So far, this has been quite a spring from a machinery point of view. If something could break, even though everything had been checked and maintained over the winter, it broke. The head seized up after only 25 years before we left North Carolina. Ok, we've used a bucket before. Then the back end of the generator, a 3-year old unit, decided to burn itself up so we had no AC leaving North Carolina. An hour into the trip to fish June Bug home to New Jersey, the autopilot pump decided to quit. Just lovely.
Over the last couple of weeks, everything got fixed. We have not heard yet from Northern Lights as to our warranty claim on the genset but we hope they are reasonable. While we fished the boat with something or other not working at optimum, yesterday we got to fish the boat with everything working, or so we hoped.
We planned to have June Bug leave with Mate Nate Figley's friends on board at midnight but the routine re equipment failures continued in that my alarm clock decided to ring a half hour late. So we got a late start but made the time up due to very calm seas. Nate was assisted for the day by Pat Coyne, a member of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association's Junior Mate Training Program. Anglers were Gary Geddes, Giovanni Duran (who turned out to be Pat Coyne's next door neighbor), Greg Fedorowicz, and Tom Majkutowski. Tom fished with June Bug last year on July 3 when we had a big day on Bigeyes.
Lines were in about 5 miles shy of the drop at the Lindenkohl at 4:30 right on schedule and we were covered up with small Yellowfins about 10 minutes later. We hooked 5, lost 3, kept one, and tossed a little guy back. OK, not a bad start. Let's catch what is eating those little Yellowfins. Like maybe Bigeyes or Blue Suited folks? At least this swarm of small fish gave our anglers some teaching points on how not to lose fish. It is definitely hard to fight that natural reaction to yank on fish and to throw slack forgetting that smooth coordinated movements of the rod and reel work best. Some instructioin was provided.
Apparently the lesson worked since an hour later, there was another swarm of larger fish that covered us up. Again some fish were lost but Gary hooked up a stronger Yellowfin that was his first Tuna. He boated the fish in about 20 minutes. A 40 pounder. Doing better.
Compared to the last few weeks, the Canyon area was totally different. We saw only one whale all day where there were literally hundreds of them each day over the last few weeks. We saw very few porpoise too. Didn't see much bait at all although we did catch some Skipjacks periodically during the day. They chopped up our Ballyhoo and were pretty little things but nothing as far as table fare. Cat food maybe. The water was pretty and blue and nowhere near as much life. 72 to 73 degress was the temp range.
After noon, we worked our way around the 100 fathom edge to the Spencer Canyon where we heard that a few boats had some fish. Nope. We did have one Billfish up for a flash but no strike and no hookup.
A fun day with great people out on the Ocean. And, except for the rudder position indicator on the autopilot, everything worked! Joe Velardo, our electronics tech, came this morning and, of course, the rudder indicator worked perfectly for him. Joe happens to be in the party for a canyon trip next Saturday so we will see if the thing stays working with him as an angler instead of as an engineer.
Pictures to follow as soon as I get some more instruction on this new website. Hope you all enjoy the additional content.
Inshore fishing has picked up. The water has warmed so the Fluking and Sea Bass fishing is far better than a couple of weeks ago.
We still have plenty of dates left so get your folks together and call me to fix your charter date.
Capt. Lindsay Fuller Cell 609-685-2839
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17 July 2011
Capt. Lindsay
