Saturday 4/12/08 –
I went out early with my Son, (Albert Jr. 8 years old). I was on the water before first light, excited and even a little intimidated; it was my first time going fishing by myself in the open ocean, in a new boat, still learning, and knowing that boating and fishing can be fun and exhilarating, but also frustrating and dangerous.
I headed out from Matheson Hammock Marina and I selected a waypoint (Marker 21) with numbers that my friend Mike gave me in hopes of catching some bait for a day of fishing.
The weather service had predicted light sea’s, generally 1 to 3 feet, but as is too often the case, they were wrong. The breeze was pretty stiff and the ocean was fairly rough even inside the bay. I started out slowly because it was still dark, but in the general direction of the spot I had selected on the chart plotter. As the light began to fill the sky I got a little more confident and speeded up a bit. I was running about 4500 RPM and my boat was cruising beautifully at 24 mph. The heading had me going just South of the Boca Chita pass; I was a little worried about the pass out to open ocean because I am a rookie on the water and I know those areas are tough to navigate. To make matter worse, the Chart plotter showed Green on the screen in the area through which the course had me heading instead of the estimated depth it had shown so far. Luckily I powered the engines down almost to no wake speed because just seconds after that I was in about a foot of water. My boat is equipped with a Jack plate and Luckily I was able to bring it all the way up to just nip some of the rock underneath. I trimmed the engine up and slowly turned around and made my way back out to deeper water in the bay. Whew! Close call, good thing I erred on the side of caution, as I think it would be prudent to always do.
I turned the engine off, always a risky thing to do especially after a scare like I just had, but I had to take a look at the engine to see if I had done any damage. I trimmed the engine up all the way and inspected the Prop. I did not see any damage, but I new I would not know for sure until I was back up to speed. I turned the engine back on and luckily it fired up quickly as expected. I powered up and ran the boat at medium and high speed for a minute or so and felt no vibration or any other signs of damage so I decided to continue with my trip.
I sat back just outside the pass and waited for a boat that I saw coming towards me; he was about to navigate the same pass and I thought I would follow him through. That was a smart move; the boat was moving pretty fast, but I powered up quickly and fell in behind him at a good distance but still able to see the track of his wake. It turns out to navigate that pass I needed to hug the island with the light house around its right edge and out to open ocean. Even so the water was not much more that 4 or 5 feet deep and dropping to around 3 feet just on the other side before deeper water could be found.
I felt a lot better once we were out in deeper water, though the ocean was quite a bit rougher than I expected. My boat a Caracal 18 Catamaran handles rough water like a champ though, especially for a small boat. I don’t really mind the choppy seas either, and my son seemed to be enjoying the jumps so I had some fun listening to him shouting "Wooo Hooo" every time we caught some air.
I started to realize that the direction my chart plotter was taking me in did not seem to be to a position in which live bait might be found; in fact, I realized it was taking me out to open ocean. I stopped the boat and called my friend Mike to see if I might have recorded the wrong numbers on my plotter. Nope the numbers he gave me were correct, as he was approaching that very spot himself.
Unfortunately I realized there was a problem and my chart plotter had some kind of glitch. The skies were gray and ugly, and I could see storm cloud just a few miles off shore from where I was. A little nervous and frustrated at this point I considered just heading back in and calling it a day. I told my boy “Hey Papi my Chartplotter is not working right, I think we should just head back in and go home." The look of disappointment on his face was excruciating, I had promised to take him fishing and now I was dashing his hopes.
The poor boy had barely slept the night before in anticipation and it was our first fishing trip together as father and son on our own boat. He begged me to not give up so I just let the boat drift for a few minutes while I assessed the situation. I played with the chart plotter and realized it was a matter of faulty coordinates, the information on the screen and the locations were still accurate, it was just the numbers that did not add up.
I decided to appease him as I did not think there was any danger. Without the chart plotter working correctly though I new that fishing would be tough if at all possible. I headed back in to shallower water, figuring he would be happy if I just let him catch some grunts and at least he could get home thinking his first trip was a success.
When I got to around 85 feet of water I slowed to an idle hoping to find some decent bottom, and I found a nice little rock or so it seemed at around 65 feet. I marked it on my plotter and came back around. We anchored up and I put a chum bag in the water. I saw clouds of fish about mid way up on the screen and new immediately it was baitfish.
My son was super excited to see so many fish in the water, though he did not understand that they were just bait fish. OK I thought and I put on a #6 Sabiki to catch some bait; it never hurts to have live bait, and even dead is OK to store for the next trip out. The #6 Sabiki were no match for the huge Speedos that were grouped under my boat by the hundreds maybe thousands, so I put on a little bigger rig. That did the trick, and before I knew it the Live well was overflowing with huge Speedos.
Soon I had Ballyhoo behind the boat as well, and even caught 6 or 8 of those on the Sabiki as well. My Bait well (30 Gallon) is not big enough to handle so many large speedos and they started dying off so I put them on ice in hopes of using them in the future.
I abandoned the bait in hope of getting my son on at least a few grunts. I dropped down a small #1 hook tipped with Squid and no sooner than it hit bottom he had his first Grunt. He did this for a while and I decided to try jigging a little with a king fish rig. On the second cast I hooked a nice Spanish mackerel and brought it on board and into the Ice box.
I thought my son might have a nice time battling one of those so I cast out again hooked another one and I let him reel it in. He had a blast working a little bigger Mackerel than I had caught, and I had a great time just watching him.
In the end it turns out every cloud has a silver lining, my son got to catch some fish and I found a new spot that obviously holds live bait.
The wind was still blowing pretty good, and I saw no seas off shore under 3 feet all day, in fact it was mostly 4’s and 5’s with 6’s mixed in their every now and then. I decided it was time to head back around 1 pm much to my son’s dismay, but after I explained it to him he was OK with the promise of a future trip.
The voyage home was uneventful, I took my time back in through the shallow water and had no problems. Once back at the Dock I ran into to a friend of mine from Work (Jerry), he was kind enough to power up his GPS and give me his coordinates, my plotter was way off his numbers which were reading correctly as I confirmed with another boater.
So my first trip out was a little bit of a mission, but all in all it was a good day on the water with my son. I hope next time to do much better, I’ll update this site again next Monday.
Till then…
I went out early with my Son, (Albert Jr. 8 years old). I was on the water before first light, excited and even a little intimidated; it was my first time going fishing by myself in the open ocean, in a new boat, still learning, and knowing that boating and fishing can be fun and exhilarating, but also frustrating and dangerous.
I headed out from Matheson Hammock Marina and I selected a waypoint (Marker 21) with numbers that my friend Mike gave me in hopes of catching some bait for a day of fishing.
The weather service had predicted light sea’s, generally 1 to 3 feet, but as is too often the case, they were wrong. The breeze was pretty stiff and the ocean was fairly rough even inside the bay. I started out slowly because it was still dark, but in the general direction of the spot I had selected on the chart plotter. As the light began to fill the sky I got a little more confident and speeded up a bit. I was running about 4500 RPM and my boat was cruising beautifully at 24 mph. The heading had me going just South of the Boca Chita pass; I was a little worried about the pass out to open ocean because I am a rookie on the water and I know those areas are tough to navigate. To make matter worse, the Chart plotter showed Green on the screen in the area through which the course had me heading instead of the estimated depth it had shown so far. Luckily I powered the engines down almost to no wake speed because just seconds after that I was in about a foot of water. My boat is equipped with a Jack plate and Luckily I was able to bring it all the way up to just nip some of the rock underneath. I trimmed the engine up and slowly turned around and made my way back out to deeper water in the bay. Whew! Close call, good thing I erred on the side of caution, as I think it would be prudent to always do.
I turned the engine off, always a risky thing to do especially after a scare like I just had, but I had to take a look at the engine to see if I had done any damage. I trimmed the engine up all the way and inspected the Prop. I did not see any damage, but I new I would not know for sure until I was back up to speed. I turned the engine back on and luckily it fired up quickly as expected. I powered up and ran the boat at medium and high speed for a minute or so and felt no vibration or any other signs of damage so I decided to continue with my trip.
I sat back just outside the pass and waited for a boat that I saw coming towards me; he was about to navigate the same pass and I thought I would follow him through. That was a smart move; the boat was moving pretty fast, but I powered up quickly and fell in behind him at a good distance but still able to see the track of his wake. It turns out to navigate that pass I needed to hug the island with the light house around its right edge and out to open ocean. Even so the water was not much more that 4 or 5 feet deep and dropping to around 3 feet just on the other side before deeper water could be found.
I felt a lot better once we were out in deeper water, though the ocean was quite a bit rougher than I expected. My boat a Caracal 18 Catamaran handles rough water like a champ though, especially for a small boat. I don’t really mind the choppy seas either, and my son seemed to be enjoying the jumps so I had some fun listening to him shouting "Wooo Hooo" every time we caught some air.
I started to realize that the direction my chart plotter was taking me in did not seem to be to a position in which live bait might be found; in fact, I realized it was taking me out to open ocean. I stopped the boat and called my friend Mike to see if I might have recorded the wrong numbers on my plotter. Nope the numbers he gave me were correct, as he was approaching that very spot himself.
Unfortunately I realized there was a problem and my chart plotter had some kind of glitch. The skies were gray and ugly, and I could see storm cloud just a few miles off shore from where I was. A little nervous and frustrated at this point I considered just heading back in and calling it a day. I told my boy “Hey Papi my Chartplotter is not working right, I think we should just head back in and go home." The look of disappointment on his face was excruciating, I had promised to take him fishing and now I was dashing his hopes.
The poor boy had barely slept the night before in anticipation and it was our first fishing trip together as father and son on our own boat. He begged me to not give up so I just let the boat drift for a few minutes while I assessed the situation. I played with the chart plotter and realized it was a matter of faulty coordinates, the information on the screen and the locations were still accurate, it was just the numbers that did not add up.
I decided to appease him as I did not think there was any danger. Without the chart plotter working correctly though I new that fishing would be tough if at all possible. I headed back in to shallower water, figuring he would be happy if I just let him catch some grunts and at least he could get home thinking his first trip was a success.
When I got to around 85 feet of water I slowed to an idle hoping to find some decent bottom, and I found a nice little rock or so it seemed at around 65 feet. I marked it on my plotter and came back around. We anchored up and I put a chum bag in the water. I saw clouds of fish about mid way up on the screen and new immediately it was baitfish.
My son was super excited to see so many fish in the water, though he did not understand that they were just bait fish. OK I thought and I put on a #6 Sabiki to catch some bait; it never hurts to have live bait, and even dead is OK to store for the next trip out. The #6 Sabiki were no match for the huge Speedos that were grouped under my boat by the hundreds maybe thousands, so I put on a little bigger rig. That did the trick, and before I knew it the Live well was overflowing with huge Speedos.
Soon I had Ballyhoo behind the boat as well, and even caught 6 or 8 of those on the Sabiki as well. My Bait well (30 Gallon) is not big enough to handle so many large speedos and they started dying off so I put them on ice in hopes of using them in the future.
I abandoned the bait in hope of getting my son on at least a few grunts. I dropped down a small #1 hook tipped with Squid and no sooner than it hit bottom he had his first Grunt. He did this for a while and I decided to try jigging a little with a king fish rig. On the second cast I hooked a nice Spanish mackerel and brought it on board and into the Ice box.
I thought my son might have a nice time battling one of those so I cast out again hooked another one and I let him reel it in. He had a blast working a little bigger Mackerel than I had caught, and I had a great time just watching him.
In the end it turns out every cloud has a silver lining, my son got to catch some fish and I found a new spot that obviously holds live bait.
The wind was still blowing pretty good, and I saw no seas off shore under 3 feet all day, in fact it was mostly 4’s and 5’s with 6’s mixed in their every now and then. I decided it was time to head back around 1 pm much to my son’s dismay, but after I explained it to him he was OK with the promise of a future trip.
The voyage home was uneventful, I took my time back in through the shallow water and had no problems. Once back at the Dock I ran into to a friend of mine from Work (Jerry), he was kind enough to power up his GPS and give me his coordinates, my plotter was way off his numbers which were reading correctly as I confirmed with another boater.
So my first trip out was a little bit of a mission, but all in all it was a good day on the water with my son. I hope next time to do much better, I’ll update this site again next Monday.
Till then…
3 comments:
Where you guys at?
Who the hell are all those people!!
First of all, who is this? Fred? Hec?
You posted on the wrong article bro, all those people are on the first article. you posted this on the second article.
By the way, all those people are mostly family.
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