Sea Bass and Sea Tow

Never in my years of blogging has a post been easier to name. My day started out catching black sea bass in Buzzards Bay but for the majority of the day my view was of the back of a Sea Tow boat.


I took off three consecutive days the week in exchange for working three consecutive weekends. The result, two days birding and shad fishing in Newburyport, and one day on my friend Eric's boat to catch black sea bass.

The day started off quite well, We made a long run from the put in, in Dartmouth to the upper bay. We spotted some birds diving and saw a couple of breaking fish. It was fun to see, so it wasn't a big deal that we didn't hook up.

Eric bought this boat over the winter. It is a 22 footer, that is tailor made for fishing. It was a smooth ride to the fishing grounds. The motor was quiet. It handled the waves so much easier than his 19 foot

boat he used to have.

We started jigging as soon as we reached our destination. Eric was using bucktail's tipped with squid. I was using a much lighter bucktail with a curly tail. We started catching very quickly. It wasn't nonstop action, but every couple minutes one of us would be on. The main take away was that there didn't seem to be as many fish, but they were bigger than last year. Keep in mind, we only fished for about 90 minutes, so we probably would have found huge schools sooner rather than later.

About 30 minutes in, the motor shut off. Eric tried to turn it on but it wouldn't start. After another 30 minutes to let it cool, he tried again, but to no avail. So he called Sea Tow. We kept fishing while they came to get us. We landed a few more fish. All told, we probably caught about 20 fish. We didn't keep any under 16 1/2 inches. Legal size is fifteen, but we only kept big males. We ended up keeping

seven total.

Sea Tow arrived very quickly. The Captain tossed us a line and pulled us the thirty or so miles back to our port. It took 3 1/2 hours. Thankfully Eric is a Sea Tow member (it is basically AAA for boat owners). The membership is $170 for the year. Today's tow would have cost (sit down for this) $1750 dollars! They charge $350/hour including the their travel time for nonmembers. Since today's tow was free, it basically paid for the next ten years of membership.

After we got back to the marina, we drove the boat to Eric's boat doctor and dropped it off. Hopefully the problem is an easy fix and not too expensive. All in all, today could have been better. But what are you gonna do? Things break. Being towed at 8 mph was still more relaxing than being at work.

 

As you can imagine, we had a lot of time on our hands, so we had a lot of fun with the camera.

If there is one thing you should take away from this post, if you own a boat, investing in Sea Tow is well worth it!!!