1' or less seas, warm sun and cool air. The boat (my dad's 22' Sportfish) ran perfectly after several repairs (new stator, new tach/signal wire, new stereo, couple other small things).



We bought frozen squid and caught a bunch of pinfish, and headed out ~20 miles, I think 53' was the deepest we saw. We caught lots of red grouper and a couple gags that were too small, but still a blast to catch.



We brought home 20 grunts, a couple sea bass, and 1 red grouper (my catch, woohoo!). Sorry, only one pic, and it's not good:







There was some talk of reels in the shoutbox. We were using Penn 320GT reels (I think we have 3 of these), and one older version of the 320 reel. For the first time in over 7 years using these, we had a problem. I think the reels weren't rinsed properly after their last use, one was showing corrosion. The line guide (forget what it's called, moves back and forth) was getting hung up on once side, needed a nudge to get moving back over; and the other reel that had a problem was just feeling not smooth, it would sometimes stop when dropping down (with 8 oz. lead and bait).



Also, we learned a simple lesson. Don't throw out market bouys while trolling. Hey man, I was just following the captain's orders. The only thing we caught while trolling was our own bouys.

 

SWEET!!! Any idea what the water temps were?



That's pretty common on any brand of level wind reel, that's why a lot of people don't like them.

 

Nice! When's dinner?

 

Depth machine said water temps were 72.



We have one other higher-end wind reel, I can't remember the name. It was the one we found on the bottom while diving, it had barnacles on it, and it still wound and the switches worked just fine (while still underwater). Cleaned the barnacles (and gold plating) off, and we still use it regularly without any problems. I guess that's what you're getting when you spend the big bucks!



Having a fish fry tonight!

 

I honestly can't believe what some of these guys spend on reels, there's some that don't even look that fancy, but have multi speeds, etc, etc and run $1200. I always look at the what the charter boats use because you know their equip gets a shitload of abuse and most of them around here use Penn Senators. The TLD's are a damn nice reel, but dont' like abuse as much. I've got one friend that swears by the TLD's and another that can't live without his 320gt's The Levelwind vs conventional debate is a lot like the Mono vs Braided as far as I am concerned.

 

I had to look up the levelwind vs. conventional thing, I didn't know the conventional type existed in "smaller" reels. I may tell my dad to just snap off the line guide and use it like that, if it doesn't improve with cleaning/lube.



We ate half of the fish last night, fried tempura style with homemade fries as well. It was good, but I think I prefer blackened, you get a lot more of the flavor that way, and it's much less of a mess.

 

You can try that, however the mechanism that drives the levelwinder is connected to the gears that drive the spool so it make not fix it. Depending on how hosed it is you make be able to take it apart, soak everything in pb blaster and put it back together.