found what I was looking for but be forewarned that “gaff” in some circles means something other than a hook on a stick…
Of course, these days stuff is just silly expensive and gaffs (the hook on a stick sort) are no exception but deals can be found and my next order to Amazon will include …
A short cheap but reasonable quality gaff which is all most of us need from a sailboat with not a lot of freeboard. I looked at a clone of this the other day down here and it was $50 (yes, there is still piracy here in the Caribbean) and a…
Rapala Lock & Grip which is more fish friendly to those critters that I want to catch and release…
Not exactly “exotic” stuff but they should work!