July 20, 2004

[Captain Bouncer]

Bimini Records

We went back to Bimini this past week. The weather was flat calm for the crossings and the fishing was HOT!. We took a bus- man’s holiday and fished aboard Marty Arostegui’s 35 foot Cabo. Marty wanted to target yellowtail snapper on fly with his wife, Roberta and son Martini.

The first two stops were very slow. We tried two wrecks up on the bank and caught several barracuda, small yellowtail snapper and several beautiful schoolmaster snappers.

Our next stop was very promising when we caught a 2 pound yellowtail within minutes of arriving. The nice sized yellowtails were here, but would not rise off the bottom. They were either out of range of the fly tackle or not eating flies. With enough yellow- tails iced down for dinner we moved on.

Our next stop was quite exciting. Clouds of yellowtails rose behind the boat. We caught them on flies till it was time to head for the hotel for the night. Just as we were wrapping things up, a big horse eye jack raided the party. Martini hooked it on a live bait, and the battle was on. It took a while, but he boated, photographed and measured his world record horse eye and released it (junior world records may be weighed at sea and released).

Day two started with catching live pilchards and then running to some remote wrecks. We caught small yellowtails, sharks, barra- cudas and blue runners for hours. Action was great. Roberta caught a record shark on fly and Martini got a junior angler record shark.

Our next two stops produced some good action, but the same fish, the same size as the first. We were looking for bigger yellowtails.

The next stop was our bonanza. Within minutes of our arrival, clouds of yellowtails rose behind the boat. Marty and Roberta were catching them on fly with great regularity. Martini was fishing the bottom with his heavy outfit and catching big horse eye jacks every drop. In two hours we boated 8 possible record yellowtail snapper on fly plus numerous fish that were very close. Martini beat his record horse eye from the previous day twice. Martini also caught two very big Nassau grouper that he released.

We got back to the dock as the sun set with 11 possible world records and a pile of great memories of fast action.

Our final day was a little anti climatic with a nice bonefish to start the day, some big barracudas on light casting tackle, clouds of yellowtails on bait and flies, but only one possible record in the bunch. Boy are we spoiled.

We are back in Miami, the boats are catching a few sailfish on the edge, dolphin offshore and snappers on the reef at night. We hope to find snook piled up in the inlets by now. We are having a seminar on Swordfishing Tuesday night, the 27th of July at 6 at Dusky Sport Center 110 north Bryan Road, Dania Beach . Hope we see you there.