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Put in at Colton's Point on Saturday. The water was calm with a bit of fog in the air. Visibility was about 2 miles.
Seemed like the odds would be good. A lot of boats trolling the area including a couple charters indicated to me that they were marking fish.
I trolled my way out there so it took about an hour just to get to the main channel. Once there I headed upstream along the channel's edge. Frequent strikes kept me interested, but couldn't get one on the line. About 3:00pm visibility had dropped to several hundred yards, so I turned to make a downstream run before heading in. At 3:15, I could no longer see the island and decided to pull in the lines so I could make a bee-line to the launch.
Suddenly I notice that all the buoys and channel markers, which earlier dotted the water, were gone. Funny... they were so easy to see on my way out.
I thought I was heading in the right direction, but I really couldn't tell. The fog had brought with it colder temperatures and a misty rain and I began to worry. What if I'm heading the wrong way? I could be lost out here for hours. Then I remembered the GPS.
I had brought my Garmin eTrex to log my trip. Just before I launched I turned on the Track log. I figured later I would overlay my track on the NOAA chart. Then next time out I'd have a reference to work with. But now I was just happy that I had a path to follow back to the boat ramp. Oh and BTW, the GPS showed my Torque going 4mph at full throttle after 4 hours out on the water.
In hind sight, I probably should have just worked the smaller channel that runs between St Clements Island and the Maryland shore. But everybody was out in the main channel and I didn't want to miss out. The fog wasn't bad when I got there but when it turned, it turned real fast.
"A man's got to know his limitations" ~ Dirty Harry, Magnum Force
Seemed like the odds would be good. A lot of boats trolling the area including a couple charters indicated to me that they were marking fish.
I trolled my way out there so it took about an hour just to get to the main channel. Once there I headed upstream along the channel's edge. Frequent strikes kept me interested, but couldn't get one on the line. About 3:00pm visibility had dropped to several hundred yards, so I turned to make a downstream run before heading in. At 3:15, I could no longer see the island and decided to pull in the lines so I could make a bee-line to the launch.
Suddenly I notice that all the buoys and channel markers, which earlier dotted the water, were gone. Funny... they were so easy to see on my way out.
I thought I was heading in the right direction, but I really couldn't tell. The fog had brought with it colder temperatures and a misty rain and I began to worry. What if I'm heading the wrong way? I could be lost out here for hours. Then I remembered the GPS.
I had brought my Garmin eTrex to log my trip. Just before I launched I turned on the Track log. I figured later I would overlay my track on the NOAA chart. Then next time out I'd have a reference to work with. But now I was just happy that I had a path to follow back to the boat ramp. Oh and BTW, the GPS showed my Torque going 4mph at full throttle after 4 hours out on the water.
In hind sight, I probably should have just worked the smaller channel that runs between St Clements Island and the Maryland shore. But everybody was out in the main channel and I didn't want to miss out. The fog wasn't bad when I got there but when it turned, it turned real fast.
"A man's got to know his limitations" ~ Dirty Harry, Magnum Force
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