OK Bigun, break out the cheesecake and pull up a chair....
Weather: morning starting in the mid/upper 30's rising to upper 50's / low 60's. Mix of sunny & partly-cloudy skies. Winds mostly southerly (SE/SW/S) from 0 - 10 knots.
Water: Salty; 48-49 degrees
Techniques: Eels on planer boards, floats (mix of free & light lines) & downlines (well, 1 downline). Usually flowing with the current, using trolling motor to control direction - but at times fighting the current, or making our own current during slack-tide.
We left a bit later than we wanted as I was sitting in NC waiting on UPS to deliver a couple of Ugly Stik Tiger Lite casting rods that I had ordered for this trip to have something a little stouter than the Ugly Stick MH striper rods - they were going to be here in plenty of time, as we were going the week later, but some things changed last minute on Tyler's side that pushed us to this weekend. Rods showed up about 5, I got to the lake at 7, packed my stuff and was at Tyler's about 8 - and we rolled out around 8:30pm - not yet decided if we'd stop along the way or push through. As we passed Richmond we decided we should just plow through and get to the Bay vs. laying over and then facing Richmond and Hampton / VA Beach rush-hour traffic with a boat in tow.
1:30ish AM on Friday - about to reach the finish line
Tyler had a steady hand for so late in the evening....
Day 1 - Nov 30Arrived at the Sunset Resort & Hotel at Kiptopeke about 2am and got 4 and a half or 5 hours of sleep before heading out to face the Bay.
Did not have a good bead on where to go as of yet - heard the fish were over deep water below the Plantation Light, and found the fleet looking as well. We fished there a while without marking many fish and not a lot of bait. Probably could have caught some there, but it was like Beckys & Betty's in the summer time, multiplied by about 50 - just too many boats and we needed our space.
Got a call from quadzilla here on the board that is spending each weekend in Dec at the Bay and he clued us in on some fish a little further out over the main shipping channel, so we made a run a couple of miles that way.
Started marking fish and eventually we had the 1st of what would be 5 or 6 hits that I managed to miss the hook-sets on for the weekend. But, we did eventually hook up with our 1st fish (I let Tyler grab the rod that time
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Nice fish - 26 lbs
Floating the shipping channel is fun as occasionally these bad boys come through. One decided we were not moving out of the way fast enough (we were reeling up and moving out in plenty of time), and decided to give us the three-horn finger
We did that drift several times and were rewarded with another nice fish - Tyler was going to hand over the rod but something about ripping drag preventing him from being able to do so. ;D
Nice end to our 1st day at the Bay - found a way to avoid the skunk and had to decent fish caught & released.
Nice day - or so we thought...... got to the ramp and I went to drive the boat up onto the trailer - it went most of the way but stopped short about 8" and would not budge with the motor. Tyler clipped on the strap and started cranking....
.... then POW! Strap snapped almost in his face.
The strap was a little sun faded so I though perhaps it was "dry-rotted" or something, even though it was only <3 years old. Managed to ease the boat up the ramp and got a ride with the local cop to the hardware store to get a come-along to secure the boat well enough to figure out what to do next - Needed a replacement strap - had to buy a whole $35 winch to get it :evil: - needed wrenches to get the old strap off, so we hit up the reliable Dollar General for China's best adjustable pliers and and got to work in the parking lot.
Replaced the strap - easy enough. Tyler starts to crank the winch to pull the boat up. Pop, Pop, Pop - though the winch was slipping until we noticed this :evil:
Day 2 - Dec 1At this point we were starting to think about how to strap the boat to the trailer and limp home on Saturday morning. However, we had one hope - a trailer shop a $20 one-way toll on the other side of the Bay Bridge that opened at 8:30 Sat AM. Called them the next day and they said they had a used winch stand that might work, so off we went.
The boy can drive a truck... ;D
The stand looked like it would work so they went about putting it on
The guy gets it on, goes to winch up the boat and - POP - the new one buckles in the same way, just not as bad - this boat was NOT going to move. They bolted on some braces to strengthen it after sliding the stand on back to where the boat wanted to be - $40 later (was surprised - expected to be forking out $100 or more) and we were on our way finally, back to the back - back to the $20 toll booth. One good suggestion from the guy was to put some Dawn dish washing detergent on the bunks to lubricate them and make the boat slide on/off easier - he turned out to be right.
So, Day 2 starts about 1:30 on the water - just before slack tide. Run into Quadzilla at the ramp as they were taking out to get some more eels - they had loaded up on the fish that morning while we were playing trailer repair - and he clued us into another hot spot to which we promptly headed. We had our bucket full of eels and and mostly fixed trailer, so we were going fishing
Was slow for a while during slack tide until we had a planer go off - Tyler set the hook and handed the rod to me - I was reeling and the fish tangled in another planer - Tyler worked to get it untangled when the rod he was working with started peeling drag too. Had to land my own fish and then help get Tyler's in the boat
77 lbs of fish landed at the same time - now THAT is a double. We could have gone home right then and been happy - that double made the troubles of the previous 18 hours not even matter.
Tyler's new personal best!
A 34 lber and a 43 lber - my 34 was about 45.5" and Tyler's 43 lber a 1/2 or 1/2 inch less in length.
Released to fight another day
Big Hammer eels = Big Hammer fish - and you can hook them up and fish them again - try that with a gizzard ;D
A dirty boat is a happy boat
Quadzilla fishing not too far away - they got a triple about the time we doubled up
We kept working that area till sun-set and we were rewarded with another fish each for the day
Life is good!
Oh - and the boat loaded right on on the trailer this time - a major win - decided we celebrate our double citation (Tyler's was a weight (uncertified) and length citation and mine was a length citation) with a 2nd big diner at Sting Rays where we ran into Ranger.
Day 3 - Dec 2 - up at 5ish - On the water at 7 - I'll tell you, for me, this a morning on the water like this does more for me spiritually than sitting in any church....
We headed back to where we left the fish the day before - fished the deeper water again but saw more marks when we moved a little more shallow (60 ft vs 120)
Found the bait
Found some marks
Finally found "A" fish - slow morning - don't worry guys - this was the baby of the trip..... no contender here - 21 lbs - 3...er something inches...
We marked a lot of fish on Sunday, but they did not want to bite. Chatter on the VHF indicated the trollers in our area were catching, but we did not see much live-bait catching going on. Winds started to pick-up by mid-morning and it never got nasty but was less pleasant than the rest of the trip. We called it at 12:30 or so to head to the trailer and start trip home.
A couple more hairy tunnel rides, a stop at the car/boat wash and we were SML bound
You can get decent sunsets even on the highway it turns out...
Arrived at the ramp at SML about 9:30 to drop my boat back in to head to the slip - found a bunch of black fluid in the spashwell
Turned out to be oil that drained out of the dipstick - We (I) left the motor in the top "chock" position - guess it should have been on the mid-way position, and it flopped over on its side during the ride - the side with the dipstick in the lowest point - guess vibration and other resulted in it working lose and spilling some oil - better that than crushing a hydraulic steering line. Learned several things on what was my 1st long-distance trip with the boat..... lessons sometimes and cheap and sometimes expensive.... Came out OK on these overall.
Ran the boat back up the lake to her home - and put her to bed safe and sound.
Got things unpacked and was ready to call it a day when Tyler text me that he's hit a deer on the way back to Roanoke
This trip keeps on giving.
Fortunately the boat was not in tow or it might have gotten messy - and most importantly, fortunately Tyler was not hurt.
7 fish and almost 200 lbs boated & released, two citations, and new PB for Tyler - not a bad trip! Overall a trip with WINS and FAILS - and learned a lot in the process - and had a lot of fun in the process. Tyler, thanks again for driving - better your steel nerves in the tunnels than mine. Quadzilla - thanks for pointing us in the right direction as well - much appreciated. Enjoyed the trip, enjoyed sharing catching some pigs on the Bay!
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Turned out to be oil that drained out of the dipstick - We (I) left the motor in the top "chock" position - guess it should have been on the mid-way position, and it flopped over on its side during the ride - the side with the dipstick in the lowest point - guess vibration and other resulted in it working lose and spilling some oil - better that than crushing a hydraulic steering line. Learned several things on what was my 1st long-distance trip with the boat..... lessons sometimes and cheap and sometimes expensive.... Came out OK on these overall.