Snook Fishing the St. Lucie Locks Stuart, Florida 9/30/12

[Disturbed]

So my buddy Mike and I decided to head out early Sunday and try out some snook fishing on the St. Lucie Locks, right around the corner from my house. It started off at about 6 am, full moon, cool crisp air, and looking like great conditions.

I noticed some white smoke coming from my engine, that I initially chalked up to oil since the boat sat for a couple weeks. 1/4 mile later, I noticed the smoke was still there and then the engine sputtered and shut off. Hmmm, I thought. That's strange. She started back up hesitantly, but we kept going to the bridge where we wanted to look for Snook. After getting there, we spent about 30 minutes casting, but to no avail. No hits, no signs of anything on the fish finder. So, we decided to go further south.

We got about 500 yards off the bridge and once again, a sputter, and bam. she died. Couldn't get it restarted.

Now, the rest of the story. About 3 weeks on this same stretch of the Locks, my wife noticed we were riding way low in the @$$ end. I made the great rookie mistake of forgetting to put the plug in boat. Thank god for a working bilge pump. (Since that incident, I now have a second bilge pump with a float, connected directly to the battery.) I took on a lot of water that day, but I had about 3/4 tank of fuel. We went out again, the next weeked with no problem. Quick trip to the sandbar and back.

Last weekend, I replaced the water seperator due to it being a Racor 10 micron instead of the 25 micron that the OMC filters are. I had had a problem with it shutting off when running wide open and thought this was the problem. When I took off the Racor, I emptied it into a mason jar. 50/50 water and fuel. This should have been a HUGE red flag I suppose, but I thought to myself, it was doing its job, even thought I just put that filter on about 2 months prior.

So, on to this current trip. I didn't refuel since almost sinking it, and I was now at 1/4 tank of fuel when I left. After the boat died, while waiting 2 1/2 hours for Sea Tow to show up, I pulled the floor up and checked the fuel tank. I noticed a screw was missing from the sending unit and what appeared to be a possible water intrusion area around the gasket. Light bulb went off as to the attempted sinking and this gap and low and behold, I found out how water got into my fuel. I guess the fuel level dropped low enough that it was sucking water instead of fuel. Does that sound right?

Anyway, on Wed I'm going to drain and clean the tank, fix the gap in the fuel sending unit, and hopefully just cleaning the carbs will work. I hope I don't have to rebuild them now.

As for the fishing, we didn't catch anything. While waiting, we were casting our butts off and nothing. We did get to see quite a few 1-1 1/2' Ladyfish jumping all around us just out of range.

Funny thing. Still had fun though. One lesson learned is that from now on, I will bring beer even if I'm going out when it's dark. You just never know.

[Redneck]

The best trips are the unplanned ones not sure why but it seams that way to me.

[ssiredfish]

Kinda ironic you were sidelined while lookin for linesiders........

anyone, anyone??

[Disturbed]

Lmao.. Ok, I'll give that one to ya!!