24 Hours in Bimini

Published February 12, 2012 | By Jay Riordan

I got a call from a friend asking if I wanted to fly over to Bimini and fish a couple of days, then help take the boat back to Fort Lauderdale. The plan seemed simple, a little trolling for wahoo, some deep dropping for queen snappers, and maybe a little chumming for yellowtails. The only thing we couldn’t control was the weather. We knew a front was coming, and the trip may have to be cut short by a day or two, but I didn’t really care. Any reason to spend a little time on the other side of the gulf stream sounded good to me.

We arrived in Bimini about noonish on Friday and decided to drag some high-speed lures for an hour or so. No bites, the only thing that was being put in the boat was a little rain here and there. Without a reason to fight the elements we opted to head for the house and take a little lunch break and get ready for some afternoon yellowtailing. A few hours later we headed out of the channel and quickly noticed the wind had picked up and the seas were a little bigger. The guys on the boat were arguing about the size’ “They look 2-4″, “No, those are 3-5′s”, I just say they were, “hold on to the tower or rail or risk getting thrown out of the boat size”. Needless to say, when your yellowtail jig heads are skipping on the surface, the current is way too strong to fish for snappers. That would be the end of fishing for day 1.

Saturday morning didn’t look much better. The seas were still big and the forecast was calling for 9-11 foot seas in the stream. The wind was going to pick up and blow harder on Sunday and Monday. There would be no taking the boat back so we charted a plane to fly us out in the afternoon. As we sat on the couch looking out over the water we could see the front way off in the distance and the water was nothing but whitecaps. I suggested we go give it one last chance, heck we all had foul weather gear and the fish were already wet, what would they care. Besides, we had three hours before we were going to get on the plane. We grabbed four trolling rods and off we went. It didn’t take long before we had a double hook up. After a short fight we had wahoo in the boat and we headed for the house.

As I sit here and type this it almost feels like I never left my home, like it was all a dream. Maybe it’s due to the lack of sleep or the removal from the daily grind. Whatever it is, it puts a smile on my face. I was able to spend time with old friends and meet some new ones. Had some great food, good laughs, and shot a few photos along the way. That’s what makes life good!