It Was Cold

It was cold and rough early, cold and calm late. The spray from the first wave froze on contact with the windshield. RADAR became very important. By the time we got to the fishing grounds, the boat was a solid sheet of ice. The water was warmer out there and were able to use buckets of it to thaw the deck so we could stand. It mostly worked. We did have one of us take a tumble….but he stayed in the boat.

We fished a number of wrecks. We caught sea bass, tautog and spiny dogfish. The dogfish were bad enough that we mostly went to fishing with artificials. Still caught some on the jigs but it did slow them down. When we left the sea bass and targeted tautog with green crabs, they mostly left us alone.

We had three fish weigh enough for trophy-fish citations: 2 sea bass and 1 tautog.

We had our special February sea bass permit and on the way in, I called VMRC Operations as required for this special season. I let the lady know when and where we would be in, what we were bringing in, and that it was very cold. Her officers were welcome to meet us but that they should dress very warmly. We did not see any officers or anyone else for that matter. Not a single other boat all day out there.

We were supposed to be out there again today but made up a variety of reasons why we should stay home today. I think wanting to be warm was the deciding factor. We’ll forget how cold we were by next weekend.