So you think you want to be a charter captain

[5th Tuition]

Did you ever have a bad day? How about a bad week?

This is what happened to Captain John the last seven days Last Wed. we had a group of friends onboard for a fun fishing trip. It was supposed to be winds East 5-10 and an easy day. We left Deale and headed to Herring Bay to pick up some spot for livelinning. The winds were really blowing and our drift was much too fast to drift for bait. We thought about anchoring, but decided to go across the bay, get out of the wind, get our spot over by Tilghman and catch our fish at "the hook".

I knew of a place were I caught bait last year off Black Walnut Point. We tried a few drifts, but weren't having much success. No problem. I have a good friend (Charlie Schneider) who mates on a Tilghman boat (Big Will) and he could tell me were they were catching bait. I called Charlie and he was directing me to an area where they catch their bait, and I asked him if he wanted to "jump on" for a fun day of rockfishing. Charlie loves to fish, so he said sure. We ran to his home marina and picked him up at the dock. I pushed the bow away from the dock and Captain John hit reverse to back away from the pier. Charlie says, "You can't go back there", and John backs up just a little further. "Clunk, Clunk, Clunk", as the prop hits some submerged concrete We were barely moving, so some damage to the prop, but not tooooooo baddddd. We navigated the "Knapps Narrows" fine, but when we opened it up and put the hammer down, you could feel a slight vibration in the boat.

We dropped anchor, caught all our fish, dropped Charlie back at his pier, and headed back across the bay. The winds had layed down and it had turned into a beautiful day.

Captain John still had some bloodworms left, and because we had caught our rock so quickly, he headed back to Herring Bay to catch some perch for a friend of his who loves a perch dinner.

We drifted in the calm winds and caught plenty of big perch. "Patent Pending" has a full keel and we have drifted over many, many crab pots without incident. When a pot comes alongside, I usually tell the angler on the other side to beware. I don't want his fishing line to get caught in a pot coming under the boat. The float always goes under the boat and pops out the other side unmolested. Not this day. I watched the pot go under, but never came out When we got ready to move, I reminded John the pot was under the boat. He said he was going to just bump it forward and "kick" the float away. Thump, Thump, Thump; was what we heard. Not good. John decided to kick it in reverse just a tad. Thump, Thump, Thump; again.

One of our crew was an experienced sailor who had cleared pots from his boat before, so he volunteered to go over and take the boat hook and try to clear the pot. He was unsuccessful Once back onboard, we figured our only hope was to try to cut the float line with the prop to get clear. We hesitated to do this, knowing that it would mean the loss of a pot to the commercial crabber, and there was a danger we would wrap the line tightly around our prop. John throttled up the engine and we heard the worst sound possible. We had winched the pot up and INTO the prop. It's not a sound I want to hear again.

We were dead in the water. We contacted Captain Charlie Sisson on the "Backdraft", and he agreed to tow us in. (see photo) We contacted the marina and they were standing by to haul us out and cut the pot free. (see photo) They blocked the boat, removed the prop, had it serviced, and dropped us back in the water in just a few days. As much as I hated to pick up a pot, I think it was good to have the prop pulled and repaired before we did damage to bearings or seals on the boat.

End of first mishap; photos below; next mishap to be another post in this thread.
5th (Marty)

[5th Tuition]

Second incident

Well, the boats back in the water We head out on a charter. The prop seems fine Off we go to Herring Bay to catch some spot. We anchor up No floats going under the boat this time!!

We catch our bait and head across the bay to try hooking up some nice rockfish.

About halfway across the bay, the boat loses power and squats down into the Chesapeake Bay waves (when is the wind going to stop). Captain John quickly looks to me in the back of the boat, I quickly look forward to the helm at him I give him the look, like I didn't touch anything (the second station).

Once again; we are dead in the water. NEITHER set of controls is working. Lights are flashing, and beeping sounds are coming from the controls. This is not good. We try a few simple things, but nothing is working. John gets out his manuals and begins reading some "trouble shooting". Time passes, still no controls. His controls are electronic and state of the art. But when they don't work, a paddle is more dependable

John calls the maker of the controls. Over the phone, we are told to look for an electronic ECM box where the front and back controls are plugged in. We can't find it. Everyone on the boat is following wires, checking bulkheads (where this should be mounted), and still we can't find this damn box.

John calls the builder of the boat. Perhaps he remembers where it is mounted. Nope. We spent a good hour looking for the ECM. Finally, with all else tried, we simply disconnected the rear station. Voila; the front station works We have no rear station, but we will worry about that later (we use it to back into the slip when docking).

Off we go to catch out rockfish. The customers had a great day (lots of 24-27 inch fish out there). And; we get back into the slip with no more damage.

Captain John orders a new second station; installs it, and we are back up and running again.

No photo's for this experience. I don't know what it cost John for the controls, but it couldn't have been cheap.

As you all know; boats are expensive

5th (Marty)

[bhl]

That is why I don't have any hair
Marty check your pm's

bhl(Bruce)

[5th Tuition]

Third problem

Off on another charter (tips are good this year) Again we head to Herring Bay for spot. We anchor up and are filling the livewell with bait. One of our customers gets his line hooked on something on the bottom No big deal, we will just break off the bottom rig and retie another one. John tries to snap the line. The line is just strong enough to "move" whatever it's hooked into. John calls me over and I take over trying to free the line. It feels like a dead cownose ray It had weight, it was not swimming away, but we were gaining line on it. John grabs the line and does the hand over hand retrieve. I wind the reel and get back as much line as possible. We get the "object" close to the surface, and SNAP, the line breaks. Back to the bottom goes the object along with our bottom rig.

I always have more rods made up than we need, so I hand the customer another rod and I rerig the one with the broken line. We catch all the spot we need and start across the bay.

Captain John says to me, the boat's not handling correctly. She seems sluggish and the fuel burn is up. I shrug my shoulders, and we continue across the bay.

We slowly search for some fish on the meter. We work our way along a break and finally see what we want. John goes to back down, and when we hit reverse. Clunk, Clunk, Clunk WTF Pieces of an old float pop up around the boat. John says, "Where the ---- did that float come from?". I told him it wasn't from where we were. There were no other floats around us. We were in deep water (32ft). I don't know where it came from.

Again we hit reverse, we can hear the line slapping the bottom of the boat. Holy Crap, how can we have another line wrapped. In forward, we didn't hear much. We catch some fish and slowly head back across the bay.

Captain John is just frazzled. He says, we have another charter tomorrow. I don't know if I can get it shorthauled and the line cut off or not. I can get a diver, and maybe he could get it off tomorrow morning. Perhaps we can move the charter to an afternoon trip.

I ask if he knows a diver? Nope. Just have to look one up in the commercial trade book. I said give me a moment. I go below and call Skip. Hey buddy, are you fishing tomorrow? He asks why. I explain what happened. He says, "I'll be right down with my dive gear". Talk about friends!!! I tell John, how about we get it fixed tonight. He thinks I'm crazy. I hand the phone to John and he and Skip arrange to meet at the slip.

Skip shows up. He gets in his dive gear (see photo) and slips under the boat. We watch his bubbles at the stern. Then they run up along the side to the bow. Then they go out from the bow, around the outer pole of the slip and into the causeway that leads to our slip
Where was Skip going? The bubbles came back to the stern. Skip pops up and says, "You won't believe want I found".

Skip hands me a line and I start pulling it in; and pulling it in; and pulling it in. At the end was a plastic tube and the rebar bottom of a ghost pot(see photo) Attached to the line was our bottom rig!!! We had hooked a ghost pot fishing for bait, and had lifted it up just high enough to get it near the surface. When we broke it off; the current must have carried the line under the boat and got caught in the rudder. It wasn't wrapped around the prop, but I can hardly believe we didn't wrap it while backing down into the slip.

I can't thank Skip enough for getting us out of a tough spot. We didn't have to cancel or change the next days charter, and John slept a lot better not worrying about what was under the boat.

I have some good friends that I have made through fishing. I hope I am as dependable as they have been to me.

So there you have it. It reminds me of the song they used to play on "Hee Haw"; "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all, gloom despair and agony on me"

Actually; we were very fortunate that nothing worse happened, and we should count our blessings. Thanks for listening.
5th (Marty)

[Skip]

Pretty much sounds like normal week of fishing Don't you just love boats ?

Hopefully Capt. John is done with bad luck for rest of season.

If not - either you learn to dive or I become 1st mate.

[5th Tuition]

Maybe we should just put you on a "retainer"

I've been practicing holding my breath; I think I'm up to one minute

5th (Marty)

[Chessie27]

Wow, tough week!! My heart goes out to Capt John's wallet Although inconvenient, it could have been worse, at least there was no REAL damage to the boat or its passengers.

Very kind of Skip to help get you up and running so quickly. I'm sure he was also thinking about the guys that had booked the trip and were pumped up to spend the day on the Patent Pending as well, and the wives that would have had to put up with them at home instead of out fishing that day? and the neighbors that would have heard the sobbing of a cancelled charter fisherman all day long? Hell, who knows how far out the ripple effect could have gone?

[B-Faithful]

Wow! Tough week. I will stick with my outboard thank you!

Hope you all have a better season!

[reds]

Originally Posted by 5th Tuition

Did you ever have a bad day? How about a bad week?

This is what happened to Captain John the last seven days Last Wed. we had a group of friends onboard for a fun fishing trip. It was supposed to be winds East 5-10 and an easy day. We left Deale and headed to Herring Bay to pick up some spot for livelinning. The winds were really blowing and our drift was much too fast to drift for bait. We thought about anchoring, but decided to go across the bay, get out of the wind, get our spot over by Tilghman and catch our fish at "the hook".

I knew of a place were I caught bait last year off Black Walnut Point. We tried a few drifts, but weren't having much success. No problem. I have a good friend (Charlie Schneider) who mates on a Tilghman boat (Big Will) and he could tell me were they were catching bait. I called Charlie and he was directing me to an area where they catch their bait, and I asked him if he wanted to "jump on" for a fun day of rockfishing. Charlie loves to fish, so he said sure. We ran to his home marina and picked him up at the dock. I pushed the bow away from the dock and Captain John hit reverse to back away from the pier. Charlie says, "You can't go back there", and John backs up just a little further. "Clunk, Clunk, Clunk", as the prop hits some submerged concrete We were barely moving, so some damage to the prop, but not tooooooo baddddd. We navigated the "Knapps Narrows" fine, but when we opened it up and put the hammer down, you could feel a slight vibration in the boat.

We dropped anchor, caught all our fish, dropped Charlie back at his pier, and headed back across the bay. The winds had layed down and it had turned into a beautiful day.

Captain John still had some bloodworms left, and because we had caught our rock so quickly, he headed back to Herring Bay to catch some perch for a friend of his who loves a perch dinner.

We drifted in the calm winds and caught plenty of big perch. "Patent Pending" has a full keel and we have drifted over many, many crab pots without incident. When a pot comes alongside, I usually tell the angler on the other side to beware. I don't want his fishing line to get caught in a pot coming under the boat. The float always goes under the boat and pops out the other side unmolested. Not this day. I watched the pot go under, but never came out When we got ready to move, I reminded John the pot was under the boat. He said he was going to just bump it forward and "kick" the float away. Thump, Thump, Thump; was what we heard. Not good. John decided to kick it in reverse just a tad. Thump, Thump, Thump; again.

One of our crew was an experienced sailor who had cleared pots from his boat before, so he volunteered to go over and take the boat hook and try to clear the pot. He was unsuccessful Once back onboard, we figured our only hope was to try to cut the float line with the prop to get clear. We hesitated to do this, knowing that it would mean the loss of a pot to the commercial crabber, and there was a danger we would wrap the line tightly around our prop. John throttled up the engine and we heard the worst sound possible. We had winched the pot up and INTO the prop. It's not a sound I want to hear again.

We were dead in the water. We contacted Captain Charlie Sisson on the "Backdraft", and he agreed to tow us in. (see photo) We contacted the marina and they were standing by to haul us out and cut the pot free. (see photo) They blocked the boat, removed the prop, had it serviced, and dropped us back in the water in just a few days. As much as I hated to pick up a pot, I think it was good to have the prop pulled and repaired before we did damage to bearings or seals on the boat.

End of first mishap; photos below; next mishap to be another post in this thread.
5th (Marty)

Your captain should consider himself extremely fortunate. I've seen the iron from crab pots punch a hole in the bottom. Also have seen them wrapped so tight around a wheel, a cutting torch was needed to get them off.

Fishing amongst pots is like walking in a mine field. Sooner or later the bang will happen.

[Tawn]

The first time I used my EZ Anchor Puller, I hauled up a ghost pot out of 35 feet of water in rough weather and banged up the gel coat on the bow. I couldn't safely get it off until we got back to the slip, so we had to ride all the way back across the Bay with that damn pot jammed on the bow.