The forecast was for a blustery 20kns out of the south switching to the west with rain. This was the first time of the season that Jason and I had the chance to go bugging, so we played it by ear. Well, at 3pm it was about 8 knots out of the west with some sun, so we made a go of it. The weather was fine, the hooping was slow.
Summary
Jason was just back in town, so he wanted to run his boat. We met up at the launch ramp and headed to Mariner’s Cove where he anchored for the night.
On the ride over to Mariner’s, we had a nice sunset and not the nasty weather predicted.
With the weather forecast and Monday Night Football, there were few boats out. With the weak current, people didn’t miss much. We had a lot of pulls with nothing, which is rare. We moved around a lot looking for current and never found much. Getting a huge octopus was the highlight. We had one just barely legal and one really nice one. Most of the shorts weren’t too far off. They will be ready next year.
We had one annoying seal for a little while that stole a bait cage.
A nice night on the water with some bugs; not bad. We did end up with some rain late, that helped wash the boat while I slept.
Catch
The most interesting thing was the huge octopus we caught. The head on it was double the size of my fist and its legs were over 18″ long. It took a bit, but we were able to get it back in the water.
We set around sunset at slack tide. The outgoing tide never really generated much current which wasn’t good for us. During a brief bit of current (still was barely noticeable) we pulled 9 or 10 bugs with 2 being legal.
Conditions
Water
Temperatures at the ramp were close to 64. A big drop from a few weeks ago.
Tide
A weak out going tide that never generated much current.
Weather
Compared to the forecast, it was quite nice. We had south/south-west wind from 5-7 knots and air temperature was probably around 60. We were in the bay, so it was calm.
Notes
Had some “oil issues” around the engine that I think are resolved. It ran nicely.