Almost the Hero

I drive the Lady Catherine Bus (charter boat) on occassion as a back up captain.  The Lady is an inspected vessle requiring a masters license for more than 6 passengers.  When they have less than 6 I can drive the bus.  Yesterday was one of those almost the hero days.

There has been a continuing saga of factory rigged lures falling apart at very poor times.  Yesterday was no exception.  Stinger hook on one of the rigs broke loose and is now the property of a gaffer dolphin.  We also had a mystery hook pull on a 40 plus pound fish which would have been the catch of the day at the Seascape dock.  Unfortunately, the Lady Catherine was an also ran in the unofficial impress the visitors tournament.  You can barely make out the tail of our big fish in the top photo, a gaffer close to 20 pounds .  The second photo was supposed to be of the cow that accompanied the gaffer bull.  My cellphone camera has this annoying delay making it tough to get action photos.

All told, we ended up with about 40 pounds of fillets sans bloodline.  That is almost a 5 gallon bucket of fillets.  Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce finish but okay for a zero floater day.

While I just drive the bus, I may start recommending a few minor changes here and there to increase productivity starting with no more pre-rigged in Bum Phuck China lures.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Just a Little V-20 Stuff

There is not much really to report on the V-20 project.  Since we have been having a few showers now and again I have mainly just worked a little on cleaning out and roughing up the transom existing glass so there will be a good bond with the new plywood.  I did have some time today where it was dry enough to laminate the plywood.  This is a second shot at lamination.  The first didn't fire off probably because the resin was too old and thick.  I found some more that looked a bit fresher and it fired off fine.  I have cut the plywood into three pieces so I can wedge it in place without having to remove the cap, lots of work or cut out the back of the transom, lots of glass.  Since this is sliding into the place where the old plywood disintegrated, I need to be able to wiggle things around and drive a few wedges here and there requiring the three pieces.

 To clean the glass inside the transom I made a little rasp/saw to get in there by just welding a 1 inch hole saw onto a drill extension to attached to another drill extension.  Not the greatest tool in the world but it did the job.  Once I vacuum out all the dust and such, I will dry fit and tweak until I am pretty sure everything will fit tight but not too tight.

I am pretty sure I will be able to reuse the existing gauges, teleflex steering and fuel filter/separator but the existing battery selector switch and cables look like they may be a lost cause.  I did find some 4 AWG battery cable online for about a dollar a foot which is pretty much dirt cheap and I have some 3/8" i.d. rolled copper to make end connections, so I may forgo the battery selector switch in favor of jump box or an isolated electronics battery.  Since power diodes are dirt cheap too, the electronics battery may be the way to go.  Remember the motor that is going on the boat can actually be pull started :)

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Play Day

I was supposed to have a trip today but it got postponed until Friday. So I figured it was a good day to play with the welder instead of getting too serious on the other projects.

This is the welder.  I didn't expect much out of this used 115 volt welder that I bought for 65 bucks.  As it was, it welded like crap so I made a few upgrades.

This is a big ass Lincoln 300 amp ground clamp that cost 7 bucks attached to some 4 gauge wire that is way bigger than needed, but what the heck?

This is a Lincoln 200 amp electrode holder that was a bigger investment, 15 bucks.

This is a selection of welding rods that the little welder will actually burn, another 30 bucks or so.

This is some scrap 3 inch by 1/4" thick angle iron just stuck together for a practice weld.

This is the scrap welded together using tiny little 1/16" electrodes.

I used the little guys because from comments on the internet, supposedly the little welder and the little rods cannot weld 1/4" steel.  Well they can, even with less that meticulous surface preparation and fitting.  Not that this is the way to do things, but I was pretty impressed with the performance.  I am a long way from being a real welder, but I can now stick two pieces of metal together and be pretty sure they aren't coming apart anytime soon.

One of my neighbors, a retired welder with 40 years of experience, stopped by and burnt a few rods with me offering a few tips which can be seen in all the practice welds on the left side of the scrap.  He wasn't all that impressed with the little welder but seemed to have fun with it anyway :)

Now all of this welding stuff is just because I have about $300 worth of welding I need to do under the bus to repair some rusted out parts thanks to Wilma and very slow water leak.  Instead of just hiring someone I think it is a great opportunity to learn some new stuff.  Now that I can make the welds stick I just have to learn to make them look pretty.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success. This

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Trip Savers

With all the Permit on the wrecks and Tarpon at the bridges I thought I would have an easy day showing Juan how to catch some neat fish and spots where he could take his kids for fast action.  Wrong!  We didn't see a permit or tarpon so we had to settle for a couple of Muttons.   It was one of those great days to be a diver not so great to be an angler days.  We did spot a few new rock piles in Hawks Channel since we could see the fish that weren't biting in over 30 foot of water.

The Muttons are a classic example of knocker rig with live shrimp saving the day.  We did get some balleyhoo in the slick for a moment but the wind/current shifted just enough to freak them out.  So it was a gorgeous day to be on the water but slow action even in the kiddie pools that normally produce lots of legal but not spectacular snapper and porgies.

 Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Why Welding?

This is the port side leveling jack for the motor coach.  You might notice that it is not under the motor coach.  That is because the hydraulic leveling jack that should be rated for around 6 tons broke.  This gave me the opportunity to learn how to weld.  These are not particularly attractive welds, but they are strong enough to do the job.  So while the wind is blowing I will be playing iron worker instead of boat re-builder.

Chicago Joe noted that there are a couple of Johnson V-4 motors on Craigslist that could go on the V-20.  Those are "project" motors that will give me the opportunity to play outboard engine re-builder.  Not a problem normally, but I have to somewhat finish a few of my other projects before I start tearing down 30 year old 2-cycle outboards.  So I may be getting a project organizer, aka a mini-van, that will help transport big ass tires, broken outboard motors and also provide a storage spot for not yet completed projects other than the patio.

Interestingly, the project organizer has a towing capacity of 3500 pounds which means it should be able to tow the V-20 project plus the kayak projects.  The project organizer also qualifies as a project itself being as it was manufactured last century and the current owner is not exactly mechanically inclined.  Stay tuned, this could get interesting :)

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Offshore Full Moon

There were fish just about everywhere which makes it hard to find the bigger ones.  Today though, they were almost all legal dolphin with a few gaffers here and there.  We started finding fish at the ups and downs  and made it to the wall with not much difference in the catch.  For some reason we only found one flock of tuna birds and managed one blackfin.  Still we ended up with plenty of fish fillets and the weather was about ideal for offshore.

Did start the day by seeing a small marlin or large sailfish with its fin tucked right as we were about to put the lines in.  It sounded but what the hey!

I missed the schoolie in this photo but can see the conditions we had today.  Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas