Took off on Wednesday morning not knowing what to expect with the weather, winds and T-Storms were predicted. Except for the lack of wind which meant some flies , it turned out to be great.
I set up around 42°28` N in 75` and continued Southeast. Lots of bait and marks, the surface temp was 63°, and it was 46° down 40`. I ran birds, 60`-80` back with 5/8 oz. keel weights , lead 8 & 10 colors, dipseys 100 #3 & 180`#1, riggers down 45`- the bottom. As it turned out, except for one board bite, the dipseys and lead took all the hits. The deep dipseys had lil` boy blue behind smoke, and white behind chrome. The shallow ones had powder blue behind white, and green behind white "Hot Spots". The Stinger "Blue Dolphin", and the Silver Streak "Kevorkian" were on the lead. I couldn`t buy a bite on the `riggers to save my life . I circled around between my starting point to a mile South out to 100`.



My speed was 2.0 at the ball, we left a few with sore mouths , but we still managed to come in with 9 including another big King caught by the youngest member on board.



For the afternoon I had a group out from A-1 Tool in Melrose Park, for the last few years the company has bought Gift Certificates that they give to employees at their company Picnic (wish I worked at a place like that ).
I went back to spot I left off and found the marks had disappeared, I continued East with the same spread as the morning, and found action in the 110`-130` range. This time the `riggers were taking the blunt of the action, the smoke, lil boy blue down 50`, and chrome/white down 70` doing the best. We could see the storm cells to the West and North, hoping thread the needle, we made out until about 2:30 when the North winds kicked up. As I was pulling in some lines to avoid future tangles, the wind caught the bow turning the boat sharply. The boards were jumping each other in the waves, that along with the turn meant havoc . Anyone whose ever had a dodger flie wrap around another line knows where I`m coming from, well I had 3, throw in the yellow birds and... well lets just say and to keep this a "G rated" site you`ll have to use your imagination . As fate would have it we had three rods go. No sooner does that happen and rain really starts coming down and the winds and waves kicked up substantially. I along with all the guys on board just had to laugh. We did all we could to keep the fish coming in from tangling with each other, as well as the web of lines I was dragging from the "Mishap"( although many other names, some of which I never heard before) were used out on the boat. They did a great job and all three made it to the box. We decided at that point that "Deadliest Catch" wasn`t a place for us, perhaps if it were warmer, but the ice just didn`t seem to appealing. After straightening out the mess the cell passed and the skies cleared, unfortunately so did my sonar screen. The fish had scattered and we managed just a few more bites. We came in laughing ending up 7/13 or so. Thanks guys it was a great time.

"Wet Nets"
Captain Jim

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