Well, I managed a second trip out on the CT River with the Gemma Rose II, after a brief trial run an some tweaks here and there from last week. I managed a few fish, tested out the Triumph's "World's Toughest Boats" claim, and rescued a group off the river.
I wanted to get an idea of fuel burn, and hopefully catch some pike. I put in at Salmon River Cove around 10 am at the peak of the flood tide, with the winds blowing straight down the river at 15mph and the air temperature in the upper 30s. I have no idea where spring went. Launching was a chore, as no docks have been put in yet, the tide and wind were ripping, and the Triumph was banging against concrete. I also drifted into the pilings pretty hard. Good thing she's not glass. Water temps had pushed up close to 45, and Andrew at the Fishin' Factory 3 had some reports of herring down around the mouth and Eight Mile River. The plan was to fish right through dusk.
There was only one other trailer in the lot, and I found its owner after a short run to the canal. To say the fishing was slow was an understatement. Even the crappie bite was off. Rather than spend time in the canal, which I planned to fish on the way back in, I made a run up to the Mattabasset River. The usual weekend crown was fishing the shoreline the first few hundreds yards in from the mouth. One guy did pull in what was easily a double digit cat, and his buddies were taking a ton of pictures. I continued up in to the confluence with the Coginchaug. The wind was pushing me all over, and the 55lb. thrust transom mount trolling motor from the old Gemma Rose just wasn't cutting it. I need to invest in a new 70-80lb. bow mount with foot or remote. Probably won't happen until next season. The tide was rapidly running out of the Mattabasset, and I decided to keep running north to Wethersfield Cove.
To this point, I had seen the one lone boat on the river. I expected to at least see a few folks on Wethersfield, as the whole tree line was out of the wind. Two guys in 'yaks reported no luck as I started to work the blow downs and the drops. I saw a few big swirls in the shallows, but wasn't sure if they were pike or carp. Regardless, I had no takers on my swim baits or the live shiners I threw out. By this time I was getting a bit fed up, so around 4:45 I decided to start back down river. I checked my fuel burn on the way up. My indicator was showing about a third of my first tank left, or about 8 gallons burned. I was running against a tide and the wind the entire northbound trip, and at 3500rpm was making about 25 mph. Running back down on an incoming tide, I was cruising 30mph at 3800rpm. Not going to compete with bass boats, but no too bad.
I was just above the Pratt & Whitney terminal south of Middletown when I saw only the second boat of the day, anchored in the middle of the river with the engine compartment open and the owners frantically waving at me. These folks had been boat owners for four hours, and obviously were not familiar with the expression "up the creek without a paddle." The GRII isn't exactly a tug, but I threw them a line and told them I could town them down river to a dock. Even going down stream their larger cruiser was tough to manage. I missed swinging them to a dock, and had to settle for taking them into shallow water nearby. In the process I ran over a gravel bank and ended up with some cosmetic nicks on my prop. If I hadn't motored past, the Middletown FD would likely have had to make a trip out. My hope is that the good karma will come around in the form of some nice fishing.
By the time this was done, I was just ready to call it a day. A few crappy crappie was all I had to show, but I did run the entire outing on one of my two twelve gallon tanks, and I pulled a few folks off the river. This will have to do until I return from the UK and can get back out at the end of the month.
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