A planer board deployed. This pulls the bait away from the boat, one on each side. When a fish takes the bait, the like drops out of a clip and the board doesn't interfere with recovering the fish.
Sort of a close up of the planer board stowed in the boat.
As you can see, my daughter, Debbie wasn't all that happy with being up so early. Then, the beauty all around on the lake was worth getting up. The fall colors are just arriving. John Kerr Reservoir is huge, about 40 miles long. This trip was to allow a charter captain to teach us novice how to fish.
The charter captain, Ramrod, is well known as an expert striper fisherman and guide. Retired from Phillip Morris in Richmond, VA about 20 years ago and relocated near Townsville, NC, right on Kerr. Been running charters ever since is well known and respected for his ability to find stripers.
Debbie's now with a smile with her first catch of the morning. Not legal size, but . . .
Well, after 5 hours of floating around on the lake, the fish found the boat. Hooked 3 with two 26 inch keepers and one smaller toss back. That was it for the day, but we learned a lot to apply to the Big Daddy fishing boat.The pond jon was too tippy and specifically a one person boat. So, the Neptune became the Daddy fishing boat. As a first, it's not great as just a fishing boat, but . . .
Still have the pond jon to play with in the shallows of Staunton River State Park. Many of the lessons learned from it are being applied to the Big Daddy!
The original bow stop was black rubber and marked the stem badly.
Added the side bunks to help get the boat recovered from the launch. Almost learned how to do it.
Got tired of trying to adjust the original transom tie downs and substituted the retracting ratchet.
