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I did a lot of canyon fishing off of LI in the 70's and 80's but it was always in a large safe boat. We had hit some very heavy weather but I was never as worried as the day I was in a boston whaler...
For me the worst was a flat calm day in a boston whaler fishing around Block back in 1982/3. It was so nice and the fish were biting...it was great. We broke out the light tackle and headed for a ledge about 12 miles south of the Island. I said I normally don't like going off shore in a whaler but it was like a mill pond warm and sunny, not a cloud or even a breeze. We got out to the spot and hooked into some amazing fish (we were chumming). Had a ball until I looked up after hearing a faint rumble. I then saw the blackest cloud. It had a green/purple tint to it. And it was making a beeline right for us and we could not go around it. I looked at my friend and said. This looks bad, lets get the hell back to Block now! We ran wide open for about 10 minutes and got nailed. The gusts were unreal . Lighting hitting the water all around. Water was pooring over the bow, running the lenght of thq 16 ft boat, slamming into and over the transome . Stuff was washing overboard. I was worried about losing the whole boat and had my life vest on. The waves were so big relitive to the boat that your perspective changes. It was raining so hard and the wind was blowing the seas you could not see a GD thing. We just qrt'ed into it with the boat in the steepest bow up angle and ran slowly like that until it passed. I saw mini twisters and stuff I never saw before. Then it passed. The wind stopped and the seas calmed and the sun came out. We went to our house at Block and spend the next few days on dry land. My wife asked....Gee there was a bad thunder storm here did you guys get wet?..WET? hell no! we avoided that storm and we caugh a hell of a lot of fish! How do you want to cook them?
Never been in a whaler since. Good little boat but don't take it out of the bay.
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