By Dan Kibler
Winter isn’t entirely an off-season for fishermen in the Cape Fear area. Some hearty souls will venture out to nearshore wrecks and reefs in search of black sea bass, and others will try and seine the deeper holes in tidal creeks with a slow-moving, soft-plastic bait for the few speckled trout that are stirring.
But even if you aren’t in a boat, you should still have your rod in hand – getting it ready for spring, when the weather and action heats up. Or, you can make it a point to get tips on how better to handle that rod when the Spanish mackerel and flounder return in the spring.
Capt. Rick Bennett of Wrightsville Beach, Capt. Jimmy Price of Southport and Capt. Robert Taylor of Calabash all have ulterior motives for their downtime.
Bennett, who operates Rodman Charters out of Wrightsville Beach, uses the winter months when he’s not fishing for tackle and boat repair. Price says it’s a great time to pick up some fishing knowledge and tips at seminars and fishing/boat shows, and Taylor said it’s time to get your boat back in tip-top shape.
“Fishermen should first be cleaning their reels,” Bennett said. “Don’t let them sit until you’re ready to take them out again in the spring. They’ll deteriorate. Clean your reels well, put oil or grease on them as needed, and spool on new line.”
Going through your rods one by one and checking the guides and reel seats is another chore that can be done fairly quickly. Use a Q-tip to check each guide for any cuts or nicks that could fray your line, possibly causing you to lose the fish of a lifetime the next time you’re out.
Second, Bennett makes sure his tackle box is ready for the spring. He’s said in the past that he will tie as many as a thousand flounder rigs during the offseason, and he also spends his time making his custom-built Rodman rods.
Price does the same work on his tackle that Bennett does. He said fishermen should also keep an eye out for fishing schools, seminars and boating/fishing shows that pop up during January and February.
“There will be a lot of fishing schools to attend, and there are a lot of good speakers out there giving seminars,” he said. “You might want to keep your eyes out for websites and newspapers and magazines to see when the shows are. I think it’s something that somebody who doesn’t have a lot of fishing experience can do. They can go and listen to the seminars and really learn some things in just a short amount of time.”
Taylor, who operates an offshore charter boat, spends a lot of his winter days working on the boat, sanding or painting the hull, doing mechanical work, and getting his Coast Guard inspection. There’s never a better time to do boat maintenance, he said, than the winter months.
Bennett said that preventive maintenance, in the form of winterizing, should be mandatory for all boat owners.
“If you winterize your boat, you don’t have to worry about it until you’re ready to use it again,” he said. “I pulled mine out of the water last year on Dec. 1, winterized it, and put it back in the water on March 15. When I hit the key, it fired right up.
“That end-of-year service is so important.”
Winterizing can be performed as a service at a marine dealer, or you can winterize your own boat, depending on how comfortable you are with tools and expensive parts.
Standard winterization includes running a fogging solution through your boat’s engine while it is running to protect internal parts; spraying a protective, anti-corrosive film on external engine parts; draining the engine block and manifolds and filling the engine with anti-freeze; draining the lower unit of gear oil and refilling with fresh oil; greasing all external fittings; disconnecting the battery and storing it somewhere warm; removing spark plugs and spraying oil on the cylinders; changing engine oil and filter; removing the prop and greasing the prop shaft, and adding fuel stabilizer to prevent condensation in the gas tank; winterize the fresh water system; and remove the outdrive and grease the U-joint.