I will be in Bonaire April 10-19 my sixty trip.
Our group has dove almost every shore dive from north of Bopec to Willemstoren Light house And Cai.
On this trip we would like to see more BIG FISH.
What are the best sites to dive for BIG FISH ?

At night. We did our first night dive behind the Carib Inn. Huge and mean really huge tarpons swirled around us using our lights to hunt. It was great and scarey. They were so big. We're talking 4 foot fish. We just excited the water at Angel City when Ernie spotted a very large pod of dolphins swimming north to south just over the dark water (reef). Wish we would have been in the water just 10 minutes longer.

You can see tarpon and snook feeding on the sand flats at night. As Marge says, the tarpon like to hunt in the beam of your dive light.

But... 4 foot tarpon are small fry at night on Bonaire. I have seen six and seven footers by sitting quietly without a dive light on the sand in front of Cap'n Dons about 9-10 pm. (The restaurant lights are bright enough for dark-accommodated eyes to see the tarpon underwater. You can see their shadows on the sand from land. A good reason to have a drink there after dinner!) They seemed to be making a nightly progress north to south so it was just a passing encounter.

I'm always accused of exaggerating. You are right. They were 6 ft or better.

Don't forget Golly we have seen him on the last two trips, but it is a boat dive.

Three words: Larry's Wildside Diving.

Your chances of see the big ones will improve on the other side of Bonaire!

http://www.larryswildsidediving.com/

Hi Richard,

With 60 trips under your belt and your range of dive site experience I'd say that YOU are the best resource for learning which sites tend to attract the largest fish.

With the acceptance that Bonaire doesn't attract many of the large species in the first place.

East side diving would seem to be your best option?

Gord beat me to it. I've never had the opportunity to dive the East Side, but can't wait to give it a shot when we get back down there.

For us, it seems the majority of large fish were down around the Hilma Hooker. Numerous large tarpon hang out there during the day and we saw the occasional sting ray in the sand flats around it. The only other large animals we saw in the water was a dolphin that joined us at Red Slave one morning.

Good luck and have fun!!!!!

Richard, Boka Onima has been a good place to see large game. If the wind is blowing...don't enter. The swim to the reef is as far as the swim to the end of the cut that opens into the ocean.
This is a very hard dive. When you return, you only have one chance to hit the cut. The outer area is all jagged rock and the waves will pound you up against them. You won't be diving anymore if you get into the jagged rock.
Make sure you take an experienced diver with you.
There is a man on Bonaire by the name of Pat Doyan that is very experienced and has vast knowledge of this site.
Good Luck! We usually dive this site at least 4 times a week when we are in Bonaire!
BOKA ONIMA! TA1

We see same big stuff snorkeling out in the blue water off the coast. A wahoo put on a show one time. We go out there to enjoy the micros and really tiny organisms and juveniles, but there is usually schools of ballyhoo and other baitfish that attact larger fish. It gets interesting after the reef is out of sight. Then the water column is circulating in a different ecosystem, which brings a wide variety of species. Plus it gets very deep off Bonaire very close to the atoll.
Bud

Which coast, Bud? West also?

The East side reef takes a beating from the surge. Not much to see but there are usually rays down deep. Not many other large fish but Blue hole has lots of tarpon that suspend in it.

We dove with Larry's and he does a great job. Its worth doing once.