Measuring just 9 1/2 square miles, Bimini ranks as one of the Bahamas' smaller islands, but its role in the annals of sport fishing is nothing short of monumental. Such fishing luminaries as IGFA founder Michael Lerner and one of the sport's most notable anglers, Ernest Hemingway, discovered Bimini's unheralded offshore fishing in the 1930s and helped establish the area as one of sport fishing's most treasured spots.
Sitting just 50 miles east of south Florida, the island gained notoriety throughout the 1950s for its bluefin tuna fishing, marlin action, grouper and more, and it continues to draw anglers from Florida and beyond.
Bimini actually consists of two small islands - North Bimini and South Bimini - and they sit in close proximity to both the Grand Bahama Bank and the Gulf Stream. This close access to deep blue water puts anglers in a prime location to find blues, whites and sails.
Sam Jennings, one of the most prolific anglers in the Caribbean, owns title to catching the largest blue marlin in the Bahamas, and he landed it off Bimini. While fishing the Bimini Blue Marlin Tournament back in 1979, Jennings and his crew hooked the big blue with less than an hour left until lines out. Upon boating the fish, the crew high-tailed it to the island, knowing that unless they showed up by the 7 p.m. cutoff, their fish wouldn't count. They arrived with just seven minutes to spare, and when the big fish hit the scale, it came in at 1,060.5 pounds.
The list of notable catches from Bimini is long and varied, from Kip Farrington's first officially recorded blue marlin in 1933 to Jerry Lavenstein's 16-pound, 3-ounce bone-fish, but in many other ways, the past few years have not been all that kind to Bimini. In December 2005, one of the Chalks seaplanes, which had brought passengers to and from Miami for years, crashed during its takeoff over Government Cut, claiming the lives of 20 people. Chalks closed down soon after. Just a few weeks later, on Friday, January 13, a fire destroyed the Compleat Angler, Bimini's beloved watering hole and an old Hemingway haunt. But Bimini is bouncing back. The fishing remains strong, and the new Bimini Bay Resort and Marina promises to return Bimini to the sport-fishing spotlight.
Marlin Mecca
Blue marlin season in the Bahamas typically runs from April through July; however, anglers can find white marlin even earlier in the year along with a few sailfish poking around, so grand slams occur on a fairly regular basis.
