Reminiscing....

[WRHardie]

Came across a few old photos I had from back in the DeWolf days I figure I'd share with you guys. I know she's not a DE but an Eastern Rig so that ought to count for something,

 

[jwalka51]

those are some danm nice sea bass. I wish that I could pot them like that.

 

[WRHardie]

Yeah they were slammers and just kept coming, we started fishing 6 hook rigs off the machine, ended up dropping 30 hook rigs. The all came from 80 fathoms on a wreck somewhere off the coast of Va. The grouper came from the same wreck and damn near snapped the junk yard hauling arms we knocked up for this trip. Good times and good pay checks man!

 

[WRHardie]

Sad how she met her end yet pretty cool how she came to be. She was built by Dana Gibson in the 70's when the pelagic longline gear really took off. She carried a pulpit for a while too and stuck swords when not setting surface gear. Gibson fished her out of New Bedford for a while and John Larson bought her sometime in the late 90's.When he bought her she was just rust and a trawl winch, apparently she served as a dragger for time after Gibson owned her. She set the string for a couple few years then regulations limited the amount of time she would spend out east. In my time on her come November the longline drum came off and the gillnet gear took its place. Once our DAS were used up we took her south to fish sea bass. We came back spent near a month with needle guns, grinders, and paint cans and got her looking real pretty! After a little down time I got a call that we would not be going tuna fishing that year or ever again and our fist scallop trip was coming up. Well I hated scalloping, mindless and what seemed like endless shucking. Outriggers and birds weight in different places, she was a totally different boat. I had enough and left to work the charter boats in my home town but would come back every fall/winter to haul monk gear. Then I got another phone call that nearly broke my heart. She was no more...

JOHN DEWOLF II