Weekend Fishing Report

The Crew:

• Capt. Bill
• Kerry
• Dave (Mr. Whiteboots)
• and myself

The Boat: The Attitude
Target Fish: Sea Bass

After watching the Marine Weather-Guessers forecast all week long, we assembled a crew to once again go hunt Black Sea Bass. This time, a little further off-shore. With forecasts all week long of low winds and relatively calm seas for Sunday, I was looking forward to a nice smooth ride within 50 miles of the shoreline. Of course, come Saturday, the Weatherguessers started tweaking the forecast. It’s almost as if the Weatherguessers are in cahoots with all of the businesses that count on weekend tourists, weekend anglers, campers, boaters, surfers, sun worshipers and fare-weather shoppers.

Before you say “that’s just crazy talk”, think about it! I’m not normally one of those conspiracy theorist types, but I can’t think of any other reason why Weatherguessers start off the first half of every week with an upcoming weekend forecast of beautiful, sunny and in my case, low wind and low seas forecast. Then some time between Thursday afternoon and very early Saturday morning, after all the plans are made and all the reservations are set, the forecast goes to crap. Too late! The plans are set, the reservations are made and in many cases, deposits have been paid. See what I mean?

Enough of that crazy talk. I think I’m going to work on a post specifically on the subject of Weatherguessers, their accuracy and what might be done to incentivize or otherwise motivate them to develop tools that make them much more accurate. Any and all suggestions are welcome! More to come.

On to the report: As commented on above, the Saturday morning forecast had changed and the small craft advisory had been extended into Saturday night. Not to worry. It was to be lifted by 1am Sunday morning. Another check Saturday night found the small craft advisory had not been lifted, but surprise! It had been extended to 6am Sunday morning. However, the sea-state prediction was only calling for 3 to 4 foot seas with an 8 second period and winds were out of the SW. If nothing else, we could stay closer to land. Either way it should be manageable and it was supposed to get even nicer as the morning progressed.

Fast forward to 6am Sunday morning. I have 2 neighbors in my driveway and one other crew member that drives 2 hours from Richmond, waiting for a fishing trip. Boat’s hooked up to the truck, fish boxes are both loaded with ice. Lunch, drinks, tackle and rods are all onboard so we’re not going to disappoint. After all, why did I buy this new boat if I can’t handle a 4 foot sea? We head to the ramp.

When we get to the ramp 2 other boats were sitting in front of them, still on their trailers. Seems one of them, a little Sea Hunt, had tried to make it to the tower but gave up, turned around and came back in. The other guy, hearing the Sea Hunt's story, decided not to launch. We however, continued on. I figured, what the heck, let’s at least stick the bow out past the jetty and see for ourselves. Let me tell you, my big - little Sailfish did right-well (that’s Southern speak for she did a great job) in the 4 to 6 foot rollers.

We made our way out averaging 25mph. Not a bad ride. It really wasn't that bad since the swell was spaced pretty nicely. After a 20 mile run, our destination was confirmed, first by the arrival signal from my GPS and then again as we watch the outline of a long ago sunken wreck-tuned-fish-heaven on my digital fishfinder screen. We caught Sea Bass steady all day and on every piece of structure we visited. Unfortunately we only had 19 keepers for the day. Well, 20, but I let one of them buggers slip out of my hand. I’m pretty sure it stuck it’s tongue out at me as it hit the water and quickly swam away. Biggest fish of the day was somewhere between 3 and 4 pounds. We caught and released another 30 or so that were too short to keep and I put tags in an even dozen.

As usual, there’s always something that happens on a long fishing trip. A blunder, a hatch dropping on a foot, a hook stuck in someone’s hand or an exploding beer. On this trip, it was a little thing called ‘Sea sickness’. Yes, one of my crew was going the extra mile to help chum up the fish. I won’t “out” the poor guy, but I will say it wasn’t me!!! :-) He got quite a bit of ribbing from at least one other member of the crew. Me, I learned my lesson a long, long time ago. I was fishing out of San Diego with an old friend, oh, close to 30 years ago. We had a couple guys on board and one of them started tossing up breakfast. Boy did I give him a hard time. Well, it was no more than an hour or two later, I found myself hanging over the side. So, since then, with the exception of a few times aboard ship, I don’t rib fellow fishermen.

Well, if you've gotten this far in the post, thanks for reading. Feel free to provide comments, your own outdoors story or any helpful suggestions.. Especially if they have something to do with improving marine forecasting. Just click on the 'comments' tag below.

Memorial Day Fishing Trip

Memorial Day 2008

I had assembled a crew of 4 for this trip to go 20 to 40 miles off-shore looking for some Sea Bass. I figured that would be a better choice than dealing with hundreds of yahoo’s scrambling to get their boats and jet ski’s in the water on a Holiday. Way too many first time boaters and people that only seem to launch on Holiday weekends. My plan was to stay away from the crowds. It worked; I don’t think I saw 30 boats all day.

Any way, the day before, my main fishing buddy called to back out of the trip. He gave some lame excuse but the result was one less on the boat. No problem, the other 3 were still in. So I thought! The next morning, about an hour before we were to depart, one of my other crew members called to cancel. He had a better excuse than the first, as this guy had a recent operation on his shoulder and was in way too much pain to be bouncing around on the boat. So then there we’re 3.

The plan was set and the shortened crew was assembled. We launched after a quick stop at the liquid gold station (gas).

Now everyone that knows me, knows what a huge supporter I am of the weather forecasting profession. :-) I call them Weather Guessers. I won’t get into it but I will point out that the forecast was for a SE wind between 10 and 15kts and 2 to 3 ft seas with a 12 second interval. This forecast was supposed to hold until around 4pm in the afternoon when the winds and seas were to pick up dramatically. I planned to be in long before that was to happen. Not!

We made our way out in a solid 3 foot chop, nothing the new hull can't handle. By the time we were 20 miles off shore, the winds were blowing closer to 20kts and the seas were 3 to 4 ft and sloppy. After wasting time looking for a couple wrecks that I thought I had good numbers for, we ended up moving in to one I knew was good. We drifted over it a number of times picking up small Sea Bass and wondering how much higher the wind and seas were going to get. With nothing but short fish to show for our trip so far - we moved.

That turned out to be the right choice. We started working a reef closer in and the fishing was much better. Still a lot of short Sea Bass but we did manage to put a few keepers in the box. The calamity of the day occurred when Dave (Mr. White Boots) dropped the hatch to my fish box on his foot. While Kerry and I were laughing and Mr. White Boots was cussing his bone headed move, he opened the lid to the fish hold just in time for me to step forward and then down into a pile of ice! This, of course, caused another outburst of laughter and for about 30 seconds took Mr. White Boots mind off his hurt foot.

That pretty much was it. We headed in, loaded the boat and carried her on to the house. After cleaning up the boat and our measly catch, we enjoyed adult beverages with our wives and my other neighbor well into the evening while Dave’s wife provided us all with some much needed dinner. Another Memorial Day in the books. Now it’s time for the boats initial service.

So, initial service; When you buy a new boat, unlike a car, you have to put it through a break-in period. Usually the first 10 hours of operation, never running more than 5 minutes at any one speed. After that, you can run the engine however you like. Somewhere between 20 and 40 hours, you need to bring it in for an initial service. The dealer changes all the fluids along with the fuel and oil filters, checks to make sure everything is operating properly and repairs any flaws that the new boat owner might have found.

So why am I boring you with this detail you ask? Because I have just hit the 30 hour mark on my new boats engine. This means I have to take it in for service. I cringe because taking a boat in for service is nothing like taking a car in. You take your car or truck in and you will likely see it by the end of the day - next day at the latest. When you take a boat in for service, you might not see it for a week. Maybe even two! I’m thinking I’ll be landlocked for about a week. I bought my boat from a very good dealership so I’m pretty sure they’ll get me in and out as quickly as they can. Only problem is, they are two and a half hours away and I don’t like being without a boat!

Wish me luck!

The Attitude's Maiden Voyage April 14, 2008

Well, I’ve had The Attitude now for 3 weeks and yesterday was the first day with sea-state that matched my schedule. Planned to wet her first thing in the morning but the Weather Guessers, being just one notch below earthquake forecasting as far as accuracy goes - we delayed our departure by a couple hours. So plan 1 was to look for structure a tad bit east of the demarcation line hoping to find Tog a little less stressed than those hard hit along the CBBT. And, it was generally felt to be a good test of the new boats ability to handle a little more sea than the old Pro Line.

Crew: Bill (One Armed Bill) and Tog Virgin Bud. While Bill is restriced from fishing, he had little trouble keeping the Attitude II over productive structure. We splashed her at Cobbs and with a brief trip to the bait pen where I’ve had Green Crabs waiting for a chance to give their lives so I might have the ability to once again serve fish at this years fish fry instead of say - pork, we headed out. She did well. We cut through the bay chop at a steady 30 to 35mph with no pounding what’s so ever. Note to self; No more space age 303 on the seats. After arriving at our first location, we dropped and Bud quickly catches the first of many fish that will grace the decks of the Attitude II in the years to come. An under-sized Black Willy.

We caught a number of other smaller sized Sea Bass then a few over zealous dog fish. Time to move! The next location provided a bit more action. After hooking the anchor on our first try, we started dropping for Tog. The bite was steady, with Bud (The now X Tog Virgin) having the hot hand. He picked up the process quickly and probably out fished us 2, maybe 3 to 1. Bite slowed so we made another move and this time, we decided to drift the wreck looking for Sea Bass. What we found were more Tog. Yep, Tog on the drift. Adds a little more challenge to an already challenging fish. Big fish of the day came while drifting.

We ended the day with a couple keeper Sea Bass and 1 Tog shy of a limit in hopes the Fish Gods will be more apt to look kindly over my new ride in the months and years to come. All in all, not only was it a productive day on the water, I got a few hours of time behind the wheel learning the handling characteristics of a much heavier, deeper deadrise boat and I got to play with all the new electronic toys she’s been outfitted with. So far, I’m real impressed with the Furuno Digital FF. Nice detail.

Well, thanks for visiting and good luck to you on your next fishing trip.

The Attitude Outdoors!