.I

Date:          June 19th, 2015

 

Time:          9 am

Wind:          5 kts

 

Location:    FI/ Ocean

 

Bait/Lure:   sand eels/squid/diamond jigs

 

Fish:          20 fluke/10 stripe bass

Largest::        17"  /  45"   

 

 

 

 

I didn't invite anyone fishing with me today because there was a good chance that I would run out of gas. With offshore season about to kick in I need to know which of my gas gauges is correct. The gas meter only showed 2 out of 10 bars remaining however, my total gallons used gauge was showing that I had only used 113 gallons out of 187. You also need to disregard about 10% that is unusable. It has to do with where most boats gas pickups are located in the tank.

As I locked the front door of the house Bob happened to be driving by. The next thing I knew  we were heading out of the canal. He tried to convice me to get gas but I wasn't having any of that. What Bob didn't realize is the fact that once we got to the end of the canal we only had one bar of gas left.

We planned on fluke fisihng today. After a long drift of skates, dogfish and short fluke I repostioned the boat for a new drift. Bob and I were talking about how you need to put your time in. The more you fish the more likely you will be there when all hell breaks loose. I swear that we were talking about all hell breaking loose 10 minutes before all hell broke loose!

I looked at my fishfinder and I told Bob the marks on the screen were not bunker. As I looked up I saw bunker flying out of the water in front of us. I turned the engines on and raced over there.  I stopped the boat and ran to the front. I heaved a jig out that I had on one of my spinning rods. Three turns of the handle and my line came tight. The bass were everywhere. After a few minutes I lost the fish. I was almost in tears, and Bob felt horrible for me.Next it was his turn, and he faught his fish only to have the same result. I kept thinking, this isn't happening! Little did we know this was going to take place for the next 3 hours. We still had our fluke gear laying around the deck. So after we each boated a fish we regrouped, stowed everything and got back to the bass. We caught about 10, keeping only 1 between the two of us. 

We ended up much futher east than I had planned.  After the bite died we headed back to the inlet only doing about 8mph. It wasn't bad. It was nice, and it gave us some time to cool down. As soon as we hit the inlet I hit the gas. Instantly the one bar left on the gas meter started to blink. Talk about anxiety. Needless to say we made it back to the dock. At least I know I can push the gauge to 140 gallons.