Week ending 1/25/10

Saints win NFC Championship! For the first time ever, and after a 43 year excruciating wait our Saints are off to the Super Bowl. As many of you know both Captain Whit and Captain Den were both born in New Orleans. We attended every home game in the Dome when they were little guys usually with brown paper bags on our heads to hide our identity as avid Saints fans.If you haven't lived in the "Big Easy" you just can't imagine what it like to be a Saints fan, inadvertent whistles and all. Anyway the entire family had one heck of a celebration last night with even Whit's old coon hound "Cooper" howling to beat the band ..When the Saints come marching in.. Archie's son Payton better buckle his helmet on the 7th.. See you in Miami.....

We enjoyed a fun Maine outdoor winter weekend. My lifelong friend Terry Shortelle (CT) came up for his first trip to Maine after retiring from his families business after 40 years. Always a true friend and a very kind guy,Terry brought little McCarey a full downhill ski outfit that his daughter had outgrown. Ski's, boots, poles, helmet, goggles, snow pants and jacket. Like every other sport he takes to McCarey took right off like the champ that he is. Pictured "left" all suited with his dog Fisher. Saturday, we spent the day at Powder House Hill in So Berwick. A super little beginners slope not five miles from the house, they have a real nice rope tow with 150 skiers maximum, and no lift line. Once he mastered the rope tow "second try", McCarey made quite a few friends and over 70 runs down the slope.We had a wonderful time enjoying the great snow conditions.

On Sunday morning, Captain Whit called and invited us ice fishing with his friends at Kennebuck Pond. It was my first time on the ice since we pulled "India" out of the water on Jan 15th. The fishing was very slow but the weather was beautiful. Looking at the horizon when your on a lake ice fishing in Maine is like your on another planet, another experience you can't really put into words.. If you haven't done it, please call and come up, the boys and I will be glad take you. Pictured on the right is 7 year old "Hunter" He ran head over heels to the only flag of the day and landed this nice 14 inch small mouth bass. Spring's coming, it's not getting dark till at least 5:23.... Best Satch

Week Ending 1/15/2010

Week ending 1/015/10...Winter preparations for the 2010 season begin ..

Yesterday Frank Davis and I braved the chilly 6 degree morning air, taking the "India Marie" for a little ride out of the harbor, around the bell buoy and back to the launch ramp. Pictured right is Frank in the wheel house as we warmed up the engine for her last ride of the season.

Capt.Scott Worthing hauled her about noon time and gave us a prime dry dock spot right next to the "Gath IV" in his Webhannet River boat yard. Over the next 90 days the crew and I will do our best to pretty up the two girls and bring all their mechanical and fishing systems to like new condition.There's always a lot of annual maintence and a major project or two on each vessel. I can assure you we're going to be very busy refurbishing both boats and bringing them up to the standards we all enjoy ever summer. Lets hope for kinder weather this spring that will make the work more enjoyable. I'll keep you updated on our major projects and our progress every week or two throughout the winter.

India's launch is scheduled for April 27th and Gath's for May 15th.

Yesterday, I submitted our list of lucky anglers to the Maine Dept of Marine resources. This season we had thirty five guests who landed beautiful fish large enough to be recognized by the state of Maine as Tackle Buster Trophies. I'm sure some of these fish were also the largest fish of that species caught anywhere in our state during the 2009 season.We'll soon know as they will be posted on an annual Maine state recreational fishing newsletter. The other really "outstanding cool thing" is that almost all of out trophy fish were voluntarily released back to the ocean unharmed by our forward thinking guests.
Inshore Captain Whit landed more twenty five pound plus trophy stripers than in any of our previous twelve seasons, fourteen in total. Our two largest ever, Rich Palmer (CT's) 47 pound 44.5 incher and Sharon Waterhouse (ME's) 37 pound, 44.75 inch lead the pack.

"Center picture" below is 11 year old Suzanna Van Gelder (NY) and her dad Ed, they are long time annual guests on the Gath III. Suzannah's 35pound, 40.5 inch striper was our 4th biggest of the season. All four of these fish were released alive and kicking after their pictures were taken. Pictured on Suzannah's left is our good friend of many years, Frank Fazio (NH) with his 24 pound, 35 inch striper. On her right is another long time friend Kelly Cleveland (NY) with one of our biggest trophy cod of the 2009 season. Kelly's cod also released alive, wieghed in at 26 pounds, 39 inches. I can't thank you all enough for making 2009 another really fun,special and successful year for our Capt Satch and son crew.



I hope you found the pictures of your family that I posted on our 2009 season slideshow video on You tube. I was also able to edit and upload a "really cool" 5 minute flick of Paulie Mier (PA) catching our largest Bluefin Tuna ever. It's titled Paulie's 15th birthday surprise (click here). There are at least seven Captain Satch videos on you-tube. When you are watching one, if you look to the right there is a highlight: more from Captain Satch, click on that heading and all seven will pop up for your perusal.
Please feel free to e-mail me any video clips you may have of your trips aboard Gath or India. If you'd like to share them with our other guests, I'll try to make a clip of them to post on you tube this winter.