First off, hats off to all those involved in bringing the RFC to life! This was truly an outstanding and memorable event! My wife and I had been planning to enter the 'Miss Fortune' in the event and to bring my friend Tom along for a 3rd. I figured that would be all we wanted in my 21'cc. As the 15th approached, we decided that with no curtains and the forecast, we should reconsider. About this time, new board member Capt. Tony B from the 'Clear Shot' posted that they were looking for some folks to fish. They had a charter for the Tourney but the group had a change of plans so Mike (the owner) decided to fish if they could put together a crew at the last minute. The 'Clear Shot' is the former 'Makaira' under the ownership of Tred Barta. She is no longer green and is very well equipped and appointed. And I must say we appreciated having all the comforts of home while battling the ice on saturday! Tony came down in time for the capt's meeting on thursday and my wife, Teresa and I arrived friday morning and had to thaw the water out in the campground before heading out to the boat to meet Tony. Friday afternoon was spent getting ready to put out a good spread in the morning. Mojo's, stretches, a daisy chain, umbrella rigs were all made ready as well as a couple of rods for jigging if we got on a good school. Sat. am we left Long Bay Point marina about 6:30 and headed south to the False Cape area. A few scattered birds and few marks greeted us while we had to take the rods below to thaw out! First lesson- time will not be saved by putting rods up top early. As anyone out there knows, ice coated everything- the lines were as thick as my fingers! We trolled for several hours and decided to head back north since the only action we saw was well outside the 3 mile line. Nearing the golf ball we started to mark a few columns of bait and dropped off to give it a try. We were promptly rewarded with a nice 40 incher and then nothing. At least no skunk! We worked our way back to Cape Henry but no love there. Sunday am we were greeted by much warmer temps and a sense of expectation. We started to put out our spread at Cape Henry and had decided to find some bait and stick with it. We dropped the first mojo and fish on! Teresa landed a 35" fish and we were about the only boat around. More boats came but it was a long 3 hours before we got another fish. This time, I was up and landed a fat 38". Maybe there is hope... To make a long story short, we picked up another 36 later so we had our 3 but no more. The bait seemed to be in shallower water but the grass in there made us work steadily in the cockpit to keep everything clean.
We had a great time and enjoyed just being around a great bunch of people. Of course we enjoyed the post event festivities, met a bunch more board members and spent a good bit of time talking to Knot Head and gaining a bit of insight on some of the regulars. Looking back, I am surprised at the fish we put in the boat when so many others had so little luck. We have already penciled in RFC on the calendar for 2010- same place, same time?
Thanks to Mike and Tony and to all of you who made this event one that will ALWAYS be remembered! That said, I can't wait for springtime when I can change my avatar to something a little less chilly! And if anyone finds a 'Dirty Dick doll', we lost one sunday- MOB. We decided on sat. that the doll from the package at the capt's meeting was like a banana on board and ran it up one of the outriggers. that was when we picked up the first fish. Of course, George had to announce at the scales that 'our Dick was hanging out'! Sometime on sunday, I pulled Dick in and he climbed up into capt. Tony's field of view while he was glassing the area and suddenly Dick fell overboard. I still feel guilty but we neglected to report this to the CG.
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Posted 20 January 2009 - 07:42 AM
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