Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Recent bouts of strong northeast winds have made for some unfishable weather that’s kept most of us at the dock for a lot more days than we care to remember. Having so many days in a row where I don't have to worry about running the boat, wonder where the fish might be, or deal with clients has allowed me a little extra time to review my logbooks and contemplate how this season has shaped up compared to past years, and I’m happy to see that overall it's been a decent season for fish, weather and customers. I suppose I can’t ask for much more than that!
Well, actually I can ask for more than that. In fact I will. You see, like most anglers I like to think that every season I’ll learn a few more things about fishing and boating that will help me be a little better at it next year. You know, just simple stuff that will improve my catch or make life on the boat a little more efficient or enjoyable. If nothing else, I just hope that with every season I learn a bit more about "why" some things happen the way they do. There's a lot of goofy stuff that goes on out on the water and around the docks that I can't explain and every year I hope that another season of experience will shed some light on such things. But after all these years the answers to certain questions remain so elusive that not even a Google search can seem to find the answers I’m looking for.
For instance; why is it that whenever I’m cleaning the boat and accidentally drop the hose it's guaranteed to fall on the handle of the nozzle and spray directly up my leg? To make matters worse, because I’m too cheap to buy a new nozzle, the one I have tends to stick in the “on” position which means it’s never just a short little squirt of water. Oh no! In my case it’s as though my hose has some kind of vicious vendetta against me prompting it to carry out a full-on continuous assault. Ever try to neutralize a nozzle that’s drenching you with a million PSI? All I can say is “you’ve got to treat it like a poisonous snake and go for the head,” if you grab the hose itself and pick it up off the ground the nozzle will dart and weave back and forth like a spitting cobra drenching every innocent bystander within a 50’ radius that didn’t have the smarts to run for cover when the thing initially hit the deck. And while such a tactic might indeed be a grand way to get back at those who choose to stand on the dock and laugh at your initial soaking, the best action is to first bid a hasty retreat from the direct line of fire, circle around to the flank of the offender and make a dive (or at least a quick grab) of the nozzle itself. As if such an episode isn’t humiliating enough, afterwards you’ve still got to worry about what everyone is thinking when they see you soaking wet from the crotch area and down one leg!
Another thing I don’t understand is how come when I try to go wreck fishing the wind and current are almost guaranteed to be running in opposite directions? As anyone who has done it knows, to properly fish a wreck or reef you need to drop your anchor so that the boat settles back precisely over the structure. When the wind is pushing the boat in one direction and the current pulling it hard in another it can be almost impossible to figure out just where to drop the “hook” so that the boat actually ends up where it needs to be. The result can mean a lot of dropping, pulling, and re-dropping the anchor – and sometimes a first mate who’s ready to mutiny! Of course perseverance eventually pays off and the boat ends up just where we want it – then the wind shifts or current slacks up and we swing off station again! WHY-WHY can’t the wind and current work together just once in a while?!!
OK here’s something else I don’t understand: As a rule of thumb, big boats are usually slower than small boats, but at idle speed they’re faster because they turn a larger wheel (prop).
Because of the effects of wind and current, big boats can also be quite a handful to hold steady at really slow speeds. Small vessels like personal watercraft, on the other hand, can be very maneuverable at even the slowest of speeds. But we all know that “slow speeds” are not what PWC’s are all about. Oh no – with those little things it’s always ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM, everywhere they go UNLESS they’re in front of a big boat and then their operators seem to almost magically have an affinity for going as S-L-O-W as they possibly can! Fighting to keep his vessel running straight, the captain of the big boat is sometimes lucky if he can look over his bow and even see the top of the head of the PWC operator who has chosen that exact time to be very content to just creep along at two knots only a few yards in front of the massive hull that could grind him up like hamburger. Why is that?
I picked on the little boats, but here’s one about big boats that I’ve never been able to figure out. When a boat backs into its slip the first job of a mate is to grab the lines and start securing the boat. Since the first part of the boat to enter the slip is the stern, it would only seem to make sense that the mate should be positioned at the transom or maybe along one side where he will have first access to a spring line. So why is it that from the time boats first pull into a marina until the captain stops them in their slip, so many of the first mates will position themselves up on the bow and stand there with their arms crossed in front staring out over the harbor like some conquering warrior returning from battle? I don’t know if they think they look “cool” or what, but I know if I had someone “profiling” on my bow like some goofy pelican on a post I’d be inclined to slam the boat into a hard reverse and see if the pelican could fly!
Last on my list is something that’s been bugging me for longer than I can even remember. I’ve had a charter boat for 23-years but still don’t know what it means when a charter captain advertises that his boat is “Tournament Rigged.” What the heck does that mean? Most tournaments have different rules so even if they did stipulate how the boat should be set-up or equipped (which they don’t) it wouldn’t apply to all tournaments. I guess there must be some invisible or super-secret “something” that certain boats have that others don’t because I’ve been aboard plenty that the captains promote as “tournament rigged” and I haven’t yet found anything different from those decked out for “regular” fishing. It must be effective advertising though because apparently big-industry is now using the ploy. I recently acquired a spool of a new fishing line made by Seaguar called “Tatsu Double-Structure Fluorocarbon”. It looks like a really great product and I can’t wait to try it on stripers this fall, particularly after reading the back of the package that describes it as being a “…soft and sensitive line with tournament-grade knot strength.”
WOW - tournament-grade strength! That must be some kind of secret too because all along I thought that a strong knot was a strong knot. I had no idea that tournament knots had to be something different from “everyday” knots. But then again, I’m still trying to figure out if my boat is qualified as being “tournament rigged” and what the fine is if someone accidentally” runs over a PWC. As you can see – there’s a lot about this fishing thing that I still just don’t understand!
Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and Captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.