Had replaced the stern hydraulic steering cylinder...now in just two years, I have replaced my entire Teleflex steering system, via warranty. It's a really L-O-N-G story, so I'll skip the details.
But it has two more years, and if it even BURPS, I'm going to a true commercially built hydraulic steering system. (one that matches my boat in toughness)
So I asked my buddy"Rathkeltair" drummer, 'RKA-Nick', if he'd like to join me for a sea trial of the steering system prior to my Friday & Saturday charters.
And wouldn't ya know it, after buying 8 dozen live shrimp and 40 pounds of ice I get to the ramp back the boat down into the water and find out the system needed a bit more tweaking. So we pull out go home and tweak, then come back to the boat ramp.
It's good I live 5 minutes from the boat ramp, I can tell ya that!
I wanted to fish at low tide any how. So after some serious high speed tight turns and jumping from "chine to chine" at 35 MPH. The steering seemed okay.
So time to break out the float-rigs and bust some COLD weather T-routz!
I needed a R&D day, as I call them. After days/weeks of caring for customers. I just needed to do same Cappy Dave fishing, really bad! And that mean, no mistakes, no fussing around. Just plain ole kickin' some fish ass, and fast!
First spot, Nick gets a big fat Yellowmouth Trout, on his first drift of his float-rig. Then on my second drift I nail a 27 inch Redbass on my 9 foot whoopass (G. Loomis Pelagic rod) stick, and man it felt great to actual catch something. If this time of year I go 3 days without fishing myself....that's a long time.
All this tackle talk I've been doing had me longing to press this 3 ounce float-rig rod into action on a big fish. And I was glad to have some "I.G." - instantaneous gratification!
We sat on this spot and sorted the yellow
mouth Trout into the cooler with a quick 2 person limit, while tossing back the smaller ones that didn't measure up.
All I can say, is when I have my Grundens pull-over fisherman's fleece on, with a pair of shorts.
IT'S REALLY GO TIME!
I love this time of year!!
If I had my druthers. I'd be out'a here like greased lightning June 1st...And not be back in Jax till Oct 1st. I just need to figure out, how I can get to the Pacific Northwest, or Louisiana for those 4 months. Because this is "my" style of fishing. Semi-cool, transitional, no sweating my ass off, and catching "my" fish, as easy as chopping wood.
So, after boxing our limit Nick and I moved on to the next spot.
I picked the closest possible area that should be stacked up with SPECKS.
And it was. It was almost like a Miller Lite commercial. Remember the buzz line, "FISH GET IN THE BOAT"?
Of course, I'm a shutter-bug and had Nick as my Trout model, complete with his neck warmer.
Remember in the early 80's it was "leg warmers" for the girls, at arobics class.
Well.....Nick's starting a new look.
We had a ball. double-heading these fish, drift after drift.
The tide had changed slowed and we were gonna do a real quick check for Redfish or Black Drum back on spot #1. With the last of our shrimp in the live well before Nick had to be at his gig, and I had dinner waiting for me. We didn't catch any Reds or Drum. So we split for the boat ramp. We fished from 1 to 4pm, that's all. And had our limits plus a nice Redbass for Momma.
Talk about a great day!
I hope this weekend is as nice.
But it has two more years, and if it even BURPS, I'm going to a true commercially built hydraulic steering system. (one that matches my boat in toughness)
So I asked my buddy"Rathkeltair" drummer, 'RKA-Nick', if he'd like to join me for a sea trial of the steering system prior to my Friday & Saturday charters.
And wouldn't ya know it, after buying 8 dozen live shrimp and 40 pounds of ice I get to the ramp back the boat down into the water and find out the system needed a bit more tweaking. So we pull out go home and tweak, then come back to the boat ramp.
It's good I live 5 minutes from the boat ramp, I can tell ya that!
I wanted to fish at low tide any how. So after some serious high speed tight turns and jumping from "chine to chine" at 35 MPH. The steering seemed okay.
So time to break out the float-rigs and bust some COLD weather T-routz!
I needed a R&D day, as I call them. After days/weeks of caring for customers. I just needed to do same Cappy Dave fishing, really bad! And that mean, no mistakes, no fussing around. Just plain ole kickin' some fish ass, and fast!
First spot, Nick gets a big fat Yellowmouth Trout, on his first drift of his float-rig. Then on my second drift I nail a 27 inch Redbass on my 9 foot whoopass (G. Loomis Pelagic rod) stick, and man it felt great to actual catch something. If this time of year I go 3 days without fishing myself....that's a long time.
All this tackle talk I've been doing had me longing to press this 3 ounce float-rig rod into action on a big fish. And I was glad to have some "I.G." - instantaneous gratification!
We sat on this spot and sorted the yellow
mouth Trout into the cooler with a quick 2 person limit, while tossing back the smaller ones that didn't measure up.
All I can say, is when I have my Grundens pull-over fisherman's fleece on, with a pair of shorts.
IT'S REALLY GO TIME!
I love this time of year!!
If I had my druthers. I'd be out'a here like greased lightning June 1st...And not be back in Jax till Oct 1st. I just need to figure out, how I can get to the Pacific Northwest, or Louisiana for those 4 months. Because this is "my" style of fishing. Semi-cool, transitional, no sweating my ass off, and catching "my" fish, as easy as chopping wood.
So, after boxing our limit Nick and I moved on to the next spot.
I picked the closest possible area that should be stacked up with SPECKS.
And it was. It was almost like a Miller Lite commercial. Remember the buzz line, "FISH GET IN THE BOAT"?
Of course, I'm a shutter-bug and had Nick as my Trout model, complete with his neck warmer.
Remember in the early 80's it was "leg warmers" for the girls, at arobics class.
Well.....Nick's starting a new look.
We had a ball. double-heading these fish, drift after drift.
The tide had changed slowed and we were gonna do a real quick check for Redfish or Black Drum back on spot #1. With the last of our shrimp in the live well before Nick had to be at his gig, and I had dinner waiting for me. We didn't catch any Reds or Drum. So we split for the boat ramp. We fished from 1 to 4pm, that's all. And had our limits plus a nice Redbass for Momma.
Talk about a great day!
I hope this weekend is as nice.
