7/7 More red and gag groupers...

[Veikx]

The third time we have been out in one week and we have caught some fish... again....
We headed out with a couple buddies and the owner of boat master trailers, Joe is a great guy. We left the dock at 5:30 to try for some whitebait's around the bridges and tripods but no luck. Went straight for sabiki's and caught up about 5 dozen pins and grunts, then off we went for 100'. Dropped down some livies and caught 2 good size red grouper into the box. We booked it to a ledge in about 105' and caught 3 gags which ranged from 23" to 25". Not the size of fish i wanted, so we moved 5 miles deeper into 120' where i have a ledge that produces. We immediately catch another 6 gags ranging from 28" up to 35". Those fish were absolute pigs! So we are 1 fish from our limit and decide book it and head to a nice hard bottom area where we have caught nice red groupers. Drop our lines and in 3 hours we have our 10 red grouper biggest being 29" and that one pesky gag to fill our limit completely.
Whilst dragging out baits, a monster mango hit a pinfish first we thought it was a red grouper but it was a 24" mango!!

All in all we had another great trip, but my starboard motor started acting up.. Seems like something with fuel, looking into changing out my vst pump hoping its the problem.


Tight lines! --Chris

[nuclearfishn]

At least someone is on the Gags. Good job!

[E.R. A/C]

Some of them Gags are pigs, nice report and pics.

[Veikx]

Thanks, we've been working them real hard this past week. Im hoping for this full moon to be over so i can do a ton more snapper fishing. The current has been opposing so i haven't even bothered trying to chum up those fish.

[Aquaman13]

Nice fish

[nuclearfishn]

what's going on with the engine? I had a lot of problems with one of mine. Just had the fuel injectors cleaned and I put in all new gas line/filter and that cured it. My would not start back up after running it for a while. Was developing a heavy vacuum in the line.

[Veikx]

On our way out it would bog down about 1 rpm, it seems like it would lose power and cause the motor to flip up since it was being dragged. Did this on the way back a lot ton more, as soon as we were to go over a larger wave it wouldn't have enough power to put us over it. Were up on 700 hours, (150 since we bought the boat in august) and I'm very sure they have never been replaced.

[RMD]

You gotta get that thing fixed, trust me. We lost an engine 30 miles out back in April and we limped back in at a speedy 8MPH. It was extremely painful, especially knowing that there was a big storm brewing out there. Made it back OK, but definitely puts a pit in your stomach.

[Veikx]

I talked to my west marine buddy who was a former mech. We brainstormed today, i got new spark plugs, and ordered new filters for the clear bowl on the motor. If those two don't solve the problem, I'm going to check my strainer that goes before the VST pump. If not that, i will probably open up the VST and clean it out and most likely replace that. If thats not it, it must be an electrical problem where I'm losing amps somewhere.

My motors are my babies, those two have been pampered ever since i got the boat. Saltaway ran through it after every trip, water pumps changed out every 75 or so hours, t stats done the same time. When it comes to my motors i don't spare any pennies. The motor doesn't suddenly lose a TON of power, its just a brief jolt. I might be over exaggerating the problem, but id rather change these things out before something bad does happen.

I'll let y'all know on here how it goes, hope we get it fixed as soon as possible.

[RMD]

Sounds like you are pretty knowlegeable about the mechanical workings of the engine. Impressive.