I recently took a vacation trip to Bimini, Bahamas, with my family and a few close friends.
The trip was a blast. We drove two boats 55 miles due east of Key Biscayne to the tropical island of Bimini.
My father's boat, No Hurry, was overloaded and couldn't get up on a plane, so we had to troll the entire trip over.
Luckily, the seas were a mere foot, and the wind was blowing from west to east.
Creighton "Crady" Baker of Dania Beach had made the crossing numerous times, so he led the way in his boat, The Baker Act.
After an hour of trolling, Crady yelled over the radio, "Fish on!" Don Anglin of Vero Beach had hooked into a blue marlin!
"Crady told me to put the florescent yellow marlin lure, which was at the bottom of his tackle box, on the big Penn Senator and send it back," said
Anglin. "Next thing I knew, I was hooked up on my first blue marlin!"
The fight lasted 45 minutes, ending when Baker hoisted the 150-pound fish into the boat for a photo opportunity.
"I didn't want to kill the fish by gaffing it, but I did want to get a picture with it because I have never landed a blue marlin before," said Baker.
Needless to say, this experience pumped us up for a week of fishing the Bimini Bank.
My friend, Arthur "Artie" Olson, of Vero Beach, caught his first wahoo while trolling off Bimini's South Bank.
"We got caught in the middle of a squall while fishing the South Bank," said Olson. "I asked Crady if we were going to reel the lines in or ride it out, and that's when we got the hit."
The South Bank also provided us with enough yellowtail snappers and peanuts (juvenile mahi-mahi) to feed our families and some of the locals.
It was the best fishing trip I have ever been on.
Everybody worked as a team to land two awesome fish, which we bragged to all our friends about when we got home.
More information about Bimini and all the other islands of the Bahamas can be found at www.Bahamas.com.