Offshore Trolling - Part One

Depending on where you live, offshore trolling is not necessarily an activity that is reserved for large boats. In Florida, generally speaking, it depends on a combination of the species you are targeting and the region of Florida where you are launching your boat. It is not necessary to go 50 miles offshore to catch big fish. One thing to keep in mind is that Florida's east coast runs at an angle in a Northwest to Southeast direction, but the Gulf Stream runs North to South. This means that the further south you go, the closer to the Gulf Stream you are. In Jacksonville, the Gulf Stream is about 60 miles offshore, in Cape Canaveral it is about 40 miles out, in Fort Pierce it is 14 miles offshore and in West Palm Beach, it is the closest to the east coast of Florida at around 4 miles. Even though the Gulf Stream may not be within your reach , there are many reefs that hold large fish within the range of fairly small boats almost anywhere you launch in Florida. I have a 20 foot Key West Walkaround Cuddy with a single Suzuki 140hp four-stroke outboard. I have been more than 30 miles out off the coast of Cape Canaveral. When you own a smaller boat, before you head offshore, I suggest two things. First, study the weather and marine forecasts the night before your offshore excursion. You can obtain the best marine report for your area at http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/index.shtml. At this site you can obtain the latest data directly from the weather buoy located offshore. The main thing to look at is the wind speed (WSPD - lower number is best), wave height (WVHT - lower number is best), duration between waves (DPD - higher is best) and the Marine Forecast, which will put this data into more of a layman's terminology. Remember that a wave height of 3 feet at 3 seconds duration is much worse than 4 feet at 10 seconds. The shorter the duration, the more chop there is to the waves, which results in a rougher trip. The other thing to consider if you want to fish offshore is a membership with a towing service such as Seatow. This is especially important if you have a single engine boat as I do. Let's say you are 35 miles out of port fishing on top of a known wreck and your engine quits. A tow back to port can easily exceed $1000. With a Seatow membership, you only pay around $120 per year. Once incident can make it well worth your while. Also, make sure you have all of your safety gear. Remember, you can't swim to shore when you are 30 miles out as easily as you can when you are fishing near docks and shoreline for inshore species. You should have life vests for everyone on board, flares, first aid kit, marine VHF radio (to contact Seatow if needed), GPS, Compass (if your GPS fails, you can always find your way back to shore using the compass) and Depth Finder/Fish Finder (important as there are sandbars and shallow zones miles offshore in some areas of Florida).
Next time, we will talk about some trolling techniques that small boats can use to catch fish like the big guys.