rockfish photo

[chrisdetweiler]

Just thought I'd post a photo of a fish I caught last week my 9 weight w/ 300 grain sinking line. I was using a #1 white & white clouser. I marked some large fish near the surface in 65 feet of water. Caught this about 15 feet down.

Chris Detweiler
Harrisburg, PA

[TimeFlies]

Sweet. Leave some for me.

[hamboat]

Nice fish.

Nice boat.

Gotta love the Simmons Sea Skiff.

Joe Evans

[Capt Harry]

Nice work! She'll put the sandpaper roughage on the thumber.:thumbup:
Harry, Out

[chrisdetweiler]

Thanks Joe. We're really enjoying the boat. She's definately a "head-turner". Dave Larrabee really did a nice job getting it painted and put back together for us. It looked brand new when we picked it up. I'm also pleasantly surprised with how well it handle the chop in the bay. We've run it from Annapolis down to Poplar Island and back numerous times. Here is a better photo...

[chrisdetweiler]

Let's try that again...

[paxfish]

Nice lines - Is the motor inboard of the transom in a well? Sort of a surf boat?

[chrisdetweiler]

Thanks. We really fell in love with the design.

Joe Evans (hamboat) could tell you all you need to know about sea skiffs. He used to build them!

They were originally designed with the motor well inside a high transome to protect against a following sea. Tom Simmons starting building them in the 40's in North Carolina. Our boat is fiberglass from the waterline down and wood above. This one was built by Silva in 1990. If you are interested, check out the official website. It gives a history of the boat.

home page (http://www.simmonsseaskiff.com/)

[Chris Newsome]

Chris,

I hope you and your dad are doing well. It was a pleasure getting you guys on the water this summer dispite our bad luck with the weather.

Oh by the way... point those nice stripers south when you release them so that they stay down my way!:thumbup:

[chrisdetweiler]

You can't control the weather. I'll be sure to release all my fish pointing south, but I'm not sure it will work. ;) We'd love to get out with you sometime to fish the CBBT. Not sure when, though. Take care.

Chris Detweiler

[Salmo trutta]

I think I saw one of those boats, several times this summer fishing the sewer pipe just north of the bay bridge and near the eastern shore. This guy was running from Sandy Point with it and on one occasion there were some decent winds and waves.

But this skiff had a kicker, kicker extension handle and a completely open bow with a trolling motor on the front and a honda 25 on the back. He could use the trolling motor to hold himself perfectly over the pipe and was consistently into fish every time I saw him up there. Nice boat. Dirt cheap to run I'm sure and perfect for many situations.

I had to go buy a 14' sea nymph aluminum for my skiff type boat. She works but probably not nearly as well as that skiff.

Is the skiff pictured above self bailing too?

[chrisdetweiler]

On Sunday, we ran our Skiff from Sandy Point to the Sewer Pipe. Then, up to Love Point. Then down to Poplar Island. Then back to Sandy Point. 8 hours on the water and we used about 6.5 gallons of gas. ;)

We have a 30 Yamaha. It will do about 27 MPH, but in the heavier chop we cruise at 12-16. Otherwise it just pounds the !@#$%^&* out of you! Sunday, I was running at 18-22 much of the day. The weekend boat chop is usually worse then the normal waves.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by self-bailing. It has two plugs for bailing, but you need to be up on plane. It won't drain when the boat is not in motion.

So far, it's working just great for us. We'll probably be down on the bay this weekend, so honk if you see us!

Chris Detweiler
Harrisburg, PA

[paxfish]

Welf bailing just means that if you get pooped by a wave, will the buoyancy below the floor raise the boat on it's own (while the scuppers drain). Parker, Whaler and a host of modern hulls do this.

There's plenty out there without the feature that do fine though.

[chrisdetweiler]

Thanks for the clarification. My boat is fiberglass from the waterline down, but I don't think it is self bailing. Is "self-sinking" a category? ;)