Offshore St. Marks 08-03-2003

Post by **Tom Keels** » August 4th, 2003, 8:02 am

Went with Wil and his dad and put in at the lighthouse about 6:30 with Thunderstorms all around. Decided we'd better stay close for a while so we went out in front of the light house and started catching pinfish. Got about 4 dozen in about an hour and a half and it had cleared a bit but still had storms rolling in.

We went to the end of the channel to see what it looked like. The seas were about 2 feet so decided to run over to the rotary reef. With about 2 miles to go we saw there was already 3 boats on it and a big storm rolling east towards us. Off to the south in the direction of Marker 24 we saw a gap in between the storm that just past and the one approaching. We decided to take a chance.

As we were going through the wind tunnel between the storms I commented that this will either look like the smartest thing to do or the dumbest thing in just a few minutes.

As we approached our first mark just south of 24, we caught the trailing edge of the storm and got soaked. No lightning, just cold stinging rain. After that, the skies cleared, the sun came out, the seas flattened and it was a nice day.

First drop was uneventful with only a couple of short red grouper. Next stop was better. The bite was really on and the fish were aggressive. We got 3 keeper gags to 24" and I caught a 31" cobia. Numerous shorts throughout the day, mostly reds.

We hit a few more spots, with no more keepers, but good pulls nontheless.

We put the boat on the trailer at 3:30.

dstockwell · Post by **dstockwell** » August 4th, 2003, 9:00 am

At least you were out there and got a few keepers.

Post by **Reel Country** » August 4th, 2003, 1:44 pm

good deal. All I did yesterday was mow the grass.

Post by **Cranfield** » August 4th, 2003, 3:49 pm

The Cobia Kid strikes again.

Too tired to load the photographs, Tom ?

Post by **Tom Keels** » August 4th, 2003, 4:16 pm

No photos this time.

chugbug · Post by **chugbug** » August 7th, 2003, 4:00 am

Hey Tom, sounds like a good trip to me. Better than what I have had in a while anyway

Were you in Wills boat?? Is it doing alright?

Wil · Post by **Wil** » August 10th, 2003, 12:00 pm

The boat is doing great, but the gas tank isn't. The problems with water in the gas kept getting worse. (On 8/2 my dad and I pumped about 5 gallons of water out of it before it picked up the first drop of gas.)

Tom and I ended up pulling the gas tank, and it had 2 *big* holes in it, and about 3-4 small ones. (big = 3/4", small = 1/4") It looks like the foam around the tank was keeping the water out for a while, but it just kinda gave way. I'm checking into getting a custom built tank right now, since none of the prefab ones that we've found will fit.

Like I said, though, other than that, the boat is awesome. Rides really dry, handles well in rough seas, and the fuel economy is great. We're putting trim tabs on her in the next week or so, so the ride should get even better.

Wil

chugbug · Post by **chugbug** » August 10th, 2003, 11:39 pm

Sorry to hear that..I would have never guessed that there was holes in it.

I hope it is a reasonable thing to repair. I see you guys keep tearing the Grouper up. Save some for me..

Wil · Post by **Wil** » August 11th, 2003, 8:26 am

It looks like it was patched a few times, but not recently. (e.g. before you bought it.) It wasn't something that you could have taken a quick look at either. It took us several hours of work to get the tank out so where we could see the holes.

But, I'm getting a custom tank welded up for it this week, and after that she should be good to go.

Wil