Striped Bass Bite EXPLODES! Fishing League May Battle Heats Up | Boating safety Tips

Captain Gaige is back for Episode 82 of Bay Rats & Buoys, and the fishing action around the tri-state area is absolutely heating up! Water temperatures are climbing fast and the striped bass bite is officially ON FIRE across the Long Island Sound, New York Bight, and along the Jersey Coast. From working birds to aggressive bass feeding on bunker schools, anglers are finding fish and the season is shaping up as temperatures heatup in the northeast! 

The competition inside  The Fishing League is also reaching another level as teams strategically position themselves to make a run at winning the month of May! Leaderboards are changing weekly with anglers from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut battling it out across multiple divisions. The best part? It’s NOT too late to enter your team! Register now and you still have a legitimate shot to win the month of May while stacking valuable points toward the season-long championship race. Every fish matters and every week the standings get tighter!

Captain Gaige dives into National Boating Safety Week topics and discuss some of the biggest mistakes boaters make while fishing crowded areas amongst the fleet. From panic decisions at the helm to poor communication and unsafe maneuvering around active fishing boats, this episode covers important safety tips that every captain and crew should hear before heading out or into busy fishing grounds this season. Learning how to stay calm, predictable, and aware on the water can make a huge difference for everyone sharing the same fishing grounds.

We’re also officially just FIVE WEEKS AWAY from the 2nd Annual Bay Rats & Buoys Striped Bass Invitational happening June 27th & 28th, 2026! Last year’s event successfully tagged 65 striped bass for conservation and research, and this year we want to tag even more fish while making the event bigger and better than ever. This epic two-day catch-and-release tournament combines competition, conservation, camaraderie, and huge payouts including cash prizes and giveaways. Register your boat now at  Striped Bass Invitational and join us for an unforgettable weekend on the water!

Plus, Captain Gaige and Kory recap entertaining their first open boat trip guests and helping anglers land personal best striped bass aboard  Sand City Fishing Charter. If you’re looking to get on the water this season, private charters are now available!

https://sandcitycharter.com/podcast/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Bear Rats and Buoys. I'm your host, Captain Gage. This is episode 82, season three, on the boat. And man, is it hot today? I am sitting in the sun. You can see I'm a little shiny here. I got my sunblock on for sure because you know it was hot enough to put the air conditioning on in the house tonight. You know, today. It was humid. It's humid here on Long Island today. But I'll tell you what a daylight today on a Wednesday down here in the harbor, there's nothing going on. This place is a ghost town right now. There's no boats moving around. If you're gonna go out fishing, today's the day to do it. You know? Today's the day you call in sick to work, you play a little hooky. Because the fish are here. The bass are here. The fishing's been insane right now. Guys are on the fluke. That bite is starting to heat up a little bit. I know the fluke that we're getting filleted did have squid in them. So if you're gonna get out there and look for the fluke, it's a good idea to have some squid on the boat. Now, I'm checking out TikTok live right now. My last live episode, I started showing everybody different stuff that we use on the boat, and I was showing new stuff in packages that I hadn't opened yet. And TikTok misinterpreted it all and thought that I was trying to sell you guys. They thought I was trying to sell it on TikTok, and that was not the case. Um, I was just showing the stuff, and then there's you know, supposed to uh uh upload and say promotional use and whatnot. Uh, I didn't know if you could do that before, because then it's saying when you upload the video, but I'm live right now, but they were restricting the feed in the live, so they weren't putting it out to the masses, and uh because I was selling stuff that wasn't in the TikTok shop, so that's something new. That didn't happen to me before, but then again, uh I don't go live all the time. My wife goes live, she's got 91,000 followers on TikTok. She's live every day, she's got a big audience and uh a pretty cool network. Mine is a little different. Mine's uh about fishing. Bay Rats and Buoys, uh, you know, I'm a local commercial tow captain here on Long Island and a charter captain, and I try to get out there and fish seven days a week as much as I can. Now, this week, I should say last week I got a call from a guy that wanted to get out and get on an open boat. He didn't want to charter a private boat, and I get that. You know, I got a lot of calls over the last few years, and my website, sanscitycharter.com, kicks ass. Um, we get a lot of uh messages and emails that come in regarding charters. We take a lot of people out during the season, me and Corey. And I've gotten a lot of requests for open boat. People have asked. And the only reason I can say that I didn't do open boat was the scheduling of it. We like to schedule our private charters and get out there on the right tide at the right time when we know the bite is good and knock it out there and you know, have to drive around for three hours to catch one fish. So that's a matter of timing, you know, and it's not always easy, and I get that. So, guys that book uh you know private charters, we base it on the tide and what's going on. And like Frank's got a charter this Friday morning. He asked, What time are we leaving? And I told him exactly what time we were leaving because we wanted the water to start moving, the tide's gonna be going out, outcoming tide's been a better bite right now. But back to the open boat, Andy had called me up and had an experience on another boat where he jumped on an open boat and they caught fish, but he never did catch a fish. They were trolling, but the captain's friends were on the boat, and they were the ones reeling in the first few fish, and he never got to reeling a fish. Just moving the uh camera, the phone camera around for the uh TikTok live. And Andy told me the whole story. So I said to him, hey, look, come on out with me and Corey. It'll be you, me, and Corey. We'll take you out, let you experience what San City Chart is about. And we posted a great video of Andy reeling in three. He got a 37, a 37.5 inch, and a 35-inch stripe bass. So he got three fish that he got to reel in. And we posted a video showing off our uh new Tony Major rods, thanks to Tony Major sending me a great set, uh, two mojo and two wire setups, two for the spoons and the umbrellas. And I gotta tell you, you know, when you see the equipment on the boat and you see the, you know, from the leashes to the outroders to the reels and the rods, it's a great looking setup. It really is. And uh it's very efficient, and the way we use it, me and Corey are dialed in, we know what to do. Um so when we put it out, we're pretty confident that we're gonna hook up. And you know, on charters, we'll we'll troll. Minute we see them stacked up, like even with Andy, we'll stop and troll. Um, I got some footage here. I can't put it on the TikTok live, but I could throw it into episode 82 uh that I captured with the Oakley Metas, the Vanguards that I picked up that I told you was we're recording for uh 3K. And I was watching Corey retrieve the lore. He had a he had a top water, I think he had a super strike on, and the bass was going after it. Now, I love this. I love watching them attack on top water, I really do. That's one of the greatest aspects of fishing, is getting out there and just casting into some fish and watching them blow up on your lure. And how many times do you see them miss? It's the most frustrating thing, but yet it's the coolest thing because you're pissed off that this big 45-inch bass missed your lure, but there's nothing greater than that seeing him come out of the water and breaching the water to attack it and knocking it with his head two, three feet in the air. Uh, it's so cool. And which is why I always tell people when they're going after it, twitch it a little bit, but leave it there. Let it sit there. He'll think they he'll think he injured it and he's gonna come back and grab it, but twitch it a little bit. Don't pull it a foot out of the water or even a foot away from him. Leave it there. And and be patient because uh just that little twitch that you give it after he's missed it, he'll come back and grab it again because he thinks he injured it. And uh works like a charm. Really does. But Corey missed it, he didn't hook up with it. But I got it on on the camera, so it wasn't like, you know, normally I'd have to grab the GoPro and point it and as he's working it, and you know, that's so much harder. So having the glasses on really is a huge help. And even touching the seat right now in the sun, this seat is like a hundred degrees, it's burning my arm right now. Legit. Like it's hot. But I don't want to hear any complaints. If you fucking complain that it's hot out, I will throw a water balloon at you. Maybe something else. But a water balloon. At least a water balloon. I don't want to hear any complaints that it's hot out. It's May. It's not even Memorial Day weekend yet. So I'm happy I got to drive around with the air conditioning on because you don't want to sweat in your car. You could die. I got hockey equipment in the bag. I see guys on my team saying, hey, I got equipment in my trunk. Wait till I open it up later. It's gonna smell. My equipment airs out. I air it out all the time, so it uh it's it's really not uh not that funky. I get home, it it airs out. We air it out when we get home. We don't leave it wet in the bag. That's when it gets a little funky. It gets real funky. But I got a game tonight, 10 o'clock. I'm leaving. I'm down here podcasting on the boat. It's Tuesday afternoon. Uh Wednesday, uh, yeah, it's Tuesday. Nope, it's Tuesday afternoon. And I am down here podcasting on the boat, and later tonight I'll be hosting an executive networking event at Ohica Castle, where I'll be podcasting with business owners and sitting and talking to them and interviewing them about their businesses. Um, yeah, we can say it all started with Bay Rats and Buoys. Bay Rats and Buoys really blew things up. Uh, we're getting over 5,000 downloads amongst, you know, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, all of them are on every platform you can imagine. You can see them all over at SanCityCharter.com. You click on the podcast uh page up there on the right corner. Uh it's on the right side of the menu up there. Hit podcast, and that'll take you to the page where you can see how you can access all the different audio versions. And we are grateful to all our audio and video listeners. We really are. I really don't promote it too much on YouTube, I just put it on the website. Um When we do promote it and put it out there and get it out, you know, it does get a substantial amount of views. We love it. Uh it does really well on Facebook, Instagram, and now we're live on TikTok. So TikTok, we are live on the boat. What is up, everybody? Any uh anglers out there catching striped bass? Shoot us some messages there, and uh we'll shout you out. But we are here in Huntington Harbor on Long Island, and it's about 80 degrees today. Humid, nice breeze, perfect breeze. I'm not dying. It's only a matter of time until one of the GoPros shuts off. There's two of them running right now. Um I even left the 13, the white, or yeah, the white one. I left the white one in the underwater case to see if that helps or hurts it. Because maybe it's protecting it from uh some of the sun. Maybe it's not uh gonna overheat, but those batteries get hot in there and the GoPros overheat. So listen, we use the Sony uh Z V10 or whatever, you know, the Sony mirrorless camera for the uh when we're at Ohica tonight. And they don't overheat when we're using them indoors, but man, you know, they uh all these cameras have their chance of possibility of overheating. And uh they make little fans you put on them and all that stuff. I have an umbrella that I put over these to keep them out of the sun right now, and I didn't bring that down to the boat. But look, I did bring the stand for the TikTok live. Uh uh, you know, I'm upgrading little by little. Last year we put the simrad, the new 12-inch simrad on the boat, and uh yesterday one of the guys here in the marina comes over to me. He's got a beautiful, beautiful Grady White. Big one too. Um he's got spot lock, he's got, you know, twin screw, and he put a new simrad on his boat, and he couldn't get the dimmer on the screen to he's hitting it with a flashlight and looking to see where he'd do it. Well, he had the language set to African. So I don't speak African, but I was able to figure it out based on the symbols, and got it brighter and then adjusted and changed a few things. We had he had uh the transducer plugged into channel one, had it you know running on channel two on the so it wasn't picking up, it wasn't pinging and doing any of that stuff, so uh it was all paused. So we fixed all those settings for Frank, and he is good to go. He will be on the fish very shortly. God bless him, man. He's down here, he's in his 80s, and uh, I tell you, I'd sign off on uh his boat and uh what he's doing right now, 100%. So God bless Frank. He's awesome. And everybody down here knows it, loves it, loves Frank, great dude, and uh we're lucky to have him down here in the harbor, in the marina that we're at. So we'll be putting up fishing league banners this week uh at a bunch of the marinas, fuel docks, and whatnot. That league is absolutely blowing up. If you want to get on the leaderboard, you still have plenty of time to register, get your get your team in, and get over to the fishingleague.com and register your team. You could still win May. You only get to catch three striped bass and one open fish and submit those four fish online, and you could be on top of the leaderboard and win the entire your division for May, and the open division, the family division, the solo shore division. Um those are the three most popular right now. Those are the three out of the five divisions as a pro division and a shore team division that don't have any teams in them yet. Again, we launched this thing. We said we were doing the league in January at the boat show. And uh there's over the 60 plus teams in the league right now, and we're looking to promote it more in New Jersey and get it out there with the helps of Tony Maja and our Jersey fans and loyal listeners. You know, we're gonna get down to the tackle shops there and start promoting it physically and getting them out there and uh do some serious marketing in those areas. But in the meantime, uh it did what we wanted it to do here on the North Shore of Long Island, and it even got a good rollout into the South Shore. Where, if you do follow us online, we are gonna hook you up this week for Memorial Day weekend. This week, I am going to tomorrow, we are going to put up a discount code for the league to get in. So if you do want to register, now is the best time to do it. Uh, we'll put that discount code up there and give everybody a break to get into the league. And like I said, you could still win May. Now, speaking of tournaments, this podcast decided last year we were going to host a tournament. And we had 20 boats register. We tagged 65 bass. It was a tournament for conservation. We were competing for conservation to tag striped bass. We tagged 65 in the tournament, which was epic. Uh, like I said, we had 20 boats registered this year. We're looking to double that and get more people involved. Uh, we got great feedback. And again, samcitycharter.com. You can click on the tournament page up there, or you could also get it at stripedbassinvitational.com. That's the best way to get to the tournament. That's the tournament page, and you can register your boat and get in and enter. That is June 27th and 28th. This year we decided to do a two-day event. Why? Because of the weather that rolled through Saturday, June 22nd last year, uh, in the morning. There was about two-hour window where a squall came through and made it nautical on everybody. There were some boats that never even made it out to fish. They could have waited it out and gone back out for sure. Um, but I'm I'm assuming that by not sending us any, or they just didn't catch any fish, one or the other. However, we did get great feedback. It was an awesome tournament. It was a we had a ton of fun doing it. Me and Corey put it on uh for Bay Rats and Buoys, and this year we created a fishing club. We have the Bay Rats and Buoys second annual striped bass invitational, which is huge, and we created a fishing league. So we keep rolling out with different stuff to keep you guys entertained and moving right along here because we all love to compete. Me and Corey wanted to be in every tournament that was here on Long Island and available to do it and get out there and do it. Now we're busy with charters. Don't get me wrong, especially this time of the year. Um, the bass are here, the fish are here, everybody knows that we have clients that come out with us. You know, we have 25 clients that come out with us two, three times a year. So right there you can see the dates that we have booked, and we're busy just with those 25 people that come out with us. So, you know, we get a ton of leads and a ton of calls that come in saying, hey, could we get out this week? Like a lady just called me. And she's like, Oh, you're a private charter, I'm looking for uh, you know, a big boat. And it was like, nope, that's not us. We're a small private charter, and we get you out, we put you on fish. That's what we do. But hey, if you want to go on the big boats, I have big boats to recommend to you. No problem. Piece of cake. Um, but at the same time, we wanted to compete in every tournament there was. And we were even talking with uh Matt Broderick at the Fisher Magazine last year at the boat show, and we wanted to be in everything that they had available. And the problem that me and Corey found was that a lot of these tournaments had way stations that you had to rush back to with your fish. Well, you can't take a fish that's under 28, and you can't take a fish that's over 31. So when you catch a 50-inch bass, you can't go bring it back to a way station. So that kind of sucks. And that's where I needed to make a fix and fix what was wrong with some of those tournaments because rushing back to a weigh station is just not possible. It's really not. Takes all the fun out of it. You have to stop fishing, run in, may hope you make it. And we figured out a way. So if you head over to the fishingleague.com, you will see how you can do this all from a phone on your boat, and you don't have to rush back anywhere. It's that easy to submit your fish, okay? And it's all explained on the website. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me. Uh, we will start posting more videos explaining how it's done and how easy it is. You take a photograph with our measuring device that we give to you when you register your boat and you put your team in and you submit those online and you get points. It's a point system. So there are points per fish, okay? And there's a species multiplier to make it fair for the harder fish to catch, you get more points. Obviously, the porgies are a lot easier to catch. You're going to get less points for catching porgies. So we've we figured it out. And it works, and it's working, and people are registering boats and signing in and making teams and having a ton of fun. And we're starting to promote the leaderboards and put it out there. So that's all just happening. The season just really started. You know, I'm finally down on my boat on a regular basis. See, I still haven't seen everybody in the marina yet. Some of the boats are in, I haven't seen these guys yet, but their boats are here and they're rocking and rolling. So that's the fishing league. Now, let's talk about the bass because west of us, there is a huge body of fish. Manny from the west knows best, and man, did he catch a beauty the other day? He's caught a bunch of beauties, but he's only sharing the, you know, a f a handful of them with us. Uh, we have a fishing club, Bay Rats and Buoys has a fishing club meeting tomorrow night, and I'm sure that's when we're gonna hear from Manny, uh, all of the other species and all the other fish that he caught out there. No doubt about it. So we'll see what happens tomorrow night. In the meantime, he's catching a lot of fish west of us. There's big bunker pods west of us. Uh we are seeing what they're feeding on here, and uh I think it's uh mackerel. I think they're feeding on mackerel in our area. Uh we are seeing a ton of bait in the water. We're not seeing pods up on top. We're not seeing them pushed up, but the birds are still getting in and grabbing them. And that's when you get the visual, you know, you get to see a visual on the bait because the birds are coming out of the water with it, and it was not a bunker that they came out with. So there's a few other options there, but uh one of the guesses was that uh it was mackerel. You always got croakers and butterfish and all the other bait that are here in the water. And uh my kids threw lines in here at the dock the other day. Now it was an outgoing tide, it was starting to go low and whatnot, and the fishing's not usually great then. Now the tide's high. This is when the fishing's usually good from high end to outgoing. The bottom of ebb has been lights out. Absolutely lights out. So what's up, TikTok? You guys are checking this out live right now where uh I am recording this to go put this up. It's unedited, it's raw. Um, I don't make any edits to the audio. I don't fix anything. If I fuck up, it's a fuck up. I leave it in there. You know? What can I do? I'm not gonna uh make this thing perfect. It's a podcast. Uh we sit and talk about boating and fishing on the boat, and that's it. I keep it simple. This way I can get it out and get it up. Usually it's up by Thursday, 6 o'clock. It's Tuesday. Uh I got podcasting tonight, I got a hockey game, so let's call today a wash. All right. I don't think I'm gonna have time to put it up today. Uh, but you can pretty much bank on it being up Wednesday early and get it out into all the Facebook groups because in the Facebook groups it does really well. Um, it gets pushed out uh via Facebook. They're always sending me uh messages that because of the high quality content, that they're actually promoting it. And uh that's why it does real well monthly. The numbers on it, the the analytics on it are astronomical. And we do well. We do well as far as the visibility on social media. And I I thank you guys, the loyal listeners, you know. We love it. And locally, you know, we have a lot of fun. When we're in the deli, we're in the tackle shop, you know. Hi, we're over at High Hook, we're over at Gold Coast, we're at Compass Rose, um, you know, we stop into West Marine, we're in the local 7-Elevens, we're in the supermarket, wherever I am, uh, we run into people that uh comment and let us know how much they love bear. And they yell at us on the boat, and we see them at the fuel dock, and there's always uh somebody yelling. All right, so check this out. I'm at the fuel dock, right? Pull up to the fuel dock, going out with Andy. Uh we had a couple bars on the boat, probably would have been fine, but you know, me, I don't like to uh have to call, you know, I'm a commercial tow captain, I don't need a fuel drop. At least I shouldn't need a fuel drop, I should know better. So I stopped at the fuel dock, right? Pull up behind this big boat. And uh, you know, I want to say, you know, easy, easy 40-footer. You know, let's let's just call it a 40-foot sea ray, right? And uh we're stern to stern. So I pulled in behind him. He's behind me, he's facing heading west, I'm facing heading east. And I waited for the boat behind him to pull out, but they were set up the same way. So we pulled in. Now we're pumping gas. His wife starts untying the boat, and you know, this is six feet between us, between my engine and his swim platform. And I got a single screw on here, it's a 23-foot center console, eight foot nine-inch beam, a lot of room, got a platform where the engine is off the back. So he goes to, I'm assuming, that he's gonna crab to the right and use his joystick to do whatever he does and get off the dock, right? Well, his six feet is now a foot, and he's about a foot from my engine when everybody is yelling at him to go forward that he's not going forward, because the minute he untied from the dock, the wind out of the That we had was already gonna blow him to me. So he was worried about getting off the dock, but he wasn't worried about drifting and getting blown back into me. And it's these mistakes, it's these human errors that I don't care how big your boat is, I assume you know nothing and you just got it. And I could tell you some people that I'm friends with that just got some big boats, and they'll they'll attest to that. They'll tell you, I am not good at driving my boat right now. I just upgraded to a bigger boat. So I assume this is his first time driving that big boat because he's driving it like he has no fucking clue what he's doing. And that happened right here at the fuel dock. And then we got this other one on tape. You know, thank God for the the um the Oakley glasses and the camera. I gotta tell you, because uh one of the other captains out there sent me a message, and this is fucking great. I'll put it up on the screen. This was the acronym he sent. Wafee. WAF Yeah, Wafee. W-A-F-I, is what he sent over. Now you got 31 boats out fishing a ledge on a reef, and there's navigational cans, there's markers out there, there's all kinds of stuff, right? You got 31 boats, and here you have it. This clown on the sailboat decides he's going to sail right through all the fishing boats. And when I tell you how many people had their hands up in the air, Adam, like, are you are you serious? Like, you can't just go 40 feet around everybody and stay on the outside of the fishing boats. You actually have to go through them. I mean, it was unbelievable. So I get this text message and I can put it up on here on the screen. Waffy. And it was like, get a load of this wind-assisted fucking idiot. And that's exactly what he wrote to me. Now, I had turned in towards going towards the sailboat because I wanted to get this guy with my glasses. All I have to do is look at you and I'm recording you. So I don't have to point a GoPro at you, which uh makes this a fun and uh easy to capture. So here he is, you know. Uh I don't care where he's from. Uh, this is just something you now, this is not just sailboats, mind you. You got guys coming from New York City, heading out to Montauk, heading out to the Hamptons, heading out to Greenport, wherever they're going, going out to Port Jeff. Not this year, they're not, but wherever they're going with their power boats, they see these 31 boats all congregated on a reef, and they decide to drive through them at 40 miles an hour, throwing a wake and a rooster tail that's coming up higher than most of these boats. And it just doesn't make any sense. I mean, do they think throwing their wake at boats that are sitting still is a good idea? They're a boater. They're supposed to know better, and I don't think they do. We call them googens, they have no fucking idea what they're doing, and it happens all the time. Uh, just like the guys that see a fish splash in the water, and then they get up on plane and they run and gun right over to it and drive right over it, right through it, and then stop looking around like, where was it? Where was it? Where was it? Where is it? Where did it happen? And everybody else is watching you, just totally making fun of you, going, Oh my god, stay as far away as you can from that guy. And there's a couple. There really is. There's a couple is a known boat, and it's a shame. I gotta talk to somebody in that marina and see if I can get the intel to them because I'm not gonna rat them out on here. I've already mentioned it, but I don't want to um, I really don't want to do that. That's not what this platform is for. That's not what I'm using it for. I if I wanted to sit here and bash boaters all day long, I it would be an endless amount of bashing. For real. But when the birds are working and the fish are jumping out of the water and the boats are kind of all circled and congregated around it and kind of moving with it and casting into it, uh, there is one group specifically that just doesn't know any better and drives right into them or drive right through them and uh, you know, kind of ruins it for everybody else. And I get it. Look, you know, a lot of people just don't know. They don't know. Uh and are they gonna learn? Is somebody gonna teach them? I don't know. Because obviously their parents didn't teach them, like I teach my kids how to do it. Right now, the wind is blowing out of the south. You untie the boat, what's gonna happen? You gotta know what's gonna happen to your boat the minute you untie it so that you know which direction you gotta keep your bow or your stern in. Because once you're sideways into this, you're a billboard, you're gonna blow around. You gotta know better. So I get that all the time down here. Guys will call me up and say, hey, can you know, can we get some training, me and my son, and get out there. And uh, whether it's a single screw, twin screw, triples, quads, whatever you got, joysticks, no joysticks, a single screw is gonna be the hardest boat to control. 100%. A single screw engine is gonna be the hardest boat for you to drive. And the hardest boat for you to dock. When somebody comes into the marina holding a dock pole, that's when I that's when that's when my ears perk up. Like, okay, why are they holding the dock pole? It's usually a telltale sign right there. That tells you something. So, if you need lessons, take them. You know, when I go snowboarding, uh, I take lessons. Why? Because I want to get up there with a 21-year-old kid that knows how to adjust my bindings and make it so that I can do exactly what I want to do for the conditions on this freshly groom mountain that I'm paying to come down privately. It's awesome. My kids, they take private ice hockey lessons. They take lessons. You know why they take lessons? Because they're gonna learn. I was a hockey instructor in my 20s. I taught hockey. I teach my kids, but I'm dad to them, you know. They don't want to listen to dad, they want to listen to somebody else. And I get that. We all get that. You know, coaching comes from a coach, and it's best perceived that way. You yell at them, they're tired of you. I yell at them all the time. They're tired of hearing me yell at them. And I get that. But when it comes to boating, there are so many things you have to know before you untie your boat. There really are. And when shit goes wrong, so there was a captain down here yesterday, he's a captain 30 years here in the harbor, uh, probably one of the most famous captains here, and we were having a conversation. And, you know, we were admitting some of the things that had gone wrong in our boating careers. What has happened? Him recently had one, you know, back in March, uh, where he had a smaller bait boat that he uses to drive around sunk. So when, you know, that happened to him, everybody else comes out of the closet saying, Oh, yeah, I had one sink on me back in 2010. And, you know, everybody tells you they're, you know, there were stories of what happened to them. And so we were chatting, and I was telling him some things that happened to me as a commercial tow captain and things that happen out there on the water. Um, and funny jokes that come about from some of the, you know, some of the municipalities, whether it be the harbor master or the cops that'll say to you, hey, you know, you tell them what happened, and they're like, is there any video of it? No, and you're like, no. Then he's like, then it never happened. And I'm like, no, it really did happen, though. You know, and you tell the story because you want to tell the truth and tell and talk about it. You nobody's perfect. When it comes to being on the water, nobody's perfect. You're gonna learn, you're gonna make mistakes, and you hopefully you learn from your mistakes before you have to put an insurance claim in. You know, that's the scary part, is when you're doing damage to other people's boats, that's when it gets out of control. Put the thing in neutral and shut it off and just say I'm done. Hands up in the air, somebody come help me. When I ran the Freedom Boat Club, now this is not picking on any of your stereotypes. Don't go laughing now, but there was a Chinese, there was a Chinese family coming back in, and this guy hit. He ripped the Bimini top off, he hit boats, he hit five, and he, you know, the fingers on the right side coming in were all 40-foot boats, these are all big boats. And then that he turned the bow of that boat towards us at the dock, and I shit you not. In everybody's mind, we said, holy shit, he's gonna gun it, and we're all gonna die. That boat is gonna jump the dock, and everybody's yelling at him to just shut it off. Pull the kill switch, pull the kill switch, turn it off, turn it off, just leave it where it is. We'll get you back. You're not far from the dock, we will get you back in. And I can say this, and a lot of people can probably relate to it. Um when shit goes wrong, it goes wrong real fast, and everybody gets into like yeah, you have that panic mode, all right? And it's that's what you want to avoid. You want to avoid panic because when you're in panic mode, you are not gonna operate the same way as when you are calm and handling the situation and knowing how to handle it and knowing what to do. That's the confidence that I have that because I train a lot of boaters and teach them the different experiences, what do you do if your engine's on fire? What if you do if you're taking on water? Um, there are so many remedies to these things that you have to act quick and you know you're hoping lives aren't at risk. You know, you're that's really the number one concern is safety. So once safety's taken care of, now we can worry about the boat afterwards. You know what I mean? So if your boat's going down and you're out there, the Coast Guard's not worrying about saving your boat, they're taking the souls off the boat and putting them on theirs, and that's it. The boat can be replaced, but the souls cannot. So that's how you have to think. Safety first. So when people are messing up at the fuel dock, it's not scary at all. It's scary. And it's what separates that, you know? So being out here on the water, you know, you gotta take it serious. So me and Corey, there's no drinking with us on the boat. We don't drink, we're not drinkers, we don't smoke, we don't do anything. Um we come out, we're worried, uh, we're taking paying passengers, there's a paying fare in the boat. Even if it's not, the the safety issue doesn't change. You know, safety is precedence, number one. And making sure we're prepared if something does go wrong. Are we equipped? Do we have what we need? You know? So I I even reached out to the guy that comes down every year and does the VSC, uh, you know, the vessel safety inspection. So and it is, it's a VSC, it's a vessel safety check. Okay, and there's a checklist. And you have to have everything. And I have everything. But last year, taking the boat home from Port Jefferson, I hit a tree. And that tree branch knocked off the white cap that's on my all-round white light up at the top on the simrad that we had installed last year. I learned my lesson. I even told the captain yesterday one of the one of my war stories was I drove home from the boat ramp and left my antenna up. There's a $300 lesson, unless you want to get the cheap antenna. Uh there's a $300 lesson that when you tell people you did that, forget about it. The Harbor Master told me they've done it a million times. You know, and it doesn't make you feel any better. You still have to spend the $300. Uh, but yeah, you know, it's shit that we all do. So I told the uh, you know, the Coast Guard auxiliarist, Rob, that I gotta put off setting up my appointment. I asked him if he had a stickers yet. And because I like to get it on the stick, the sticker on, so just and this is just so passengers see that the boat's been inspected. Not that, you know, you're not gonna get boarded out there. We get boarded every year by the DC, by the Coast Guard, who cares? Check whatever you want. We got it all. We're proud to have it, and uh it takes a few minutes and they're gone. And you know, sometimes if they recognize you, they they they make it a little easier on you. If they don't, oh well. But I have to get I have to stop at Compass Rose. I took a picture of it yesterday, and I gotta stop and get the light that goes into the 90-degree bar that comes out of the simrad and goes up to the top there. The wiring is there, the light works. I just really need the cap to put it on. But I I obviously broke the cap off, so I don't think it's gonna screw on or whatever. We'll check that out. That's my one fix. And if Andrew doesn't get down here and fix the other thing, he's dead. And I'm gonna see him tomorrow night. I'm gonna see, he's gonna see me the night that this gets posted, so he's gonna be calling me and texting me. Oh shit, I forgot. I'll hear about that tomorrow. Hey, listen, this time of the year, guess what? Good luck getting a mechanic. Good luck. Which is why I have three of them, because one is never enough. You know, two could be busy, one you may have a chance with, three might be busy, and uh, yikes. Then what? I mean, luckily, you know, if I blow the whistle, you know, I'm a charter, so they do come running, they come and help, which is nice. It really is. They know we gotta be up and running. And uh, listen, it's a boat. Shit happens. We're checking the time here. I'm hoping you guys can are picking up some of the audio on the TikTok that you're hearing it. Um the wind is blowing out here, but it's blowing at me. So I don't know what the audio is gonna be like. I'll have to look back at the recorded version of the live and see if they put any restrictions on me this time. As far as uh I'm not showing any items to sell. But yeah, boating season has begun. I'm gonna be podcasting on the paddle pub with Amanda. I will be out at Whalestail podcasting with Sash. We will be at the Montauk Canyon Challenge for eight days out in Montauk for that tournament. Uh, very excited about that. We're gonna podcast with the East End Anglers on their boat out east this year. So we got a lot of stuff planned. We're gonna be with Brandon over at Causeway. We're gonna do a nice podcast with him on the boat and uh show you the tuna bite and show you what's going on. I got a call today from Tuna Tom, which was great to hear from Tom because I sent out the invitation to everybody for the uh strike second annual strike bass invitational that this podcast, Bay Rats and Buoys, hosts. And it's our second year. So uh it's five weeks to the tournament. We sent out the registration to everybody, and we will tell you to jump in early so that we can get the numbers right on how many tags we want to get and uh figure out what we're gonna do with this uh tournament this year. Because we got to double what we did last year. Last year we tagged 65 striped bass. This year we got to tag 130, maybe 150. Uh, me and Corey tagged one. I got a nice release I could put here in the video. I can't do it on the TikTok live. That I will figure out how to do to share some videos with you guys while I'm talking, if that's possible, to have them in the queue and put them up. I'm sure there's a way. Um But we did, when we were with Andy, we wanted to show Andy how he tagged a fish, and his best friend had passed away, and he normally would have sent his best friend the photograph of the fish, because his friend would have shared the fish that he's catching with him. He was in Florida, and uh Andy's friend's nickname was Triggs. So on the card for the striped bass that we tagged, we named the fish Triggs. So hopefully this thing gets up to Martha's Vineyard and somebody catches it far away from here. And uh it was an over, so you got to release it anyway. But it would just be nice to see where it travels to. These are not the satellite tags, guys. These are the tags that get bumped in, they get inserted, they stay in the fish. They have an 800 number on them that says we'll call for reward, and then it has a tag number. I submit the tag number and the information on that fish to Gray's Fish Tag Research, and then you catch the fish, you call that number and you tell them where you caught it, and then that that's how they're gonna know it went from where I am to where the person that caught it is. And uh no, we haven't gotten any intel back on the fish that we caught last year, the 65 bass that we tagged in the tournament. So one year I tagged 53 sharks from the beach, I have not gotten any intel back on those 53 sharks that I tagged. So, how long is it gonna be until until somebody catches those sharks? Maybe never. It may never happen. Um, but you tag them for conservation, you tag them for good reason. You know, maybe that thing gets caught in five, six, seven, eight years, and you see the you hear the size of it doubled, which would be great, you know. So that's why I get involved in that stuff, guys. Want to keep this fishery good. I want to keep the fish around for my kids. My kids love fishing. Um, I love getting the kids involved in fishing. Anytime I can help out any of the youngsters, giving them gear, giving them tips, any of that stuff. I'm always down for that. And uh again, uh there is a family and youth division in the league as well, so I didn't leave anybody out. If you're a kayaker, a solo shore angler, or a boater, there is a division for you at thefishingleague.com, and that's the website, thefishingleague.com. You can head over there and register your boat and get involved. Um, but in the meantime, five weeks away from our striped bass tournament, the striped bass, striped bassinvitational.com is the website for that. You can get that over at sandcitycharter.com. That's the boat I'm sitting on now here in Huntington Harbor. Beautiful day. I can't believe the GoPro did not overheat and go beep, beep, beep and shut off. Um at least one of them is still running, which is a good sign. And I thought the white one would have outlasted the heat and not take absorbed the heat as much. The black one, the 12 is better than the 13, um, in my opinion. 13 shut off a little too much in the heat, but we'll see how it all goes. TikTok seems to still be live. I don't know. I really, you guys with the sunglasses on, I'm sitting here talking to the phone. Uh, the best I could do today, I cannot see that screen, and uh I'm not gonna sit here and look at it while I'm doing the podcast, just to give you a live view of what's going on. This is raw and unscripted. Once a week, I put this podcast up and out on every platform you can possibly watch and listen to a podcast. Apple Podcasts also started streaming videos, so the video version of this will be up on Apple Podcast, um, which is the majority on the audio version. It does it does real good on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Those are the three of the top streaming platforms for the audio version. And now the video version will be available on Apple Podcasts. So thank you, Apple, for uh coming around and keeping up with the technology. We all know we were talking about it yesterday on the boats here about some of the technology. It's insane, really is. Soon AI will be catching fish for you. In the meantime, I like doing it the way that we do it, having to be out here in the sun. Live bait. There's nothing better than live bait. So throwing the cast net, getting some live bait, or actually fishing for the live bait before you go fishing. That's uh another great way to do it. And uh, Manny from the West, John, you're on the leaderboard, buddy. The Clam Slammers have made it onto the leaderboard. I think the last one that got on yesterday was uh Fisha Hollicks. The Fisha Hollicks uh jumped on with uh catching a fish. We got a lot more submissions of fish this week. Again, you don't have to submit them until the end of the month, so everybody might think they're winning, and then on, you know, May 28th, 29th, 30th, everybody's gonna start submitting their three featured species catches and their one open species. And uh again, the fish could get rejected because you didn't take the picture the proper way. There is a diagram on the website to look at and see how to measure the fish with the mouse closed mouth closed to the stop, and you take a picture, and the distance of that fish is to the fork, okay, not to the tip of the tail, so no reason to squeeze the tail. We want to see that fork and see where the number is, and then you would get points equated to the measurement of that fish. So, give you a good example, a 40-inch bass would equate to a species multiplier of 1.5. So a 40-inch bass would equate to 60 points for you on the leaderboard, and that is how you go up and down the leaderboard all season long. You really can't go down, so no points ever gonna be deducted from you uh unless you screwed up and did something really, really bad. Other than that, uh no points will be deducted from you. Uh everybody else will just get ahead of you. Uh, but you got plenty of time to jump in, guys. You can win any month. So whoever wins May is gonna win May. June, it's a whole new, fresh new start on the monthly featured species leaderboard. And all those points accumulate on the divisional leaderboard for the entire season. So somebody's gonna be the grand champion in the open division with all the points uh from April 15th to December 15th. Okay. Um but you can easily join right now, register your team, and get out there and win the month of May and win the prizes and the Tony Majai gear that we have and the Montauk Go Deep and all the different stuff that we bought and purchased and was given to us by our sponsors to give away to you guys. So we're excited to give it away. You guys just got to sign up, register, and win it, and it's yours. In the meantime, head over to the websites and check it out. This is episode 82, season three on the boat. And this one was brought to you by Cito Huntington. Visit CETO.com and join today. Also, JM Seafood, our grand prize sponsor for the striped bass invitational.com. Thank you, JM Seafood of East Northport Nissa Talking. We couldn't do it without you. And I am Captain Gage, San City Charter. If you want to go fishing with me and Corey, head over to San CityCharter.com and check us out. In the meantime, wishing everybody bent rods, tight lines, and I'll see you out on the water. Captain Gage signing off over and out.

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