I just didn't want to frighten the OP away from fishing. I do think that the stories I heard weren't charter boats with guests not having paid for fishing permits but private vessel where the BVI authorities had (previous) issues with. And the one story from early this year, where the boat was at first impounded and then levied with thousands of dollars of fees and fines, seems to be a lot more involved than the initial reports of some poor US boater having his boat confiscated because he hung out a fishing line - meaning there are certainly always 2 sides to a news story.
Back to customs - I know that US customs & immigration requires all people on board to present themselves when a "furriner" is on board, but wasn't sure if that applied to boats with only US citizens aboard as well.
I've checked into and out of the BVI many times, and have never had significant delays but have heard of cases where the process can take excessively long - perhaps I've just been lucky. Immigration in St. Johns and St. Thomas was always fast, efficient and exceedingly polite or even downright friendly (note I never said the same about the BVI
).