FISHING REPORT & EPIRB TIP

[captainbutch]

MONDAY 12-5-05; Today we were fishing with our good friend John Smith from Tennessee and his two sons John and Matthew. We were expecting to get some king mackeral before we went bottom fishing, but, the water had cooled 4* from saturday and everything was gone that was there then. The weather was not the best and with rougher conditions predicted for later that day I elected not to go any farther offshore. So, we decided to go to the bottom and light line for kings. The bottom fish were biting fair, we caught some of the biggest joltheads (knobbedhead porgys) I have ever seen. Nice triggerfish too! Several grouper and 3 limits of grey snapper. Now this sounds like a normal fishing trip, nothing could be farther from that!!!!! We were heading back to the dock and was about 18 miles out when we saw the USCG SEARCH & RESCUE HELICOPTER!!!! Capt. Chris and I said to each other, someone must be in trouble, I had the radio turned down earlier due to a bunch of noise and had forgotten to turn it back up, I noticed they were turning towards us so I turned it up, thinking they were searching for someone that looked like us and I could let them know that I had not seen anyone. Turns out they were looking for us!!!! I know now that those EPIRB units do work, mabey too good!!! This is what I and the service dept. at ACR has determined happened: On your bracket there is a magnet that holds the activation sensor in an open position, well my bracket had cracked, allowing the magnet to pull away about 1/8 inch. We came off a wave pretty hard and that triggered the unit, the unit itself was not activated, this caused it to malfunction. You may want to check you bracket on yours and make sure the magnet is AGAINST your unit with no gaps. If that magnet pulls away and your unit gets wet, it will malfunction and send a signal, and according to the service tech. at ACR, it may even go off in a high humidity situation, just be sure the magnet is still contacting your unit!!!Other than that, we had a normal good day of fishing with some GREAT GUYS!!! Ronda, you were right, they kept Capt. Chris and I laughing all day!!! By the way Ronda, your dad said he wanted us to "wear them down" catching fish, just ask them if we succeded!!! SEE PIC'S ON MY SITE!! Till next time, FISH ON!!! Capt. Butch Foster, Capt. Chris Foster, and "Private Bodie" the fish dog says HI!!!. YEAH RIGHT SPORTFISHING CHARTERS, SOUTHPORT,NC. (910)845-2004. www.yeahrightcharters.com