After my first trip this season out there two weekends ago, Ethan and I
were dying for more. Woke up Deni grabbed our friend Jazzy, met up with
Ethan and we were on the road just before 0500. Dropped the boat in at
Doran just a little before 0800 and Ethan and I were off to drop pots
and rings while the girls went to work the jetty. Made a lot of
improvements to my pots and I was ready to see how they performed. Had a
nice spread outside of the jetty, was hoping for deeper water, but my
finder was on the fritz today so I had to guess we were working only
maybe 30-50ft of water. Worked the rings for about two hours for only 3
keepers. Our last trip out the rings got 75% of our catch so we were a
little down thinking that crabbing was gonna be tough today. Went to
check our pots though and this is that we came to see.
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Not full, but some pretty nice hauls in each pot. We averaged about 3-5
keepers in each pot of the 4 we had. Dropped em back in and went to work
the rings for another hour and a half before checking em again. About
11 we decided to pull all the rings and check the pots and head in. One
new thing I learned today is especially in a small boat like mine, GPS
is a wonderful thing. Because my FF was down I couldn't mark any way
points of where my pots were and we spent a lot of time searching for
pots.
By our second pot though Ethan and I had our limits. We were swapping
for some better commercial grade crab, double checking each crab, double
counting every one. We saw DFW at the ramp when we launched so we were
taking no chances. Lets triple check just to be safe. After we pulled
our third pot we were super freaking excited to have the problem of too
many keepers on board. Finished swapping crab out and organizing
everything around. We put all of our keepers in a pot and I stacked it
next to me on the side of the boat where I was sitting. At this point we
have all 5 of our rings on board, 3 of our pots that probably now weigh
about 15lbs each or more, one of which has two limits of crab in it,
plus Ethan and myself who are not the lightest guys in the world. Yea my
boat is pretty weighed down at the moment and yes we are very cramped
on space in my little 12fter. I make a sharp turn to go and get our last
pot, then it happened.
My boat leaned to the side too far because I put the pot with all of the
crab in it on the side and we were taking on water over the side of the
boat. The worst part is I didn't even notice because I had so much gear
in my line of view of it. Ethan started yelling at me and when I felt
the water rushing in past my feet . . . . yea its safe to say I was
maybe a little more then lightweight terrified. Ethan says "Start
bailing!!!" I am reaching for the cup I use to bail the water out of my
since my boat leaks a little already, and in the process I'm rocking the
hell out of this boat sloshing the 10+ INCHES!!! of water that's in my
boat side to side threatening to tips us over. Not one word came out of
my mouth when all of this went down, but Ethan saw my face and he knew I
was about to have a panic attack, so he finally yelled at me "MARK STOP
MOVING AND SIT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOAT!!!" I sat down got a hold of
myself looked up at the open ocean and of course saw not one single
other boat around us, and I have never felt so small in my entire life.
Ethan grabbed a 5 gallon bucket and started bailing us out. Seeing that
and just taking a deep breath allowed me to regain my composure and I
got my bottle and we bailed for the next 30 mins to get stable again.
I have to take this moment to give a huge thanks to my deck hand and one
of my best friends Ethan for keeping his cool and helping me when I
lost mine. If it would have been anyone else out there with me. It might
have turned out very differently.
We grabbed our last pot. Did another count on all of our crab just to
make sure and we got the hell out of there. Boat back on the trailer by
1300. With that we pulled limits!!! Still super happy about that. A huge
lesson was learned and I would have to say I hope to never drop the
First Impression in the salt again. I will if I don't have any other
option, but Ethan and I got plans for something bigger and better.
Grabbed the girls and went into town for lunch. Last time we came out we found this little mama pop shop that is awesome.
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Did I mention it was small?
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These guys have delicious food and great prices. Highly reccomend it!
For me though, my Bodega trips never end there. I always have to make it
out at low tide to fish for rock fish and poke pole. Back to Doran we
go. Came out to the rocks and Ethan and I started tossing texas rigged
tubes with a good amount of success.
First blood
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The only non gopher we caught all day
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Besides this short little cabby
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Giving some love
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The poke pole queen showing off her skills
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I still can't get over how trippy looking these guys are
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After Ethan and I had about a limit of rockies in the box we took off in
search of some clams. Took us forever, but we finally found one.
Brought the clam tube today to make life easier on us.
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The clam came out in a jiffy, but the tube . . . . that's another story.
First time using this tube, and when Ethan and I tried to pull that
thing out and it would not budge. We were working in a sand/clay/muddy
area and I'm sure that didn't help. We spent nearly 45 mins trying to
dig it out and even managed to get water in and around it to try and get
it out of the ground. We tried until the handle broke off and we had to
leave it. There was no way we were getting that thing out of there that
night. Hopefully someone will find it and it will make their day, if
they are willing to spend 2-3 hours digging it out.
With a little bit of light left, we tried for more rockfish while we could.
Fishing during sunset, a beautiful sight.
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Our average size was getting smaller by the minute though
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We were still killing em though
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Ethan managed to drop one in the rocks
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Finished the night off there. Probably landed 20+ rockfish between Ethan
and I keeping 8 the were of size. Deni and Jazzy also brought in
several eels out of the rocks. Headed home around 1730.
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Bye Bodega I'll be back soon.
Made it home and was up until 0100 cooking and cleaning crab, fish, and taking care of the boat. All worth it though.
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Happy man.
Ethan and I are getting my 17.5ft spectrum together and hopefully it
will be running by next week so we'll have this to take out instead of
my 12fter.
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We got a new lower unit on its way that will hopefully put this thing back on the water.
This one has seen better days
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The paint job for the name isn't done yet, but I did name it Da Shark Jon.
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Big Thanks to Deni for her Great art work.
Hopefully my next Bodega report will be from me taking this thing out.
Till Next Time Guys!
Mark
