Tough trip

Well myself and bud Tim tried the inaugural season trip today. I'm still suffering a bad case of a$$whip from the way the trip went. What sounded like pretty good forecast conditions were somewhat rough but not bad at all. The fish left the area we went to fish (outside the 43) and I made a decision to run further west which after a lot of trolling took us about 10 south of SCI. Sounded like most had a tough time with the albacore but the cookie cutter paddy yellows save the day for a lot of folks including us. Got waved into a paddy by the skipper of a 25 pilothouse skipjack at a point where we were only too happy to accept (Many thanks buddy, at that point we needed it). After the noon bite didn't materialize we started our cruise home. An hour into it the oil alarm chirps and I shut down to find a lot of oil in the bilge. The spray pattern makes it look like it came out of the heat exchanger and I'm thinking blown head gasket. While waiting for VA at a whopping 10 knots to our location at 36 out, I took my 3 quarts of spare oil and put it in and we spot the leak!! it's a cracked line to my oil pressure gauge. We jury rigged a repair and when VA got to us he had 2 gallons of oil for us. That did the trick and we made it home at 17-19 knots instead of 6. The back of my captains chair also broke and the wood supports that the engine cover hinges to also came unmounted. Can't have any more trips like this!!! gotta sleep now.

Brian on Old (broken) Blue, out.

Look on the bright side Brian, you shook out a years worth of bad stuff all in one trip. The rest of the year should be smooth sailing.

I wonder if the quake had anything to do with the slow fishing?

Mike

I think earthquakes and solar eclipses always slow the bite down for a day or two; I'm going Friday 43 way will post Friday night.