St. Georges, Grenada

A 5.00 O’clock start on the boat to get up and get ready for the competition, luckily for me, we were already based in the lagoon in St Georges, which is short dingy ride to the yacht club were our boat YesAye is moored and the rest of the fishing fleet.

The start today included a parade of the boats around the caranage and then onto the start line, were at 7.00 o’clock a count down was commenced to start the event and get all the boats were under way, which was a very impressive site.


Bimini start - all boats motoring off from the start line


Bimini start

We started to head out to the fishing ground, which turned out to be about 10 to 15 miles North West of St Georges. The day was very sunny, the sky was blue and the wind was about 12 knots, so calm seas, perfect conditions!


Bimini start



All the fishing tackle was supplied by the skipper and the bait and setup was done by Alby who was the local hired mate on ‘YesAye’. After about a 30 minute journey we were putting out the lures on the back of the boat to start our trolling activites.

Throughout the day you could hear on the VHF radio how the other boats were doing as they were required by the rules to call in to the control centre any activity they had encountered.

We had a number of half strikes, which is that the bait has been taken by a fish, but not wholly committing itself, plus most of us on the were beginners to saltwater sports fishing. The skipper had briefed us on what action we should take should we get a strike on our designated rod. The instructions were vague to say the least and I resorted to talking to Ferdinand who had clearly done this before.

The day continued for us in frustration as we were getting hits on the lures but could not get hooked up with the fish.

The only real opportunity came when Ziggy’s rod and reel leapt into life screaming of line at an incredible rate, by the time we had got Ziggy to the fighting chair to tackle the fish it had already spit the hook out.

The day ended with one Wahoo caught by myself and no points for YesAye and the skipper Gary Clifford, who was very disappointed with our performance and resorted to swearing at his customers throughout the day when one of us would miss a ‘sail fish strike’. Ziggy had ideas that he was wearing the wrong hat and he would change it the following day.


Kevin's Wahoo, the only catch of the day