My day was good, but I was continually lowering my expectations from the get go.... No one at the dock when I got there. OK. I can deal. We get underway after storing bags, gear, and laying rods on bait totes. No rod holders, remember? Dry stack diesel aroma was garnished by a toted of week old pogies... Still going with the flow. Stiff wind was helping with the stink. Did I mention I was headed out on a slow boat? Check. Was mentally prepared. Scratch east of the bank and Jeffries off the wish list. But what was challenging for me to deal with was that this commercial friend, long a fulltime multi species commercial fisherman did not have a gps or a chart... He did have a handheld something or other with a screen smaller than my dumb flip phone. It was never a player. Big old Lowrance depth sounder was what we had... so a lot of time lining up what I thought were my sight lines with the depth. A gps would have told me exactly where to have him put the boat to drift the ledges and hard bottom areas I would have targeted. I tried to convince him to get a cheap gps, but he wouldn't have any of it yesterday. He is a friend, so I won't dump on him. But really???? That is an essential necessary tool for a fishing boat that is a working boat IMHO. Gonna try to talk to him again as I think he will pay for it with fuel saving by being able to go directly to where his gear is. He has two trawls out there he can't locate, at probably a thousand bucks a piece.
So at the end of the day, coming home with fish was a win. (I can't wait to get my own rig in next month...)