Walker's Cay Open Preview
Walking this iconic island makes it easy to catch up with SFC's Angling Clubs and catch up with how they're preparing for Day 1
Less than 12 hours from the start of the Walker’s Cay Open, presented by Anetik, the rock at the northern tip of the Abacos is buzzing once again. Airplanes are taking off and landing, buzzing the towers of sportfishing boats out prefishing. The generators are humming, powering everything that makes life happen on this remote island, like our Starlink satellite internet connections, and air conditioning.
It feels like 92 degrees with the humidity out here. Summer’s already here.
East Coast Remix co-owner Kenny Hernandez was on one of those planes that buzzed a tower on his approach to Walker’s this morning. He buzzed his own angling club, leading to one heck of a shock for everybody.
“He’s a prankster for sure,” East Coast Remix Captain JC Cleare said. “I got a message from Kenny [Hernandez] asking where we were fishing, and five minutes later he’s buzzing our tower.”
“This has been our hottest day by far,” said Rob Carmichael, GM for Lights Out New England Angling Club.
Lights Out have been in the Bahamas for the entire month of May.
Every angling club prefished this morning. The division-leading South Carolina Outcast Angling Club found their lone fish early.
“That could have been your fish,” Mate Trey Kemmerlin said dockside.
Something to learn about every angling club: They have all been incredibly welcoming and inviting for staffers to join on prefishing days. At some point in the season, we will try to take them (among others) up on the offer.
Their fish was early, around 7:30 in the morning. Great for prefishing, but not ideal for competition with lines-in beginning at 8:00AM ET and lines-out at 4:00PM ET. One exception for Championship Saturday, where lines in will actually be at 7:50AM and out at 3:50PM.
Closer to mid-day, The New York Granders Angling Club found a blue marlin during their prefish day. It proved more fruitful than the day before, when multiple clubs reported the same issue.
No, it wasn’t tunas this time.
Barracudas. There was enough barracuda action last week, that there were discussions at the dock for having a calcutta just for barracuda. I’d call it a “calcuda.”
One blue marlin flag was flying, the release secured by New York Granders angler Kelly Young. The outdoor YouTuber has been catching a ton of species in the roughly 30 hours we have been on Walker’s Cay. After clearing customs on Tuesday, we saw her heading towards the west end of the island looking for conch.
She got two pretty quickly.
On the way back, one of the Granders’ mates mentioned a coral head. Thankfully for Young, an 80’ Viking has a lot of storage space for gear, including gear not needed for blue marlin fishing.
“I never go to the Bahamas without a pair of long fins,” Young said.
Or a Hawaiian sling (cleared through customs).
On our way to interviewing more captains, we saw Young shooting some catch, clean and cook content with a grouper she shot from the coral head. I wasn’t kidding when I said she can track and hunt anything with a pulse. She proves that statement right every single day.
The Walker’s Cay Open also marks the season debut for the full-strength North Carolina Flare Angling Club. After some work to their F&S Sportfish “Sails Pitch” and becoming a father, Captain Brian Dressler and company are ready to get back on the fish after some extended time off after mid-April’s SFC’c The Catch, powered by Verizon.
So far, fatherhood seems to carry over to skippering a boat.
“Captain life and dad life are similar: feed them every three hours and change their diapers,” Dressler said.
Hopefully a few more hours of sleep too in the marina.