06-11-2008, 12:39 AM
[font "Verdana"][size 2]I think this was one of the longest trips i've ever experianced. A bunch of things went wrong, which made this a tough trip.........
We started out pretty good by making good time. I think we had the boat in the water by 5 am or so. I busted out the spot light and we were well on the way. Half way through the inlet, the spot light dies and we're blind. The battery failed or something, and I forgot the 12V connector. Even following the chart plotter was a little hairy, but we made it to the jetties safe and sound. OK, so we're good and off we go. Immediately we notice the swells are a little closer that we were expecting, and the fat girl is smacking us around a bit. I was really anticipating flat seas, but no such luck. Anyhow, we made a pit stop and snagged some nice live bait and headed back off again. We continued to get a mild pounding towards the parking lot, and during that process, the cabin rod holders broke and 5 combo's came crashing down. Luckily, nothing broke other than the rod holder itself. We stopped about a mile or so short and dropped some trolling rigs. The parking lot was definately a parking lot, I think I counted 9 boats with in a few hundred yards of us either direction. Some anchored off, some trolling. We made a few long passes, with not so much as a sniff. We noticed that no one around us was doing much either, so we decided to swith to bottom fishing on some spots we marked while trolling.
We got the trolling rigs in and scrambled to get riged and baited. Everyone snapped on rigs, baited up, and we began the drifting the marks. To my surprise, only the trash fish were really interested in feeding, and even that wasn't hot. I noticed my egg weight wasn't quite heavy enough, so I opt to change out to a heavier one. During that process, the tip of my rod broke off. I was so pissed, I couldn't believe my favorite rod broke. So, I had to switch to the spare and press on. I'm still pissed about that rod, but, atleast it was just the tip. That's easy enough to fix. A little further down the line, and Eric snagged what appeared to be something nice. After a few seconds of fighting it, his rod broke a foot down from the end. WTF?!!!!!!!!!!!! Our second broken rod, what a bunch of crap. The bad thing is it was a brand new rod, first time on the water. The culprit?.......A freaking tail hooked shark about 2.5' long. That was a heavy duty rod, we both think it was a defect in the rod. So, we're at 2 broken rods and 1 broken rod holder, 2 seabass in the boat.
Fish- 3
anglers- 2
The fish are winning by 1 point, so we decide to move on again. We rolled up to the VR and decided to anchor off. Eric had a new bouy that he hadn't tried yet, since we left the other one at the reef last time. We dropped the bouy and got positioned for the mark. Everything was looking good. I let the anchor go, we hung, but we didn't mark any structure on the sonar. We were like, WTF? Then, we noticed that our bouy was floating farther and farther away, and we checked the plotter, and the boat wasn't moving, it was the bouy. We were pissed..............So, back to the bow I went. I manually hauled up that heavy azz anchor rope, all but 40' of it. I just couldn't do the last 40'. We slowly moved around and grabbed the bouy. What a POS, I'm almost positive Eric is taking that one back and getting the same kind he had. So, back up on the spot and this time we hit the mark and we were on the spot. Still, not a damn thing. I think we snagged a keeper B liner off the reef and that's it. They just weren't there, or they weren't eating. I wonder if they just had too much pressure through the week since the weather was so nice? We tried different leaders, different bait, different water columns, the whole nine yards, notta. So, Eric decides to manually bring the anchor up, and he manages to retrieve all 320' of rope and chain. You're a beast dude, I couldn't do it. So, off to a couple more spots we know and try and drift. We get to the spot and start drifting, still not much of nothing, but I think we put those last keeper sea bass in the boat there. During that process, my sons reel brace came appart on him. Holy crap, what a hard day on gear. We sure gave it a sporty try, but we came up short. 4 sea bass and 1 b liner. I guess the fish owed us one after how good the last trip was. We stopped about 18 miles out on a hump we found and tried it for 30 minutes, hoping for one last sign of hope, but nothing. The beer made the ride back in amusing, and the water was working for us too. It was a really nice ride back, barely had to steer the boat.
5 keeper fish
2 broke rods, 1 damaged reel brace, 1 broke rod holder, 1 defective marker bouy, 3 bad sun burns and 73 gallons of fuel. Atleast we weren't at work[/size][/font]
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We started out pretty good by making good time. I think we had the boat in the water by 5 am or so. I busted out the spot light and we were well on the way. Half way through the inlet, the spot light dies and we're blind. The battery failed or something, and I forgot the 12V connector. Even following the chart plotter was a little hairy, but we made it to the jetties safe and sound. OK, so we're good and off we go. Immediately we notice the swells are a little closer that we were expecting, and the fat girl is smacking us around a bit. I was really anticipating flat seas, but no such luck. Anyhow, we made a pit stop and snagged some nice live bait and headed back off again. We continued to get a mild pounding towards the parking lot, and during that process, the cabin rod holders broke and 5 combo's came crashing down. Luckily, nothing broke other than the rod holder itself. We stopped about a mile or so short and dropped some trolling rigs. The parking lot was definately a parking lot, I think I counted 9 boats with in a few hundred yards of us either direction. Some anchored off, some trolling. We made a few long passes, with not so much as a sniff. We noticed that no one around us was doing much either, so we decided to swith to bottom fishing on some spots we marked while trolling.
We got the trolling rigs in and scrambled to get riged and baited. Everyone snapped on rigs, baited up, and we began the drifting the marks. To my surprise, only the trash fish were really interested in feeding, and even that wasn't hot. I noticed my egg weight wasn't quite heavy enough, so I opt to change out to a heavier one. During that process, the tip of my rod broke off. I was so pissed, I couldn't believe my favorite rod broke. So, I had to switch to the spare and press on. I'm still pissed about that rod, but, atleast it was just the tip. That's easy enough to fix. A little further down the line, and Eric snagged what appeared to be something nice. After a few seconds of fighting it, his rod broke a foot down from the end. WTF?!!!!!!!!!!!! Our second broken rod, what a bunch of crap. The bad thing is it was a brand new rod, first time on the water. The culprit?.......A freaking tail hooked shark about 2.5' long. That was a heavy duty rod, we both think it was a defect in the rod. So, we're at 2 broken rods and 1 broken rod holder, 2 seabass in the boat.
Fish- 3
anglers- 2
The fish are winning by 1 point, so we decide to move on again. We rolled up to the VR and decided to anchor off. Eric had a new bouy that he hadn't tried yet, since we left the other one at the reef last time. We dropped the bouy and got positioned for the mark. Everything was looking good. I let the anchor go, we hung, but we didn't mark any structure on the sonar. We were like, WTF? Then, we noticed that our bouy was floating farther and farther away, and we checked the plotter, and the boat wasn't moving, it was the bouy. We were pissed..............So, back to the bow I went. I manually hauled up that heavy azz anchor rope, all but 40' of it. I just couldn't do the last 40'. We slowly moved around and grabbed the bouy. What a POS, I'm almost positive Eric is taking that one back and getting the same kind he had. So, back up on the spot and this time we hit the mark and we were on the spot. Still, not a damn thing. I think we snagged a keeper B liner off the reef and that's it. They just weren't there, or they weren't eating. I wonder if they just had too much pressure through the week since the weather was so nice? We tried different leaders, different bait, different water columns, the whole nine yards, notta. So, Eric decides to manually bring the anchor up, and he manages to retrieve all 320' of rope and chain. You're a beast dude, I couldn't do it. So, off to a couple more spots we know and try and drift. We get to the spot and start drifting, still not much of nothing, but I think we put those last keeper sea bass in the boat there. During that process, my sons reel brace came appart on him. Holy crap, what a hard day on gear. We sure gave it a sporty try, but we came up short. 4 sea bass and 1 b liner. I guess the fish owed us one after how good the last trip was. We stopped about 18 miles out on a hump we found and tried it for 30 minutes, hoping for one last sign of hope, but nothing. The beer made the ride back in amusing, and the water was working for us too. It was a really nice ride back, barely had to steer the boat.
5 keeper fish
2 broke rods, 1 damaged reel brace, 1 broke rod holder, 1 defective marker bouy, 3 bad sun burns and 73 gallons of fuel. Atleast we weren't at work[/size][/font]
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