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Part Two:
Second half of day one
Well, I have the tackle back in order and we have decided to make the run from 72A back to the Patuxent River. When I say “run”, I should have said crawl back to the river. “Patent Pending” is a 46 ft. Markley that handles the water extremely well. While I was never afraid that the boat would be in danger, there was always the possibility of someone (me) being thrown overboard from the waves.
Being a mate on a charter usually means that my “home” is outside of the cabin on the back deck. The customers and Captain get the benefit of the heated cabin. I poke my head inside every once in a while to thaw out, but most of the time you can find me on deck chasing runaway coolers or checking rods in rod holders to make sure they are “seated” properly so we don’t lose anything from all the “rocking and rolling” in weather we experienced this weekend.
I have a video taken from Captain John’s iPhone that depicts the conditions. We had easily four ft. waves with fives mixed in. I tried to download the video (even to YouTube) but was unsuccessful. The video shows a constant HEAVY spray on the windows and occasionally we would hit a “big one” that put green water over the window, across the roof, and out the deck scuppers. I believe John said the boat weighs 29,000 lbs., and occasionally it would “pound” like my old 22 ft. Angler in a two ft. chop.
As long as all your equipment is functioning properly, things go well. One of the Marines made an enlightened statement; “we are only a blown fuse away from disaster”. He was correct. While I seriously doubt we would go down without power, being at the mercy of those waves would have thrown around anything and everything not buttoned down in the boat.
We finally made the River and had an opportunity to cook lunch. That’s right, this was a lunch charter. Captain John cooks a crab cake lunch while out on the charter. We could have NEVER cooked those crab cakes in the bay. Hot oil would have been thrown all over the chef. Forks would have been turned into weapons, and customers would have ended the day with puncture marks all over their faces, with the possibility of losing an eye!
The channel inside the river is pretty narrow, so I decided to only put out boat rods. I added a couple of spreader bars to the roof launchers, and we had 10 rods searching for rockfish. The problem was, most of our baits were 9 inch shads and the marks on the meter showed smaller fish in the river. I was hoping we could entice some mid 20 inch fish to strike just so we would have some action.
I kept a close watch on some flags on the shoreline. Later in the afternoon, I noticed them slacking. I quickly grabbed my iPhone and went to the Chesapeake Bay Buoy System app and checked the winds on the bay. It read, 13 mph with gusts to 17mph! Yahoo lets pull lines and run back out.
For a boat our size, it was gorgeous weather. With only a little time left to catch a fish and get back to the weigh-in station by 4:30, we dropped boat rods and I was very optimistic about hanging a nice fish on one of our umbrellas. We worked the channel edges and I noticed several gannets diving to our starboard. These are the first diving gannets I have seen this year. I have seen them in the upper bay flying or sitting on the water, but not diving. I was more than optimistic, I was confident!
When we reached the birds, we found them diving among the crab pots in shallower water. Dang!! All we could do was troll as close to the pots as possible and look for bait on the screen. During our morning foray in the bay proper, all the fish we marked were deep. Most were laying on the bottom in 60ft or more of water. I didn’t blame them considering the weather above. But now, with the weather improved, I was hoping they would have come up in the water column. I don’t know if it was the barometric pressure, or what other condition, that kept them down.
We kept a close eye on the boats around us. Often when we see others “hooking up”, we know they have turned on and we hook up as well. I saw one fish (about 24 inches) caught. We continued to beat the water to no avail. No-one, is more frustrated than John and I when we are not catching and producing for our customers. I downsized some baits, I adjusted some weights, and I tried a couple things to entice a bite. It was not to be.
We ran in to the check-in station to get fuel; and information. I am not above going over to a boat checking in fish to try to gain some Intel to help us on Sunday. I sauntered over to a big sport fisherman that had outriggers and planer boards on the deck. “Hi, looks like you had a couple of fish to check in; did you get them on your outriggers, or boards?” This opened the flood gates. They couldn’t have been prouder of the two 28 inch fish they checked in. No wonder, it sure as hell beat the goose-egg we had. “What depth water were you running?” “Did they hit deep rods or board rods?” “Are you running all 9 inch baits, or a mixture of 9 and 6 in baits?” “Did they hit parachutes or some other bait?”
My wife says I could talk to a wall. I never have trouble speaking with people, and I must have an honest face, because most people speak back to me.
All the information was pertinent to fishing the bay. With winds predicted to be even stronger on Sunday, all we could hope for was that the weatherman would be wrong, or at least there might be a window of opportunity to get out early and hang a nice fish.
So at the end of day one, the score was Weatherman 1/Patent Pending 0
Stay tune for day two.
5th (Marty)