Trim Tab showed up at my house at 5AM yesterday, and we hooked the bote up and rolled out. Got into the ocean around 6:50 and headed south. Went way down there expecting to have a ride in the ditch both ways. Was quartering a little bit at first though, and it was slightly annoying not to be able to get a bead on the slop and have a smooth ride. Still made about 26kts most of the way though. Had to stop to take off layers after about half way. My custom shower curtain-enclosed phone booth gets like a greenhouse once the sun comes up!
Got to the first spot and it was showing some snapper and triggerfish with some possible grouper I thought. Surveyed the area for a little bit then dropped the hook. Current was rolling very hard, and the anchor course was not the same as the drift course. Went to move, and the anchor stayed hung. Couldn’t budge it.
Choked up tight on it to fish for a little bit before doing what I knew had to be done, but the current had our baits way off behind the boat and the fish. First drop brought a scampnose, and the second brought a c bass. I pitched upstream to get robbed by triggers as I couldn’t feel the bite until the line would get tight behind us…
so I let all 400ft of anchor rode out and tied it to the stern. Got running where it was slack and then threw it out of the chock on the bow. I got up some speed and it came tight and then broke free. Not fun in windy conditions, but Trim Tab kept an eye on it good enough until it came tight and no longer could be near the rope in case it broke. We floated it up, and one of the leaves was bent back double- locking the stem to one side, but the stem, the hardest part to bend back perfectly straight was still good. Thought about going to my smaller backup anchor, but with the wind and current it was going to be a day of dealing with lots of anchor rode in order for it to stay stuck. Decided to fix the big anchor so Trim Tab and I worked on bending it back for about 30 minutes with the assistance of my leaning post and some extra g
