My apologies to everyone for going awol last week. It’s hard to make a deadline when you’re 80 miles offshore with the port motor down a prop and the starboard working doubletime. Thankfully we had plenty of supplies and a few trolling lures to entertain ourselves on the 10 hour long cruise home at 8kts. The long ride left plenty of time for reflection and contemplation, how can we prepare to not be in the same situation or what else should we have onboard to make it more comfortable if we are again.
Anyone who spends significant time on a boat is going to run into issues. Repairs and preventative maintenance are essential to keep any vessel seaworthy. I always do a quick walk around the night before a trip, checking on known issues, looking for any surprises. That little 2 minute look over has saved me more times than I can count. One thing to look for with the heat of summer really setting in is your seals. Steering rams, the helm itself, the lower unit drain plug seal, are all areas I’ve noticed small leaks from cracked rings and been able to address them before they caused much more expensive issues.
Just these last couple weeks I’ve replaced the lower unit drain plug seals on 2 motors. The night before we broke down I noticed the starboard motor had a drip of oil coming off the skeg, pulled the covers off and sure enough the leak was from the fill/ drain screw. Having a few extra gaskets and oil at the house can keep you on schedule and back in action in a matter of minutes for a simple issue like that. Comparatively if we had ran the boat without noticing that issue there’s a high probability that we would have been dead in water, that was the motor that ultimately got us home when the port lost a prop.
Some essentials to keep on every boat for emergencies would be first aid, extra water, rain gear, space blankets, and some snacks. More importantly a garmin and EPIRB are a must if you’re offshore and if anything happens those need to be in quick reach not buried under a console or in a hatch. The garmin really has become an essential for any offshore angler. Having it on board and fully charged let us all text loved ones our updated arrival times. Letting them know we were ok, exactly where we are, and that we are not in danger just delayed. It also has an SOS feature but shouldn’t be used in place of an EPIRB just as a complement. The EPIRB signal goes straight to federal and state authorities, a SOS on the garmin is handled by a private system that can also dispatch the authorities but that extra layer of separation can cause delays in response time.
On the fishing side we had just enough in the boat to improvise and get a spread out. We got lucky and caught some Tuna, Mahi, and even a little Wahoo on our troll back. Ideally I would have had a slightly more diverse lure selection and after the one diving plug we had got bit off I made a note to rig a couple diving plugs, a couple cedar plugs, and some small feathers all in a break in case of emergency style trolling pack with a spool of mono in case we need to add some topshot over braid to troll with bottom fishing rods.
Overall it’s been a good week of fishing on the First Coast. The bites been steady inshore, wide open nearshore, and consistent offshore. As far as patterns and species to target nothings really changed and we’re well into the summer pattern. The Kingfish bites been good to great on the beach. The Redfish, Trout, Jacks, Bluefish, and Spanish will give you all the tugs you want in the river and the ICW right now. Back in the creeks the sight fishing is slowing down a little from where it was last month, the waters warmed up a lot with heat over the last few days and the fish aren’t as active skinny as they had been. First and last light are your best bets for finding actively feeding shallow water reds right now but expect more action fishing 2-4ft versus sight fishing in the real skinny stuff.
As always wishing y’all tight lines, fair winds, and following seas going into the weekend! If you’re looking to book a charter, submit a photo, or have a report to share reach out to me directly at chris@fishjax.org or visit www.fishjaxcharters.com.
Dane Quintal with a nice Mahi and his brother Justin Quintal with Wahoo we picked off on our long troll home.
Kommentare