A couple of week’s ago, I had an injector break. It damaged a cylinder. Because of the hours we have put on the engines, a rebuild was recommended. Just mentioning it to comment on Tow Boat US, Carter Machinery, and Dare Marina and Yacht Sales. They combined to get me back on the water in record time. Test-drove it Friday evening and the engines sounded fine but the boat was slow. 6:00 AM, Saturday morning, Scott James donned his scuba gear and was under the boat and cleaned the running gear. Absolutely exceptional service from all.
Saturday, test-drove the boat and it ran like new money. We took Tricia’s dad bottom fishing and caught small croaker two at a time and decent-sized spot around the Poquoson Reef.
Also Saturday, was the “Dash For Cash” Cobia Tournament. Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, fished it. They started out chumming without any luck. When the sun got higher in the sky, they went sight-fishing. They caught 5 cobia and pulled the hook on a 6th. When they got to the weigh-in at Wallace’s, they were the last boat in. Jorj threw the largest two fish up on the dock. They were about the same size and he was trying to determine which one to enter into the tournament. The weigh-master said that they had just won 1st and 2nd places. Jorj said that he did not know that you could win more than one place and was informed that for this tournament, you could weigh a fish for each angler. Jorj said that he had another angler and another cobia in the box: sure enough, 3rd place. Jorj and crew won all of the money.
Sunday, we gave the Healthy Grin a longer workout. Ran the boat from Dare Marina all the way to the South Tower (along with all of those croaker and spot that my father-in-law caught). The boat ran great and the amberjack cooperated well. We had a great morning catching fish on jigs and topwater plugs. As it got later and a couple more boats showed up, the bite slowed down. They still were biting live baits well but stopped biting the artificials. We caught a lot of 40 something inch fish. Only 3 were long enough to break the 50-inch citation minimum.
We ran into Rudee Inlet. Brent Meadors met us at the dock. He told us about his recent offshore trip: 20 gaffer dolphin with a number over 20 pounds including a 30 something pound fish which will be the new state leader. I’m ready to get the Healthy Grin back offshore but with the roll Jorj is on (2nd place Hampton Creek Cobia Tournament and now 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Dash for Cash), I may need to go cobia fishing with him.
