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Tuna the Tide Newsletter
Season 19, Volume 1, March 2015 Thank you for your interest in receiving this newsletter. I hope to make it both informative and entertaining. As of this writing there is not a lot to report. The Markley stands as the only boat left in the water at the Big Owls Tiki Bar. Two heat lamps on either side of the engine keep her insides warm so her pipes don’t freeze. Sounds like whiskey. She looks lonely locked in the ice. Our new Everglades sits on the trailer next to the garage. Ice and snow are helping to keep it insulated in this frigid cold. My office looks like a tackle store. Boxes of tackle, rods, reels you name it fill the room to eye level.
I hope as we actually start fishing in April these newsletters will give more of an overview of what we are doing to catch fish. But for March we’ll have to be satisfied as to what we’re doing to “get ready” to catch fish. Probably the biggest improvement to our Charter Service this year was the purchase of a 2015 Everglades 243CC with the 300 Yamaha 4 stroke. The boat is a machine. It can get us to the fish quickly and comfortably. And when we get there it provides a stable fishing platform. The boat is as rigged as possible for shallow water ventures. The basic boat only draws 16 inches of water. With the GPS guided trolling motor and the Power Pole Shallow water anchor we can sneak up on even the spookiest of fish. For your safety the boat is equipped with radar, GPS, VHF and fish finder provided by Garmin Electronics. We will provide fishing and crabbing trips on this boat for up to 4 people. It should help us to get back to our shallow water roots. We’ve come a long way since the days when we threw small bucktails at exposed stumps off Bennett’s Point in the early fall from our twelve foot Sears Gamefisher. We want to thank our friends and partners at Annapolis Boat Sales for “Hooking Us Up”.
As those of you who have fished with us before know we provide some of the best gear available. All our rods are custom built by Shore Tackle and Custom Rods right here in Kent Narrows. They also supply most of our tackle. Billy and Joe got to fish with Walter (ABS) and Frosty and me on an Everglades last September for the CCA Speckled Trout and Redfish Tournament down in Crisfield. We learned a couple of things. First, there were very few Redfish and Second that you need a very stable boat that can get in VERY shallow water after crossing very rough open water. The Glades was perfect. Frosty did catch the second largest Spec of the tournament on a Crocodile Spoon. Billy and Joe have been at the forefront of designing and building rods over the past decade. And it is truly mind boggling how much actually goes into producing a specific rod to perform a specific task. While we were in Crisfield we had the opportunity to put some new rods with microwave guides through their paces. We were fan casting in the shallow waters just south of Smith Island. It was windy so we had a good drift. When prospecting by fan casting in open shallow water the trick is to cast with the drift from dead off the bow to dead off the stern. That way you can cover a lot of ground before you drift into it and spook fish. If you find a little pod of fish you can drop the power pole and hover, or hover by using the anchor feature on your trolling motor. The bottom line is it’s a lot of casting. The rods with the microwave guides not only cast with much less effort but they cast with more distance. That serves two purposes. The more distance the greater the area fanned before the fish spook. And second, and almost as important, you can still lift a beer to your mouth when you get back to the dock because your arms not locked up. As soon as we got back to Kent Narrows I had a few made for my boat. We’ve got to have the best. Can’t wait to fish top water this season!
Those of you that have fished with us before know we spend a lot of time jigging on both boats. Even trolling trips sometimes turn into jigging trips. In fact trolling is a great way to find fish we can jig on. I always have a full set of jigging rods rigged with Soft Plastic jigs by Bust’em Baits. When there are a lot of Blues around we use Bucktails (Lil Jimmies) or Metal Jigs (Lil Bunker Spoons) by Specialized Baits. These companies have gone to great lengths to produce lures that fit our needs, from hook sizes and gaps to colors and lure sizes. We have done a little work on our website. For your convenience we now have a calendar that will be updated daily so you can see what days we have available. We are also going to change our picture gallery to have a “recently caught section”. It will tie in with this newsletter in the future so you can not only get a written report on what we are doing but you can go to the website and get the pretty pictures as well. This will be our nineteenth season fishing out of Kent Narrows. It will be my fortieth year fishing the Eastern Bay. For those of you that haven’t fished with us visit our website. And I guess the popular thing is “Like us on Facebook”. You can literally walk to three nice hotels, numerous restaurants and waterfront watering holes from our slip. The Big Owls Tiki Bar is literally an arm’s length from the boat. They should be opening around St. Patty’s Day weather permitting. We’ll start running cruises and scouting trips shortly thereafter. We try and offer a full range of services. Cruises by the hour, crabbing trips and full and half day fishing trips. Usually we only do one trip a day so our hours are flexible. This year we are also going to offer walk on trips during the week. If you have a date in mind call or email us and we’ll try and put something together. We work with numerous other Captains so there is no group to large or to small.
Just to summarize last year quickly. We didn’t fish the Susquehanna Flats, though if the fish show we are ready to do so this year. We had a great trophy season. This year it will start on April 18th. It will be one fish with the size limits still to be determined. Last year we had plenty of good fishing most of the summer. Our general season will start again on June 1st. The fish moved in and out of shallow and deep water and sometimes the pattern took a little while to catch on to. I don’t see that there will be much difference this year. We do know however the size limit this year will increase to two fish over twenty inches. Based on the techniques we utilize this shouldn’t make much difference. I can only hope everyone uses careful catch and release of all the fish we will be culling through. Last summer I had the opportunity to chase large Flounder off the Coast of Delaware. It was a blast. If I can figure out how to offer a few charters out of Indian River I will. Probably mid to late summer. Stay Tuned! We had a great fall around Kent Island last season so I didn’t go to the CBBT. It didn’t sound like we missed anything. However, a few of the light tackle guides that worked farther north found plenty of fish well into late December. All the way up to Smith Point. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can take advantage of that fishery next season. So there it is. Hopefully we’ll get to see you this year and create some long lasting memories for us all. (Good ones I mean!!) I’m going to close this newsletter (as I hope to with all the following ones) with a short story. Now comes the entertainment part. This was an email I actually sent to my mother. Yup, I’m still a momma’s boy. Thanks for listening.
Captain Mark Galasso Cell 410-310-1200
Fishing Guide 101
I wrote this to cheer up my Mom who, at the time, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I think she got a kick out of it. Unfortunately it’s all true. So here goes….
Dear Mom,
Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am to be a Charterboat Captain. Getting paid to do the thing I enjoy most in life, catching fish. The joke in our fishing community is ours is the second oldest profession. Obviously the oldest profession is not legal at this time and I don’t think I could ever be professional doing something like that anyway. But I digress. If one could make a fortune getting paid to fish everyone would do it. So I’ve been told. On those beautiful warm, calm sunny days when the fish are practically jumping into the boat and everyone is happy doing what I do just can’t be beat. However, charters like the one I had the other day give me real insight into why everyone isn’t doing it. My day really starts the day before an actual charter. I monitor weather reports. The CBOFS wind vector report is my favorite. It gives detailed wind reports over a 24 hour cycle (now forty eight). It’s pretty darn accurate. I also watch the weather channel and call up the NOAA reports for our area. If I haven’t fished for a couple of days I call up a few Captains I know to see how and where the fish are biting. It can save me a lot of fuel the next day. And with fuel being more expensive than gold, but not as expensive as bottled water, that’s important. The newest and most accurate fish finder in every captain’s arsenal is now a cell phone. Well the other evening was a typical one. I made my calls and it turned out the fish were biting pretty good. And as a bonus they were biting pretty close to home. I was on the computer at the time so I went to the NOAA website as well as the CBOFS site. A “freshening breeze” was being called for starting just before sunrise. A quick check out the window in my office revealed a star studded sky behind dead still trees. Not a breath of air. I flipped on the weather channel to see what they had to say. I was a bit early for the “Local Weather” so I had to listen to Jim “Fricken” Cantore talk about his experiences in the eye of the latest hurricane. It must have been quite a blow because it looks like it blew all his hair off. When the local weather finally showed “on the Eights” it mentioned a slight drizzle and fog in the morning with light and variable winds out of the east. Sounds good to me. I called my party for the morning and told them it was a go. They questioned the rain a bit but I assured them the boat was covered, the fish were biting and the small amount of rain the experts were calling for was a non-issue. By this time it was 9:00pm and since I had to be up by 5:45am I went to bed. I don’t sleep well the night before a charter. I guess I start to formulate a game plan in my sleep for the next day. It’s nice to have a plan but I think a good night’s sleep might serve me better. So I spent the rest of this night in that twilight haze one gets into. Some call it a long power nap, others just a restless sleep. So between my five trips to the bathroom, my planning and my listening to the wife snoring let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep. Though in the wife’s defense she says I snore as well. But I can’t say I’ve ever heard it. I’m sure I didn’t snore this night since I didn’t sleep. I must have dozed off though because I was awakened by two alarm clocks. I don’t trust the electric one so I also set a wind up as a spare just in case the power goes out. It sounds like loud rock music with too much cow bells when the both go off. I can’t believe it doesn’t wake the wife. Anyway I went through my normal routine while the wife kept purring wrapped up in a warm comforter, the cat snuggled next to her half buried face. I jumped in the shower. Cold I might add since the hot water heater only works sometimes, but not this time. Someday I’ll fix it. Which is what I thought the last time I took a cold shower. I brushed my teeth and took my morning constitutional (sorry), got dressed and went downstairs. I poured myself some iced tea, took my vitamins and made myself the usual peanut butter and honey sandwich for the road. I went out to the garage to load ice. The sun hadn’t come up yet. I tripped over the cat as I walked through the office. She shrieked, but wouldn’t get out of my way. I opened the garage door and the cold wet blast hit me like getting zinged with a wet towel. I could see the shadows of the trees dancing across the driveway. HOLY %@*&!! I expected to see Jim “Fricken” Cantore standing in the spotlight! Puddles of water with whitecaps pockmarked the driveway. I ran back into the house and tried to call my party. NO ANSWER. I remembered they were driving down from Philly and probably left hours ago. Oh well. Nothing to do now but load ice and head for the boat. I arrived at the boat about twenty minutes later just as the visibility started to improve with the rising sun. Red sky in the morning sailors take warning. What about a black sky? That can’t be good. I took the long walk down the short pier. The boat was violently rocking in it’s slip. The cockpit was full of Seagull Pooh and straw. I think the straw was part of the roof of the Tiki Bar thirty feet away. The Pooh a mixture of partially digested fish and day old bread from the restaurant dumpster next door. Bread that was probably sold for three bucks a slice the day before lay scattered all over my engine box and cockpit floor. Dirty bird feathers were blowing everywhere in the howling wind. I could only wonder if the Gulls got their feast in before the hurricane hit. I loaded my ice and hosed off the mess. Seemed kind of funny at the time, hosing down the boat in a squall. I was already standing in front of nature’s pressure washer! I saw headlights heading toward the parking lot. It must be my guys since no one else was around. Three cars with Pennsylvania tags and adorned with Eagles stickers. They parked but no one got out. $#*&! I timed my leap and jumped up on the dock. I walked over to the first car and waited until they rolled down the tinted window. “Hi, you must be my party.” I gleefully said. “Hi, you must be nuts.” they somberly replied. Yea, sorry. Wouldn’t you just like to shoot the weather man. A big burley man in the back popped me the inevitable question. “Is it fishable?” It’s funny. Almost anything is fishable if you don’t mind danger, intrigue and discomfort. I mean people climb Mount Everest, jump out of airplanes or go into politics for fun. Come on. In fact I usually watch The Perfect Storm or Deadliest Catch the night before a day like this. It just never seems all that rough the next day. Yeah, it won’t be fun but it’s fishable I replied. Next thing I know I’m leading a procession of men carrying coolers down the dock weaving in and out of the remaining piles of bird pooh still on the dock. Funny how people over pack for a day on the water. I timed the swells and jumped down into the cockpit. They proceeded to pass me down the coolers. All heavy I might add. I asked what was in the first one. A habit I’ve acquired to make sure people don’t sneak Bananas on board. Beer was the reply. Second cooler. Beer. Third. Beer. Fourth. Beer and Whiskey. Fifth. Beer. Sixth. (The smallest one.) Food. Thank God. Seventh. Hey wait a minute you have to many guys. Oh yeah, sorry, Tim’s Uncle Joe decided to come at the last minute. Guys listen I can only take six. Coast Guard regulations. Silence. And by the way, did anyone bring anything to drink other than alcohol? Silence. Finally Uncle Joe broke the silence. “What the #%$*, no mixers?” I’ll stay in the car. That takes care of that I thought. Everyone except Uncle Joe jumped into the boat. I gathered everyone’s attention. Guys, Sorry about Uncle Joe. Just a few notes on safety. Life jackets are underneath the seats in the cabin. Please keep your hands inboard when we are leaving or coming into the slip. It’s obviously going to be rough so always keep one hand free for the boat. As I’m saying it I’m doing a mental hand count. One for the boat. One for the beer. One for the rod. I hope these guys are from Three Mile Island and may actually have three hands. I fire up the boat, turn on the electronics, pull out of the slip and head south. We can see Uncle Joe waving as his form fades away behind us. Lucky Bastard! It’s actually rough in Kent Narrows. A thirty knot nor’easter churning up whitecaps in what should be “the sheltered water.” An incoming tide is just pushing the water against the wind. I sure hope the fishing is better than the weather. My surveillance reports have good fishing just a few miles south of Kent Narrows in the Eastern Bay. Should only be a two to three foot chop down there. “Fishable.” The windshield wipers are thumping in all directions trying, but failing, to keep up with the rain and spray. Water is coming through the front window even though I have it locked down as tight as it will go. Water is soaking the foam mattress on the cot down below and we haven’t even left the no wake zone. $%&#! The bilge pump light is flickering on and off. Luckily it’s for the fore pump. If the stern pump starts going were in trouble. $%&*! My guy are all huddled on the engine box. What now provides them a modicum of comfort was only a couple of hours ago a dining room table for countless seagulls and crows. No one’s puking yet. But we still have eight hours to go. $@&*! I can’t troll because the winds to strong and the lines will have too much of a bow to set a hook. Jigging will be even worse because we have to drift dead with the wind and against the tide. #%@$! Lucky Uncle Joe. I’m starting to develop a bad attitude. Where can I catch fish out of the wind? If I have to go much below Parsons Island I’m toast. I flick on the fish finder and hope for the best. Nothing but blue screen. A small flock of birds are starting to work about a mile south. I head in their direction. I wonder if they’re the ones that trashed my boat last night. They better show me something those dirty white Bastards. Everyone in the back still seems ok. In fact their already drinking beer at 7:30am. And by the look of my waste bucket their pretty proficient at it. I can only hope they can jig as well as they can drink. As I near the birds I can see a few small splashes. Waves are making the boat bob like a cork. Everyone is either seated or locked in place. I put the boat in neutral just to see how she’ll settle. I know the engine scares the fish but I’m afraid to turn it off in case I have to maneuver to get out of trouble. Darn, it’s rough. I pick out the most stable looking guys and pass out three rods with jigs already tied on. Half ounce heads with five inch rubber tails. I give them a quick lesson in jigging. Jigging 101. Thirty seconds. You know. Small quick jerks and slowwwwwly lower the rod after each jerk. Fish usually hit on the fall. Hopefully they get it. The rain and salt spray has made the deck an ice skating rink. Hold on! Really, when it’s this rough the boat does the jigging for you. Just don’t drop the rod. I don’t want to have explain to Billy and Joe at Shore Tackle why I need another rod. They lower the jigs over the side and immediately get three bites. But no hookups. When the guys reel them up we see all three plastics cleanly cut off right behind the hook. Blues. #$@%! There goes a couple bucks. We try again. Same results. I think the tackle stores have a hatchery system to keep the Bluefish populations up. Time to move. Just as we start to pull away I notice a few good marks on the depth finder close to the bottom. One short cast and I have our first solid hookup. Turns out to be our first keeper Rock, about twenty inches. Rogue waves! @%#$!!! I lunge for the cabin and turn the boat into them. I’m not quick enough. Coolers go sliding across the deck. One with a passenger, who drops his partially open beer only to have it shoot foam all over his buddies. Things in the cabin are all thrown to the floor. My brand new trolling rods are on the floor lodged against the head door. Hope there isn’t anyone in there! I straighten her out into the waves and engage the autopilot. This gives me a chance to clean up the mess. I check on the crew. Everyone’s fine except one guy who looks a little green. I reason he’ll be our first puker. The morning progresses like this. My guys take turns fishing because I can’t leave the cabin and with the spray curtains down only three at a time can fish the windward side of the boat. The green guy is still drinking with his buddies even though his face is changing colors as fast a Chameleon on acid. I’m amazed he hasn’t blown chunks yet. They must have cast iron stomachs to keep down all that Iron City Stuff. We manage to catch a few more keeper Rock as well as a few small Bluefish. So the day isn’t a total disaster. I think they call this full contact fishing. It’s also full contact drinking. I notice my 3.5 gallon drywall bucket is now overflowing with beer cans and now there is a steady procession of pissers going back and forth to the head. I figured out one day that my head will hold about ten cases of beer. After that each roll of the boat sloshes a bit out of the tank vent and it runs down the edge of the cockpit. This acts as a visual and nasal alarm indicating that I should have had the tank pumped the last time I was near a pump out station. And the way these guys are going I’m just waiting for the alarms to go off. Around lunch time I notice mister green face heading for the head. He lingers in there far longer than he should but since I don’t hear any strange sounds I forget about him. When the door finally opens the horrible stench of piss and vomit waft through the cabin. Even the guys outside fishing in the Gale force winds stop what they’re doing and turn towards the cabin. Holy &@$# I hear at least three times. Poor Mister green face turns sheepishly towards me and asks “How do you flush the sink?” You mean the head I correct. No. I flushed the head but the sink is full of my breakfast. @&%$! Just then the head alarm goes off. @&$%! I look out back and see the yellow and brown line streaking for the starboard scupper. @#$%&!!!!!!!!!! I guess I’ll be skipping lunch today. In fact I’m starting to taste the peanut butter and honey sandwich I ate four hours ago. Just then I hear the distinct sound of a rod snap. Not only will that cost me but now I have to visit Shore Tackle again with my tail between my legs. @#%$! That’s it. Guys, it looks like today is a half day trip. Before someone gets hurt or we break anything else I think we should head for home. And don’t forget about old Uncle Joe (Lucky Bastard). He’s still waiting at the dock. Plus you’ll beat the traffic and get back to Philly at a reasonable hour. All the while I’m thinking I need a drink and since I don’t drink on the boat I NEED to get back ASAP. No arguments so we turn tail and head in. Backing into my slip is tough in good weather. In a storm it can be downright evil. You have to consider the wind AND the current. Come around. Line it up. And goose it until you develop steerage. If it doesn’t work the first time, and you don’t get pinned into another boat you pull out and try again. Only once have I ever just given up and tied out on the outside of the bar and wait until the wind died down. This might be time number two. So as I line it up with wet old Uncle Joe yelling encouragement from the dock I slam it into reverse. Right in. The highlight of my day! Dock lines on, fish cleaned. In the bar with the first cold one. Fifteen minutes from dock lines to first beer. Not hard when you only have six small fish to clean. As fast and hard as the rain is falling the fish blood and puke will be washed off the boat by the time I’ve finished my third beer. It will require something much stronger before I attempt cleaning the head! We settle up at the bar. Five hundred bucks. No tip. Unless you count the case of Iron City beer they left in my cooler. Ironically they took the three cans of IC Light. What’s up with that. They won’t be back. So, I spent 25 bucks on lures, 100 bucks on the busted rod (If Billy and Joe have mercy on me.), 50 bucks for gas, another 225 bucks per trip for fixed expenses, licenses, taxes, maintenance, slip rent, etc. I netted a cool 100 bucks. Counting my phone and computer time I had at least nine hours into this trip not counting my recovery (drinking) time. I figured I made a whopping $11.11 an hour. Holy crap!! I must REALLY love to fish. It could be worse though. My Philly guys drove four hours round trip plus six hours on the water in a gale force monsoon and they went home with five pounds of fish fillets at around $100.00 per pound. They must really freaking LOVE to fish!!!! Hopefully my next trip will remind me how much I love my job!! Hope your feeling better. Love, Captain Mark Galasso
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