A Beginners Guide to Fishing ½ and ¾ Day Boats

A Beginners Guide to Fishing ½ and ¾ Day Boats
By Chris T.

Half-day and ¾-day boats can be a fun experience if planned properly. They give you the thrill of catching fish, get you away from the city, and expose you to many interesting things.

Which Landing?

Once you are certain about going on these types of trips, you should go online and compare the fish counts of different landings that you are considering. The best way to do this is to go online and visit http://www.hookupsportfishing.com/fi...ools.php?cid=1. All the landings have their own websites and within the website they should have a link titled “fish count,” or “fishing report.” In the fishing reports page you will see a simple table with three columns. The first column will contain the boats name, the next column will have the number of passengers and the last column will have the number of fish caught. Just looking at the number of fish caught will skew your research. To properly know how well a boat is doing add up the number of fish the half day boat caught and divide it by the number of passengers. Now you have the number of fish per person.

Arriving at the Landing

Owning any fishing equipment is not necessary; you can rent them at the landing.
It is a good idea to arrive at least half an hour early before departure time. Go to the store buy tickets, a fishing license (if you don’t have one already), Dramamine (a seasickness medicine that you take before you get on the boat), and rent a rod and tackle pack. The tackle pack will include enough hooks, weights and terminal tackle you need for a day. When all of your equipment is purchased just wait around the store until the boat is ready to load passengers. Do not go on the boat before its ready for boarding.

Getting on the Boat

Once you have boarded the boat, put the rental rod in the rod holder, your tackle and personal items in a secure place, and find a spot to fish from. Some landings will assign you to a specific number on the boat, but most don’t.

Need Help?

The staff on the boat will be the captain, the cook, and approx. two deckhands. During the approximately one hour drive to the fishing spot tell one of the two deckhands that you need assistance tying on hooks and weights then go into the galley and ask the cook to make you something. The crew doesn’t make much so buying the food and tipping them will be greatly appreciated.

Fishing

Once the captain arrives at the spot and meters a sizable school of fish, he will circle around them twice while one of the deckhands starts a chum line. The other deckhand will now aid you in getting set up for fishing. If he has forgotten, politely reminding him will refresh his memory. Once the boat makes a circle around the fish, the crew will drop the anchor and the captain will say “let ‘em out boys.”

Most likely the rental rod and reel is similar to a Shakespeare Ugly Stick with a Penn Jigmaster 500 reel. This is perfect for the type of fishing you will be doing. On the rod should be a line with a hook and maybe some weight. For bait you will usually use anchovies and sardines but there is a slight chance that they might have spanish mackerel, jack mackerel or squid. Anchovies are the smallest and most fragile. There also may be sardines, they range from two to six inches and are much sturdier then anchovies. The two types of mackerel are the toughest of all the fish and are very lively, which might result in you catching a shark or the highly sought after yellowtail or white sea bass. Squid are appropriately nicknamed “candy bait”. They are like candy to a fish. White sea bass, yellowtail and all other game fish love them. The two main ways live bait gets hooked is through the nose or behind the anal gland (or dorsal fin). Usually nose hooking the bait is preferred since the nose is much harder then the flesh and the fish stays on the hook longer but when using mackerel you should hook them behind the anal fin so they can dive a little deeper.

Pick the liveliest bait in the tank, put it on the hook and either drop it in the water or cast it out. Either way the current is going to take the fish to the same spot. When using the Penn Jigmaster, put the reel in free spool (this allows the spool to spin freely) and, with your thumb; slowly spin the spool in such a manner that allows the line spinning out to be equal to the speed of the fish swimming. After a couple of spins of the spool the bait, if it’s a sardine or mackerel should be able to swim by itself. Make note of how fast the spool is spinning while the fish swims. If a fish eats your bait, you will notice that the spool is spinning considerably faster then before. Count to five, engage the reel and wait until your line gets tight and your rod starts bending then make a sharp jerk. The sharp jerk helps the hook puncture the fish’s mouth. Now comes the fun part, when the fish feels the hook he will start swimming and trashing and doing whatever it can to get it out. Start reeling it in! The deckhand will give you advice on fighting the fish if he sees that you are having trouble with the fish. If the deckhand isn’t by your side when you bring the fish up next to the boat and it's too big to bring over the rail yourself, yell “gaff!” He will then come and gaff the fish and swing it over the rail and onto the boat.

Ending the Day

When the fishing is over and the captain starts heading back, the deckhands will start cleaning fish. Fish cleaning isn’t required but, as I said before, the deckhands don’t make a lot of money so getting your fish cleaned will help them out. Depending on the boat and the species of fish, they will charge a dollar or seventy-five cents a fish.

The boat getting to the dock marks the end of your fishing experience, if you enjoyed it, you can head out again, even on the same day since they may have 2 trips a day that leave half an hour after the other returns but if you have had enough for one day, just return your tackle, head home and take a shower. Make sure you tip the crew!