The morning started out nice with calm seas light SE winds and some scattered clouds as forecasted. Soluna forecast was 90% for mid-morning. A pretty good setup for a run to Grand Cayman’s 12-Mile Bank. At least that’s what we thought.
We arrive at the top of 12-Mile Bank at 6:45. Our crew Roshad, Jose, Josh, and I were aboard Captain Gus’ 32’ Intrepid “KNOT SORRY” with twin 300 Yamahas and Garmin’s latest equipment. Nice boat! First thing, Roshad taught us how to check the current. It was coming out of the south.
We planned to troll for a bit then drift for yellowfin. By 7:45 am things changed quickly. The winds picked up, as did the waves, and the rains came. Squalls happen! The tough part was that there was NO bite. Nothing! The 8 or so boats all reported no action at all. We trolled the south side with wireline and a Nomad DTX on the other side of the boat for a couple of hours. Conditions prevented us from setting any drifts.
Wind, rain rough seas, and no fish biting is a bad combination. By 11 am, most boats left the bank for other fishing grounds.
As KNOT SORRY headed for home we tried a few drifts at Northwest Point where the seas were very calm and the skies were clearer. 3 drifts yielded just 1 medium size barracuda. Next, we trolled as we headed back to North Sound. There was a bit of excitement as a lot of Blackfin were breaking the surface off of Turtle Farm. We sent out the Bonita flies. The excitement didn’t last for long, as 3 passes didn’t produce a single hit.
Sunday, Feb 13 was not our day. The other boats we checked with told the same story.
It’s fishing!