C&R Trip #2 with Planer Boards and Autopilot, Sunday April 11th 2010
On Sunday April 11th, me, myself, and I managed to get in some more practice at using the planer boards and auto pilot while the first mate was visiting her mom. Like the previous week, everything performed flawlessly and there were no major tangles. I got in about three hours of trolling starting at about noon after doing some shore side work on the boat.
I was dragging the six rod preseason spread starting from about the 35 foot line on the west side due east of the South River, and I headed southeast into the wind towards Poplar. I was dragging all chartreuse, 2 oz back 100’, 2/4 oz back 80’, and 3/6 oz back 60’; dittos for the other board, but in all white to complete the six rod spread. The water was about 55º, low tide at TPL was at about 9:30 am, high tide was at about 3:30 pm, the winds were out of the SE at 10 to 12, and there was a 1 to 2 foot chop on the bay. The skies were cloudless and clear.
I got wind earlier of some catching in the general area east of TPL, but when I got out into the bay, the wind machine was cranking up a little and there were too many blow boaters in that area, so stayed south of them. C & R rockfish wasn’t worth playing chicken with a sailboat while I was out alone using planers for the second time ever.
I got my spread out and was heading south of south east when I decided to break out some lunch. As so often happens, as I was eating my sandwich, the white 2 oz chute back 100 feet popped. As I was chewing, I scanned portside and noticed that the outer planer clip was not visible. “What the?” I said aloud.
Then, looking up, I noticed that the left roof rod line was heading directly astern. I grabbed the rod, and noticed that there was very little resistance on it. The line was retrieved and reset. One knockdown and one miss.
About a half hour or so later, I got a second knockdown on the chartreuse 2/4 tandem chutes back 80 feet. Those hooks also failed to hit the mark. About an hour after the second knockdown, I got another knockdown on the same 2 oz white chute that I got the first knockdown on with the same result, a non hookup. The fish seemed to be short striking and missing due to the lack of stinger hooks, but I didn’t care. I also heard some reports of some fish caught deep but, but I wasn’t fishing anything deep as I wanted more practice using the boards – no regrets here either. One thing I would have done differently was to turn around and troll over the same area after I got a knockdown. I wasn’t marking much bait or fish, a few pods here and there, but I was marking much more than I was the previous week which was nothing. The wind laid down just a little by the time I pulled the lines at about 3:30, and it was a nice day out on the bay all in all.
Oh yeah, I also saw quite a few scattered gannets as well as lots of ospreys pairing up and hanging at day markers. I didn't see the gannet storms, but I saw a fair amount of gannets doing their kamikaze dives!
4/11 Mid Bay - Planer Board Practice, Blowboats & Knockdowns
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