2 Days in a Row!

Well I got out again on Sunday...Once again NOAA was completely off with the forecast. I wish I would have listened to myself and my interpretation of the weather from local weather stations. The inlet was flat and seas were 2' and somewhat tightly packed. It was very fishable though and we were able to cruise at 20kts. Nothing like the 3' to 5' seas predicted. We went for a ride to the north and then out to about 3 miles and then decided to head south of the inlet. I marked a lot of bait/fish on the fish finder all along the Mantoloking pipe so we setup there. It was hundreds of bluefish. The general chatter on the radio was that no bass were being caught and only bluefish. No word of great catches of sea bass either, just a few keepers.

Hopefully the storms will stay away and fishing as well as conditions will improve. The water temps are starting to drop, I was reading 53 degrees on Sunday so the striper run should start any day now!

Finally Got Out!

Tried for stripers and could not find any. I had gone out on a friends boat out of my marina and they only wanted to eel for stripers and did not want to run too far. There were reports of a few fish caught. We then switched over to wreck fishing and had short blackfish. All in all not a bad day and NOAA had the forecast all screwed up again...the seas were not 6' as predicted and were very fishable.

What Could be Better!

Watching the fall classic, cold beer and rigging a couple hundred shad bodies for the fall striper run!

Will it Ever End?

We just got past the gale warnings, small craft advisories and downpours over the last two weeks and now Wilma is coming. I have heard some reports of tidal surges of 7.5' but have not been able to find and confirmation on this. I sure hope we do not see that as the marina will be a busy place with people keeping their boats off of pilings and the docks. I have only heard tales of legendary hurricane parties from others that have been at my marina for years. I guess I may experience one of these hurricane parties first hand this week. Hopefully I and all others make it through the storm with no damage.

Another Small Craft Advisory!

Despite the small craft advisory and high winds the inshore waters were quite flat. I was all set to head out to several bridges to try clamming up some stripers and possibly trolling the beaches just outside the breakers but could not put a crew together this morning. I ended up hanging out with a bunch of guys from the marina. Hopefully hurricane Wilma will not stir things up too much for next weekend.

Gale Warning?!

Well we still have small craft advisories and gale warnings now for over a week. I went out for a boat ride on the Norther part of Barnegat Bay...I was the only boat on the water Sunday afternoon! There was a steady one to two foot chop with an occasional larger swell/chop coming through. The entire bay was covered in white caps. Some of the houses on the east side of the bay had small waves breaking onto their properties and over their docks and bulkheads.

As far as trouble or difficulty from last weeks wind and rain there were no casualties in my marina. I had a couple of scratches to the gel coat that will buff out when I wax the boat at the end of the season. I heard horror stories from other marinas of sunken boats, holes punched in hulls, broken windows, water damage, broken antennas, etc. I guess we are a little more protected in Beaver Dam Creek with the bridge as a neighbor and the creek not being that wide. I hope everyone reading this made out unscathed from the wind and rain and will return to fishing this week instead of jockeying lines and bailing water.

I did get some work done on the boat for a second straight week. I installed all of my antennas to their new top-mounts and installed the rocket launcher. Finally I won't have to worry about getting a rod caught on a piling on the way in and out of the slip!

Surf's Up!

Well with the wind kicked up to about 30kts, driving rain all weekend and the surf at 8'-12' I decided to work on the boat again. I finally hooked up the VHF to the chartplotter and got the DSC functions working, but could not find anyone in the marina that had theirs setup to test with. By a suggestion from a Boat US store employee I decided to end my quest for a three conductor waterproof quick disconnect for my stereo and purchased a trailer light wiring harness for this purpose. That installed easily and did the job. I finally straightened out the wiring with cable management and prepared them for the re-installation of the headliner. Hopefully next weekend I can get the rocket launcher installed and re-install the headliner.

Weekend Canyon Trip

Another boat in my marina returned from the canyons with a boat load of mahi mahi, three longfin to 63 pounds and two yellowfin to 45 pounds. They started out Friday night at the Lindenkohl. Saturday morning they started trolling towards Tom's but found colder surface temps so they headed back to the Lindy. Trollud up a few there. Then trolled to Cateret to spend Saturday night on the chunk. Trolled to Tom's on Sunday morning then to the Hudson.

Since there were only two capable filletmen I decided to offer my help in return for a few tuna steaks and mahi fillets...little did I know at the time was how many mahi there really were to be filleted. The three of us filleted fish four about 4 hours till all were cleaned and packed on ice. And that was with several others in the marina taking their share of mahi home whole to fillet it themselves.

Workn' on the Boat

I decided to get some much needed work done to the boat. With it being brand new I have been very leary about drilling holes through the transom and the pilothouse roof. But I finally drilled all but one of the holes for the four antennas that I have (VHF, AM/FM/Weather Band, GPS and XM Satellite Radio). It was not nearly as bad as I though except for the five or so trips to the hardware store obtaining the proper length bolts. The thickness of the fiberglass seemed to vary a bit depending where on the roof you were. So instead of only needing two types of bolts in one length I needed two types in four different lengths. It is a good thing the hardware store is only a few blocks away and open till 5 PM on Sunday. Now all that is left is to move the VHF antenna from the rail mount to the fixed mount and mount the AM/FM/Weather Band antenna to the fixed mount.

The Wrecks are Beginning to Show Life!

Fished the Sea Girt Reef today for sea bass. We had about 25 fish with 6 keepers to 2.5 lbs. They got more aggressive from about 11 AM till 1 PM when the south east wind kicked in and shut them down. All the keepers were loaded with crab and some shorts were spitting them up as well. There was no drift or very little drift most of the day making for an easy day of wreck fishing since you really didn't need the anchor to stay over the structure. Great day on the water and fish in box too!