Cape May Non Fishing Report June 25, 2010.

I headed down to Cape May Friday evening; I was there by 11:00 PM. I stopped in at the Harbor View for a drink, and then retired to my luxurious state room for some shut eye. I got up early Saturday morning and puttered around town for a couple of hours. I was back at the Marina by 8:00 AM, and went to see Jeff from RJ Marine service. He told me they didn’t do anything on the boat, but he had the new ICM unit. We replaced the unit and I took the boat for a test spin. The audio alarm never sounded during my 30-40 minute test run. My only concern is the audio alarm is supposed to go off when you put the key in the “On” position, so I may replace the Oil Pressure alarm sending unit too. But I think the boat is good to go. Here’s a pick of the new ICM unit, a.k.a. the black box, a.k.a. another anther bunch of $.

After the test spin I went to get some drinks and a case of beer for the guys at RJ Marine. Earlier in the week I had read on the Bass Barn that George Poveromo from ESPN’s show George Poveromo’s World of Salt Water Fishing would be in town to present the winners of some contest with their new Mako boat. So I as I drove by Snug Harbor I slowed down and sure enough there was George standing next to a new Mako boat. There were only a 5 or 6 people around so I pulled in and walked over. The people talking to George were the winners and their friends. After a while I introduced myself to George and asked if he would be fishing in Cape May this week. He replied “No” he was flying back to Florida, and with any luck would be heading to Bimini this week. He said he may be back in Cape May to try some Bluefin Tuna fishing the first or second week in August. After chatting for a while I asked if I could have someone take a picture of us, he said “Sure”. Here’s the picture of me and George Poveromo.

The rest of Saturday was spent doing maintenance on the boat and consuming some Frosty Beverages.

Since the boat seemed to be in good working order again, I planned to go flounder fishing very early on Sunday Morning.

When I got up the winds were calm and the flags were barely moving, which is normally a good thing.
However when the fair is stagnant you often have another issue, Fog. So I cleaned the boat up a little on Sunday morning and headed home early.

Next weekend is July 4th; hopefully I will get out fishing for the first time this year in my own boat.

Cape May Fishing Report June 19, 2010.

I got down to Cape May on Friday evening by 6:00 PM. Capt Randy and I ate at CJ’s then went over for some drinks at the Harbor View. We met up with some of the other guys from the Bree Zee Lee marina at Harbor View.

Since my boat still didn’t seem to be repaired the plan was to take Capt Randy’s “Just One More” out to the Cape May Reef on Saturday morning. We were at the marina a little after 6:00 AM. While getting the boat ready I ran into Jeff from RJ Marine Service. He informed me that they took my boat out on Friday and were trying to diagnose why the alarm was going off. He said they took a temperature gun with them and confirmed that the boat is not running hot. They then tried unplugging the various sensors that trigger the alarm. The latest thinking is that the ignition unit that sits on the riser may be bad. All the alarm wires feed into that unit. It seems to be an electrical problem. Later on Saturday Capt Randy and I were messing around with it, and after reading the manual I realized the alarm hasn’t been going off when the key is in the on position before the engine is started, it should. Jeff explained to me that the reason the alarm is supposed to go off with the key in the on position is because there is no oil pressure, since the motor isn’t running yet. So maybe the oil pressure alarm sending unit is bad. The oil pressure gauge is working, I’m not sure if there is a separate sending unit for the oil pressure alarm.

Back to the fishing report, things really heated up this week. Last week we only caught a few skates, this week we caught a lot of skates. I did manage to catch one short flounder, and a few Sea Bass. Capt. Randy managed to catch a sand shark about 3 feet long. As we were trying to pull the hook out, the shark bitched slapped him right in the face with its tale. We fished the North End of the Cape May reef and then moved towards the center of the reef. Most of the fish were caught towards the center of the reef. The water temperature at the reef was around 68 degrees.

Cape May Fishing Report June 12, 2010.

Once again I left the house for Cape May very early on Saturday morning. I was at the marina shortly after 6:30 AM. Since the guys at RJ Marine didn’t get to my boat this week, Capt Randy invited me to fish with him and John aboard the “Just One More”.

We probably left the slip at around 7:00 AM, after the parade of big boats setting out for the South Jersey Shark Tournament went by. We headed out the inlet by the yellow cans in front of the Coast Guard Station. The water temp was 64 degrees. We each picked up a skate over there. At least we caught a fish.

Then we moved over to the other side of the inlet, in front of Wildwood Crest. Capt Randy’s Chart plotter indicated there were some small wrecks over there. The wrecks didn’t really show on the sonar. I don’t think we caught any thing there. Then we came back in the inlet and drifted by the toll bridge for a while. Nothing doing there either. We worked our way up the inter-coastal drifting in a few spots, and eventually made our way up behind Wildwood. Capt Randy picked up a small shark back there.

We were back to the dock by noon. Then we all headed over to the Harbor View for lunch.

After we left the Harbor View we stopped by to watch some of the weigh ins at the South Jersey Shark tournament.
Here are the final results from the 2010 South Jersey Shark Tournament.

Cape May Fishing Report June 6, 2010.

I left for Cape May from home very early on Saturday morning. I was in Cape May by 7:00 AM. It looked like the repairs to the impeller (a.k.a. water pump) in the outdrive were complete. I could also see that Clint from Nor’easter Canvas had completed the new window and dash cover. It was low tide at 8:40 so I went up to Rio Grand and bought myself a deluxe beach chair, even though I don’t head to the beach that often.

Around noon the tide had come up, so we dropped the boat back in the water at the boat ramp. We took it for a little ride over to the toll bridge; it didn’t take long for the hot water alarm to start beeping. Evidently the impeller in the outdrive was not the issue.

Since my vessel still had issues I went fishing with Capt Dave aboard the Tiramisu early Sunday morning. We were hoping to redeem ourselves from the last trip. Our hopes were dashed. We hit the intercoastal waters behind Wildwood. We didn’t have much luck back there. Then we went out the inlet over by the yellow cans. A small pod of dolphins came pretty close to the boat. Capt Dave caught a small shark, that was it. Then we tried drifting right in the Harbor, thinking the wind wouldn’t be against the tide there. Nothing happening there either. We had 3-4 hours of fishing in, and were back in the slip by 9:30 AM. I told you we had left early.

I bought a new thermostat, gaskets and water temperature alarm sending unit and replaced those on Sunday. It was a little windy but I had to take the boat and test if any of those changes resolved the warning alarm issue. Unfortunately they didn’t. It was also a bit of a challenge to get the boat back in the slip.

I left the keys to the boat with Rich, from RJ Marine, and asked them to take it out this week and try to troubleshoot the issue, and resolve it. Since the impeller is the only part of the equation that is below the water line, I was able to hook up my boat trailer and haul that home. Check back next week to see how Capt Chris’ wallet survives the onslaught.

Cape May Fishing Report May 30, 2010

I had dropped by boat off with RJ Marine the week earlier to have new starter installed. The repairs were completed. I put Offshore Bites back in the water on Friday May 28th. I gave it a quick run up the harbor, and as I backed off the throttle the hot water alarm chirped. I guess it’s the water pump, since I had a similar issue a few years ago. Since I still had the trailer there I pulled the boat on Sunday night. Hopefully Jeff of RJ Marine will replace that this week.

The weather on Saturday was very confused, so we didn’t fish at all. We went up to Wildwood to see the Kite Festival.

On Sunday I went flounder fishing with Capt Dave aboard the Tiramisu. We left a little after 9 and run up the bay towards Miah Mall. The water temp was in the 68-70 range up there and the water was pretty muddy. It was one of the smoothest rides up the bay you could have. The weather was perfect, the fishing was not. Dave caught 2 shorts, I didn’t even get a hit. We worked our way back down the bay towards buoy 16 but didn’t have any luck anywhere.