Gone Fishin'

[Hoopty]

Alright, this is a thread for all the fishers out there.  Seeing as how I just put my stuff wherever, I thought I'd dedicate a topic solely for fishing talk.  So, post your details and/or pictures from your fishing trips new or old. 

I'll start it off with my trip last Friday.  (I apologize to all you guys up in the frozen North...)



8 Feb 2008 - Chandeleur Island, LA

This island is my favorite winter fishing spot of them all.  It has never let me down.  These fish were caught in a place we call Rob's Cut for it was Rob that discovered this sweet spot.  (I'm on Rob's boat in this picture...)  Unfortunately, I don't have a spot named for me yet.  I'm working on that.

I pretty much had my fill of speckled trout by 10:30 am and decided to work on my fly fishing abilities.  BTW, I'm terrible at it.  But, I have a few friends who only fish with fly tackle and it seems like quite a challenge, so I'm gonna give it a go.  After thrashing about for a while with no luck, I put it away and went back to the conventional tackle.

I decided to hit the surf for some redfish.  Usually you can pick up some decent Reds in the surf, but it was such a beautiful day (slight breeze out of the West) that the surf was non-existent.  So I went without getting a keeper redfish that day.  Oh well.

All-in-all it was a very good day.  Not a bad ride out (a little chilly), sunny and in the 60's all day, and smooth all the way in.  Oh yeah, and a stringer full of nice fish to boot!



Just to put this particular spot in perspective, these fish on my stringer are all 20+ inches on average.  I generally don't keep them here if they are under about 18".  And we don't catch very many that are, in fact I only put one marginal fish back the whole day.   

The legal limit in LA is 12" and in MS it is 14" (soon to be 13).  And the reason they're changing the it in MS is because it is so difficult to catch a fish over 14" here. 

[skolito]

Looks like someones gonna have a great sandwich or twelve.

Ill have pictures in June my daughters first deep sea excursion

[flew-da-coup]

You are a lucky man. I would love to have a boat on the Gulf.

[skolito]

me too

Im buying one next year

well maybe two

sometime in the future

[Hoopty]

I love it down here (even w/ the hurricanes).  It has been by far the best assignment yet and I'm happy I put in for it.  Hopefully, I can hang out here a while longer.  And if everything works out for me, I'll PCS to another coastal base. 

[skolito]

are those specs or greys or both?

[Hoopty]

They're all specs.

[skolito]

Lunch time!!!!

[Hoopty]

Made it out the other day on my neighbors boat.  We were about 30 miles offshore fishing some man-made structure.  Caught a nice King Mackerel and my biggest Red Snapper to date (18 lbs.).  Some storms in the neighborhood, but he had XM weather so we could see the up to date radar and we didn't get wet all day.  Bonus!

[Hoopty]

Mmmmmmmmmm.  He was yummy...

[Hoopty]

OK, so I have a really good story behind these fish.  It's kind of long, but I'll try to keep it as brief as I can.

So, I went fishing last week (Jan 9, 2009) with 3 guys from work.  We took my boat down to an island in the Chandeleur chain called Freemason.  It's about 40 miles offshore.  It was pretty rough going out, but once we got to our destination, the wind died down, and the seas calmed.

We walked the entire length of the island (further than it looks btw), and caught only a few little fish here and there.  When we finally got back to the boat we decided that it was a little too early to go home but there wasn't a whole lot going on at this spot.  We couldn't get to our normal holes due to a really low tide, so we were kind of exploring.  We figured we could hit one of the other little islands on our way back and see what we could find.  So, we started up the boat and headed North.

Our destination was North Islands about 5 miles North of Freemason.  I'm always nervous due to the unknown shallow areas around these islands, so we took it easy and cruised up to this little piece of land sticking out of the water.  Not much to look at, but there appeared to be a channel running between it and another little spot across the way.  We anchored a little ways off and was able to wade up with no problems.

I go to the spot I think is a channel and throw a spoon and within 2 casts had one of these nice Reds hit it.  One of my buddies follows and shortly he's hooked up.  Eventually, one of us is battling these guys at any given moment.  Sweet!

We end up catching 11 total in about an hour.  They were still biting, but it was about 3:30 and we were still a ways from home and it was going to be dark around 5.  Regretfully, we headed back to the boat and got ready to head home.

Once everything was stowed, I went to start the boat and heard the dreaded 'click click'.  Oh crap.  I have 2 batteries on board, 1 for starting and 1 for everything else.  They are wired through a switch that will allow use in separate or in parallel, so I switched it to parallel and again with the 'click click'.  That's when I knew we had real problems.

So we fiddle with the connections, take the switch out, look at the motor and starter.  A little corrosion here and there, but not real bad.  We scrape all the connections with a pocketknife the best we can and tighten them real good.  Nothing.  We disconnect the switch and put the motor by itself directly to each battery.  Still nothing.  By the time that we were ready to admit defeat, it was about 30 minutes until it got dark.  That's when I knew that I had to make the call.

Hoping that the batteries would hold out, we hooked up the rest of the circuits and put on the radio.  I put it on Ch. 16 and hailed the Coast Guard.  Since I hadn't really ever had to use the radio before, I wasn't even sure it would reach that far.  After what seemed like a long time, they came back and we discussed the situation at hand.  Whew!

They first went out over the radio asking for any ships in the area to help, which I knew wasn't gonna work since we hadn't seen a boat all day.  Then they asked about commercial towing.  Man, I didn't really want to do that because it is expensive, but we had no choice.  Luckily, none were able or available to help us.  I say luckily, because the next option was for them to come and get us. 

Initially, they asked us if we would be willing to leave by helicopter.  While I think that would have been real cool, I was wary of leaving the boat way out there, and a front was coming through and I didn't know if or when I could get someone else to take me back.  But before we could give them an answer they told us that their cutter was leaving the harbor and coming to help.

It was a nice day, temps in the 70's, but it was starting to get cold as the sun went down.  We had left pretty early that morning, while it was still cold, so we had some warmer clothing with us which came in pretty handy.  Eventually, around 9:00 we saw a flashing blue light in the distance.  Yay!

They came in as far as they could, we pulled anchor and drifted out to them and they connected the tow rope.  We headed back to Gulfport at a whopping 8 mph.  We got to the harbor around 2 in the morning and had to have a spouse come and get us and take us to the Biloxi harbor where the truck/trailer were.  Then drive back to Gulfport and load up.  Needless to say, I didn't get to bed until about 4.

While we were never in any real danger, it would have sucked big time to have spent the night out there.  My wife was pretty pissed cause she got the "Mrs. Goodwin, this is the US Coast Guard..." call.  Which at first was a heartstopper, but when they told her that we were ok, turned into anger (at me).  You know how they can be.

A big thanks goes out to the 3 guys in Vessel 346 from Coast Guard Gulfport who saved us from a miserable night on the water.  They were very courteous and professional.

Overall, it was quite an experience.  I learned that I should have some things aboard that I didn't.  i.e. a flashlight and more tools.  It sucked at the time, but we can now all look back on it and laugh.

Oh and btw, I was able to get out the next day and find the problem.  It was a slightly loose ground (1/2 turn of the nut) on the motor's chassis.  Started right up.


edit:
Oh, and if you read the first post in this thread, I mentioned something about not having a spot named for me... Well, right before I got them stuck at this spot for several hours, I got my spot named for me.

Before we were broken down, it was Jesse's Redfish Hole, but after, some might refer to it as Jesse's Redfish Hell.  heh.

[USMCPMEL]

You ever see those and then the fight started jokes?



Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, grabbed
the
dog, and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the
truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour.

The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on
the
radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad all day.

I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I
cuddled up to my wife's back, now with a different anticipation, and
whispered, 'The weather out there is terrible.'

My loving wife of 10 years replied, 'Can you believe my stupid husband is
out fishing in that?'

And then the fight started ...

[Hawaii596]

I'm not sticking up for myself on this; maybe more seeking some counseling on this...

I've always hated fishing.  When I was about 2 years old, I fell off the dock and almost drowned (go figure - I spent nearly 10 years in the Navy and loved going to sea).  When I was maybe 9 or 10 years old, I remember watching them cut open fish that all sorts of squiggly things  that came out.  And I have really fussy tastes in seafood.  I am very ANTI animal rights.

But I can't stand sitting waiting for a fish to bite.  My 19-year-old son has finally just recently gotten me to enjoy watching a football game.  I am so overly analytical, that I tend to analyze why am I doing this.

Help me with this.  Again, I'm not trying to pick a fight about fishing or football.

So SINCERELY, give me some tips on how to enjoy fishing.

[WestCoastCal]

A cooler of good ice cold beer!   (I aint talking bout girls light, errr I mean Coors Light)