And I thought I was just booking a simple Bonefish guide.
Prior to our vacation to Bimini, our off-shore fishing guide, Captain Jerome Stuart, offered to help us with whatever we might want to do. I told him I wanted to bonefish as well as go off-shore. He knew some people and would gladly set it up.
“I’ve got you set up with Ansil,” he told me later during a phone call. I had seen his name on the Internet so I took that as a positive and agreed.
So a few weeks later we are in our golf cart, the main vehicle of transportation in Bimini, traveling down Queens Highway, which is the main street through North Bimini Island. Nailed to a telephone pole is a sign with Ansil Saunder’s name, and “Bonefishing Guide” printed on it, and an arrow pointing down a narrow sidestreet. The family yelped as I yanked the wheel on the cart and did a u-turn and whipped down the street. “What are you doing?” one of them asked. “I’m checking to make sure our bone-fish trip is booked,” I replied, as I had not confirmed with Mr. Saunders.
A hundred yards away, the street dead-ended into an unremarkable, small narrow building. The narrow side facing us, and both ends open, I could see the ice blue water of bimini bay out the other side. A mix-breed brown dog was lying at the open bay door and he greeted us with a toothy grin and tail lazily pounding on the ground. An older black gentleman with a genuine smile, small in stature, but big in personality, looked up from his work.
“Captain Saunders?” I asked.
He reached out with a surprisingly large hand for his size, “Ansil Saunders”.
His huge smile drew us inside his shop. At first I felt awkward for showing up unannounced and walking into his shop where he was busy building his boats. He was on the right side of the shop and had been gluing and clamping the ribs on the skeleton of his next 16’ bone-fishing boat in process. On the left hand side of the shop, covered with blankets, was a nearly finished gem. With fresh gel-coat and several layers of paint on the hull, this most beautiful of small boats I had ever seen sat gleaming. Peaking out from the blankets was a beautifully handcrafted interior of exotic woods, perfectly sanded and varnished. Proud of his craftsmanship, Ansil pulled back the blankets exposing the entire craft. He expertly explained every aspect of the boat, its wood, and how he created this masterpiece. By hand. Every bit of the work done right there in his shop. “Six months of hard work and sweat” goes into each boat. You can have your very own for $40,000. Too beautiful to use, but criminal not to, this boat is at home in the shallows of Bimini Bay. As I learned the next day, it floats in amazingly shallow water. I was sure we were going to be out of the boat pushing, but he says, “just sit at the bow for a moment”, and the boat drifted in the clearest and shallowest of water.
We agreed to go out the next morning. “I’ll pick you up at the marina at 8:30 tomorrow morning”. 8:30? I thought that was a bit late, seeing as I always thought my bait was supposed to be in the water as soon as the fish threw the covers off. But as I was learning, people in Bimini are not in a hurry. There is nothing to miss in Bimini, because you are there!
He met us at the Bimini Bay Resort marina at 8:30 sharp the next morning. Walter and I stepped off the dock and into his boat, Jewel, and were guided into the two sturdy lawn chairs in the front of the boat. And we listened.
Five minutes later Ansil anchored and pushed a limber seven-foot spinning rod into our hands and told us exactly where to cast. Everything Ansil did was done noiselessly. His 50-horse Honda is a super quiet four-stroke. His paddle is protected in padding and wrapped with blue painter's tape. The curved support on the back of the boat, where the end of the paddle lays, is covered with a t-shirt. When the anchors, two of them connected in series, come in and out of the boat, the only sound heard is dripping water.
I tossed my dead shrimp to the 11 o’clock position relative to the bow of the boat, and Walter to 1 o’clock. Not sure what we were throwing to, Ansil, reading my mind, said, “see out there where the water is muddied? That is a school of bonefish feeding.” Walter could see it before I could. To me, the “muddied” water just looked like more shadows in a bay of greens and blues. After about five minutes, Ansil said “pull’em up”. We did. He, standing in his position at the stern, had spotted another likely looking cloud in the water not far off. Noiselessly pulling up the anchor, he fires the Honda and we make an easy circle. Within 60 seconds of our baits hitting the two-foot deep water, Walter’s rod is nearly jerked out of his hands as an eight pound bonefish starts ripping line off his reel. As I looked on, my rod gave me a hard jolt. Setting the hook like a bass on a plastic worm, I pulled the hook out and lost my fish. I was quickly schooled by the master on proper hook setting technique for bonefish. We ended the half-day trip with several bonefish and an appreciation for their will to live.
Ansil took Walter and I on a brief tour of the mangroves, into the “Holy Grounds” where, in 1968, he quoted his self written “Creation Psalm” to Martin Luther King Jr. as inspiration to Dr. King who was writing his Sanitation Workers’ speech right there, in those same mangroves, on Bonefish Creek in Bimini. Two days later Cindy, Lindsey, and I went on an in-depth mangrove tour with Ansil, where he shared his stories and the Creation Psalm, along with his strong Christian faith. His is a wonderful story.
There is so much to say about Ansil, his history, and his stories. Another author, Charlie Levine, has done a fabulous job writing of the same experience. Here is the link I recommend if you want to read more about Ansil:
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