Now that the water pump was repaired, it was time to put it to the true test. It was time to get back on the water and test out our mechanical skills. We decided to make a run on Saturday, June11th to Breton Sound in pursuit of Speckled Trout. On this trip, we had Jason, Mark, Mark’s son Blake and Mark’s nephew Justin. As usual of late, we had a bad start. Jason showed up at my house 30 minutes late. I took this as a sign, but was hoping it didn’t mean we would have any more water pump issues. After picking up Mark and the rest of the crew, we headed out on the 2 hour ride to the boat launch. When we arrived at the landing, it was still dark. We launched the boat. Mark purchased some live shrimp and croakers. The shrimp went into the front live well and the croakers when into the rear one. Then, we set off into the dark to find some 10ft water.
We reached our first destination just after dawn. It was a large rig just passed the M.R.G.O ship channel. There was ready one boat there. We pulled up on the opposite side of the rig and tied up to it. The water was a little rougher than we want it, but still fishable. We stated fishing with the live bait on the bottom with a drop shot setup. The bite was slow. As usually with live bait, we were catching a lot of trash fish. But, we managed to land a few nice Specks. We stay in this spot for about three hours. Then, we decided to move into calmer waters. We pulled into the ship channel and deployed the trolling motor. There were a lot of boats in the ship channel. We assumed this was a sign of people catching fish. After about an hour with only two fish, I concluded those folks were here for the calm water, not the fish. So we moved again, this time to the back side of the rock wall. We started trolling again looking for the fish. The bite was real slow, but we did manage to land a couple fish. After about an hour of fish, I decide to do something I only do when I’m sea sick. I took a nap. I was not sea sick, just tried. Plus, I had to drive home. After about 15 minutes into my nap, the guys woke me up because the fish had turned on. We were catching Specks and Sheepshead almost every other cast for about an hour. Then, the bite stopped. We trolled along the break wall for about another hour looking for fish. We picked up 3 doing that time. The trolling motor died. So, we decided it is time to head back home.
We packed up all our gear for the long trip back to the launch. I got behind the wheel and turned the key to start the engine. Nothing! The starter battery was dead. I guess having the navigation lights on and both live wells running all day was too much for my 3 1/2 years old batteries. We were stuck. We tried using the trolling motor batteries to start the engine, but they were dead, also. Our next option was to try to pull start the engine. We took off the engine cover. However, there was no string to pull. Lucky for us, there was a few boats passing by and stop to assist us. The first boat offered to tow us to the landing, but it was too far to be towing my 21 foot boat with 5 people. The second boat offered to let be borrow one of his batteries to start my engine. As he started to unhook his battery, a third boat pulls along my boat. He had jumper cables and offered to give me a jump. So, I accepted his offer since it was the easiest solution. Once my boat was started, we made it back to the landing without incident. With the boat was on the trailer, I killed the engine and restarted it. It started. I wanted to test that the alternator was working correctly.
On the drive home, I had a good laugh about the incident. I just couldn’t believe I was stranded on the water looking for a jump. In my car, I keep a pair of jumper cables. I never figured I needed to keep them in the boat, too. But, I guarantee I’m going to rectified that. Also, I am going to replace all three of my batteries. They are over 3 1/2 years old. That is about the average life of those batteries.
The box shot
Jason and Fred
We ended the trip with 37 Specks, 4 Sheepshead, 1 Flounder, and dead batteries.
