I had the opportunity to host a family from Stone Harbor, NJ in Treasure Cay this week. The vacation was a surprise 50th birthday present for the father. This is a family that fishes with us in NJ, so needless to say, when Dad saw the OVER UNDER with me aboard when he arrived, it was pretty neat.

We decided to head offshore the first day and see if there might be a late season Blue Marlin hanging around for us. As soon as we cleared the headpin we encountered a pretty bad squall and were taking 25 knots or so, on the bow. We decided to duck into the recently opened Bakers Bay Marina on Guana Cay to check out their progress. WOW! The place is incredible. Definitely a place to watch as they continue to get that place whipped into shape. This is definitely one of the nicest marinas anywhere, let alone the Bahamas. After sitting out the squall in Bakers, we ran down to Man-O-War Cut and headed out. It was still blowing 20 knots, so it was pretty snotty. I pointed it NE and we rode in the trough till we were in 500 fathoms, then we pretty much trolled down sea to the north for most of the morning. While we were putting the spread out, we quickly got ambushed by a nice 25 pound cow dolphin that ate an orange and black Moldcraft up tight, on a flatline. It was a great bite and we all saw it. I was thinking..hey, maybe this is gonna be ok. It's pretty late in the season and the water is 84 to 87 degrees, pretty warm. Well, that was the last and only bite of the day. We weren't able to get down to the corner off of Hopetown like we had planned due to the nasty winds, so we did the best we could and enjoyed a comfortable day fishing on the Over Under. I had forgotten what a great fishing platform the 54 Bertram is..boy, is it nice when it gets sloppy.

The second day, the weather was much better and we loaded the whole family up, and Bradley (our local mate) jumped in our 19' Key West and we headed off to Guana Cay for a day of snorkeling, conching, and relaxing. What a super day as the sun came out and we enjoyed the fabulous reefs around Guana cay. We pretty much saw it all, Grouper, Lobster, even a school of Squid! That was a first for me. Bradley towed a few of us around and we found half a dozen conch that are now being made into fresh conch salad, Bahamian Style! We ended the day with a late lunch at Grabbers Beach Bar, before heading back to Treasure Cay for the night.

Our next day brought more fabulous summer weather and the guys decided it was a good day to do a couple tank dives. They headed out with Treasure Divers for the morning and the plan was to meet up with them out on the reef after their dives and pick them up with the ladies. Bradley and I loaded our tender with a cooler full of drinks and set off with the ladies for Man-O-War Cay for a bit of sightseeing. We grabbed lunch to go and then met up with the Dive Boat off of Guana Cay. After anchoring in the Bakers Bay Cove for lunch, we ran over to Green Turtle Cay and went into town, toured the sites, and visited Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar, home of the original “Goombay Smash”!

With the sightseeing and diving out of our system, the next day we headed back offshore looking for a late season Blue Marlin. We ran south off of Hopetown to start, finding some good rips and weed lines right away, but no real signs of life in them. We moved to the deep and finally caught a brief glimpse of some nice Yellowfin as they crashed bait for a few seconds. They were moving fast and we had no chance to catch them, unfortunately. We had one mystery bite in that same area, most likely a small billfish, that came unglued quickly. Trolling back to the north we discovered a school of Blackfin Tuna and brought two to the boat, before we decided to go deep dropping to finish the day. We struggled a bit on the slack tide, but caught a handful of Yellow-Eye Snapper for dinner. Fishing has slowed considerably offshore as the water is now in the 85-88 degree range, but the reefs are still full of snapper and lobster season opens in 5 days!

Today, we all will take the day off and most likely go over to Nippers Beach Bar on Guana Cay. Rumor has it the “Barefoot Man” is playing over there and it should be quite the party!

For now, Tight Lines!
Captain Trey Rhyne