Brandon, and his two sons, Sage and Asher, went fishing. We also had Mitch and his son Scott. You may remember them from our previous adventures. The last time I had them up was a great trip with Mitch. Mitch is our honorary member because we all went with him when my boat was on the mend. That year we had great success this year, we just had success.
We set off for the NNK reef with great intentions of filling up the boat. It sure started that way, we caught two before we even got started well. We quickly followed that up with another pair. Sadly that was the end of the bite. I didn’t take great pictures because at that rate I was sure we would have a lot of opportunities. Well, the best-laid plans. But…we did have a good time and we got to spend time with two great families.
I am finally returning to my blog after a hectic week. No excuse. I have been fishing but not blogging. I plan on fixing that over the next few days or so.
Went out fishing with the Sea Chaser which is a new to me boat. Scott and I went out Saturday morning for the first time. We knew the bay was at least 4 feet seas, so we went to the Rt 200 bridge. We did troll even though we believed that casting to the bridge we needed to get our bearings straight on the boat and get back in the groove on tactics and bait checks. Where does our baits go when moving them back to the boat from storage (who knows but I am sure I can’t find all of my gear).
We picked up this guy as soon as we put out first line. We didn’t even get all of the gear in before we got this hit. The water is still warm, and I am not have heard of many fish being picked up but let’s hope for a good year.
You can see the bait we got him on. I love that old school gear in a more modern umbrella setup.
Certainly one of the best things in my life are my friends and family. They are all really great people, that however does not mean they are not crazy. Well we all have a good time teasing one another. This video is two of them teasing our friend that is a commercial waterman. He does capture and sell a bunch of mud shad during the year along with oysters and crabs plus most every other kind of fish that can sell at market.
It may be that since I know them I can’t stop laughing at this but I’ll send it out in my message in a bottle for all to see. I won’t put their names on the net to protect the innocent…guilty…yes.
I have a post today that I am working on that I have not been prepared to make. I have sold my Proline and bought a new to me boat , a Sea Chaser. I have been planning for this day for a few years but it doesn’t make it a better day. I enjoyed my Proline for so many years I have nothing but the greatest of memories on that boat. Any issues I have had have long since been forgotten and I now remember all of the friends I have met through this boat and how many great adventures I have had along the way. But a new chapter has begun and I am excited to have an opportunity to go further than before.
It is strange to see “my boat” on another lift but I helped the guys that bought it move it to the Little Wicomico river last week. Every post prior to this one was on the Proline and this thing was a “fish magnet” as Ron always says.
Proline at Cockerells Marina
My new boat is a 2018 Sea Chaser HFC 27, made by Carolina Skiff. They transitioned to a new name to designate the blue water boats from their inland series. I am sure they are in the same complex and they just reversed the letter designation from CS to SC. The boat is 27 feet long and approx 10 feet wide center console. I bought it from a family in Fl and much further down if you want to read I will detail out my adventure in getting it to my house.
Sea Chaser in my back yard
Some more details about my new boat and the reason I got it. Chuck and I have been discussing for some time now about I really need one more boat before I get to the age where I need to ride with someone rather than drive. We had always decided that would happen this time in 23 and I was content to wait for that day. Main reason I did not want to finance any purchase. Well my friend Rick that fished with me a bunch this year discussed multiple times that he wanted my proline and that I should just go ahead and get it. Well finally I decided life is short lets go ahead and launch.
The good news is I had been looking online to find the boat make and model I wanted for some time now. I even had a spreadsheet called “Boat Dreaming” where I would put examples of boats I liked and write things I liked and disliked about everyone. I went through a lot of research about length and more importantly width and engine details. The one main thing I found out is that not every boat manufacturer is the same and that some old tried and true manf. are riding the past more than I think they should. I’ll add that to this article as well. Anyway I kept coming back to the Sea Chaser, it checked off every item I felt important and so I just narrowed my search to this model.
Here are some things I liked about this specific boat. It has:
2 Garmin 7612sxv Chart plotters/fish finder with side view etc.
Rhodan GPS Trolling and Anchor 84” shaft
2 Suzuki 300 HP engines (yes a lot but nice)
Simard digital gauges
2 (3 bank battery)
Lewmar Windlass
Nice seating in front and rear. I really like how well built the seating is and they fold away very easily for fishing room
It is what I call a real 27 foot boat. So many of today’s manufacturers add a little tail section to the back just to the rear of the engines. Now that adds to the measured length of the boat but not at all to the space of the boat.
Many other just quality items
I took a couple of years to find the kind of boat I wanted and about 3 months to find the one that I wanted.
Here is the crazy story of how I got it from FL to here. My brother that owns a Chevy dealership got one of his car carriers to bid on getting it put on a trailer then delivered to me here in Reedville. Seemed everything was well planned but the person I bought the boat from said they left without it being on a trailer. The operator said they had changed their mind and were just going to tow it. I argued, heck I could do what I wanted on a trailer. Ultimately, they said that was going to be about $3500 so I said I will do it.
I borrowed a big crew cab 2500 diesel from my friend Jim and headed to FL. I left early in the morning and drove straight through to St Augustine, picked up the trailer and boat and headed home. My intention was to drive until nightfall but I was so hyped up from the nerves of pulling this wide boat I just kept going. At about 10 pm in Kenly, NC I had a tire blow. This is where I know God has me firmly in hand. As soon as I heard the tire an exit was there just as I slowed down. The exit had a huge paved area where I could pull off from traffic and still be on the pavement. I certainly expected to have at least one blowout during the pull so I packed my 3 ton floor jack and all of the tools I needed. I changed the tire but I noticed the front tire was low on air. That front tire low was what caused the rear to blow. So going as slow as I could I head north and within a half mile was a truck stop. I filled all of the tires with air but noticed the front tire had a slow leak. I knew that was a recipe for another blow out so I just stayed at the truck stop in the morning. I had to go to three places before one had the tires I needed but it worked out well. This was an experience that I am glad I had but certainly don’t want to do it again.
Finally got out with my friend Adam and his son Sutton. We have been trying to get together for some time now and it was a good day to get it done. They fish crab pots most mornings so we left my dock in Adams boat at about 8:30 or so. It was a great water and weather day so we set out for the Northern Neck Reef.
When we got there it was likely 30 boats working the area so we fell right up in there as well. We did pretty good really the whole morning. There was a steady amount of work putting the lines out and catching fish. Sutton was a world class observer and always told us when one was on. We caught a bunch and he was ready to try his hand. Sutton pulled in I would say five or so and easily caught the biggest one. Adam driving the boat, me working the rods and mom taking a peaceful ride in the bow seating.
Really turned out to be a great day and I was glad we finally got everything together to go. We had to get back early but we had such a good day it was time to come in anyway.
Here is Sutton with his 3 lb Spanish. We were getting gas at Buzzards so we weighed this guy to see how much it weighed.
I had scheduled a day to go Spanish fishing with my friend Adam and one of his friends. He ultimately had something happen and was unable to go so Scott and I ventured out. We left the dock at about 7:00 o’clock. We decided to just immediately go to Red 62, we have just not heard of many people catching anything east of the shipping channel. Also, we had pretty good success at 62 a few weeks ago.
Well the decision to go deep turned out to be a great decision. We put in about 500 yards West of 62 but pretty much as soon as we got there the screen was full of bait. It did not take long before we started pulling them in.
We switched lure color various times during the day so I can’t say anything did not produce but I think without a doubt a simple plain silver 00 spoon likely caught the most. We had two on number 1 planner and two on number 2 planner with the number 2 doing more of the catching. Here is how I fish for Spanish.
The water was great all day, it was likely 1.5 to 2+ in the morning but laid down during the morning into the afternoon. The water was very clear on the east side of the cha but was a strange rusty color on the west side of the channel.
We caught a bunch and we had one really nice one, this one was just shy of a citation.
Well let’s say it was my first day this year of the Spanish Mac season. The morning was calm and Scott and I took off the dock around 6:30 to see where we may run into the rascals. Cobia has slowed but we expect them to be back in the stories soon but this day is for Spanish.
We had a good day, the seas were calm in the morning and steadily got worse as the day went on. We had to be back at the dock and fully cleaned up by noon so we knew we needed to get busy. We stopped and put in the first set a just west of Green #3 in the GW. I generally run 2 #2 and 2 #1 planners. Again generally, we add 4 different colors until we see what the color de jure was going to be.
We took a right and headed south at #3 to follow the dropoff ledge that goes to the Asphalt pile. It did not take long before we got two on. One Spanish and one Bluefish, they were definitely mixed together all day. I know the rule about speed of the boat but I have ample evidence that if a blue wants it they will get it no matter the speed. I think they are less likely to want the bait at a fast pace but if they do you are not going to tell them differently.
During the day we landed 16 and likely had 8 that got off. We certainly caught nearly as many Blues as we did Macs but I didn’t count or keep those. We were so busy we reduced the number of rods to just 3 and as the water got more rough I was not as able to help as I should have. We needed our friend Trey that was scheduled to be there but couldn’t make it at the last minute so we just did the best we could.
Overall a good day for 4 hours of fishing in tough conditions. Definitely back in the groove pretty quickly on the Spanish front.
You should indeed bring some spot with you on your next trip out for cobia. I think now at this time I have been out probably for 25 hours on the anchor and fishing and I may have forgotten a run with an eel being taken but I think all of the runs have been on live spot. I will get more into this later but for now the story of the day.
Today the water was too rough early this morning but I did know of at least one person that went out early and caught. For me I was content to stay inland and wait it out. So Rick and I headed out about noon. Honestly, once we got out there we could have left a bit earlier but I never want to take that kind of chance. We went to the same exact location and why not after it being so active there on Monday. Got set up on anchor and got our two live spots in and two live eels. There was zero action while we were in the tide change but we were at least not fighting the rods and we didn’t have to reset the lines nearly as often. Really just a bait check or two was all we had to do but hope for the big one to swim by. I always say I am hoping we get two dumb ones by my boat.
After the tide changed we were still a bit slow but then the weather changed. There were storms brewing inland and the wind changed direction to S as opposed to E all day and it picked up speed. Rick got one big screamer on his side and as I was trying to clear the lines from my side of the boat his leader broke. A 50# true purchased this year’s leader, not just some line pulled off the spool. I was surprised for sure but we came up with the idea after the hook was set we did need to release the drag more. I have a lever drag system on my reels so it is fairly easy to do.
About 20 min. later I had one scream on my side. Did I say that screaming sound of line ripping on my reel is one of my favorite sounds ever. If anyone has a ring-tone with that sound I would love it. Anyway, we finally had a cobia on the line and in only about 5 min we had him in the boat hoping for our next one.
About another 20 min I had another screamer which turned out to be a skate. I have always thought that skate would not take a live spot (really anything live) but that is not true. I have never seen them take a live eel but I have plenty of evidence from this year that they will in fact take a live spot.
The weather turned even harder, the wind from the south was getting later in the day so we left the grounds at about 4:30 pm. No question that location off Chesapeake Beach is in my chart plotter saved and I will be back next time I go out.
This fish turned out to be 42″ and weighed 26.5 lbs. I caught him on a spot with a 7/0 J hook. I use a standard dead drop with about 6 feet of leader.
Finally, at last, we finally got a keeper cobia. My friend Rick and I left from my dock at about 6:30 this morning. We had plans to head to Chesapeake Beach for a cobia fishing day. I have been there many times and it does hold a lot of cobia. Today was not an exception. We ended with 3 in the boat but only one that was legal size.
I don’t remember ever catching this many shorts in a season. Maybe that is just luck but for the most part of my cobia career they have been at 40 or over (up to 55 my largest). We still caught our share of shorts today but thankfully got one for dinner.
It was a tough day of fishing. We chummed the anchor for most of the day. What I mean by that is the tide was incoming and the wind outgoing. So the chum the baits the lines and everything was running towards the front of the boat. In those conditions the boat is really never settled on where it wants to be so you have to keep setting the lines to keep them from tangling.
Another fun thing (not) about it is the fish seems to always go toward the anchor. I don’t remember hooking anything that did not get tied in the anchor. Both shorts got in the anchor as well as a few good runs that broke the line in the anchor and ultimately the one we got to keep was also wrapped around the anchor.
The waves were about 2-3 this morning and as soon as the tide turned it layed right down but of course that is when we needed to leave. Anyway a great day of fishing and I think Rick was happy with his catch.
We released the 39 and the 25 inch to fight another day, both thankfully were in good shape when the left the boat.
Rick
July 11, 2022
High
Low
Average
Temperature
81.6 °F
65.2 °F
73.3 °F
Dew Point
67.5 °F
56.7 °F
63.8 °F
Humidity
93 %
45 %
74 %
Precipitation
0.00 in
—
—
High
Low
Average
Wind Speed
11.6 mph
0.0 mph
3.0 mph
Wind Gust
13.2 mph
—
3.8 mph
Wind Direction
—
—
NE
Pressure
30.63 in
30.57 in
—
Best fishing times for Great Wicomico River Light today Today is an average fishing day
