Fishing Features
The Reel Hazardous has a custom heavy duty T-Top that comes with a removable tower. This tower is very helpful because it allows crew members to spot fish or structure that might hold fish, such as weedlines or floating debris. Its also great in the spring time when the cobia make their run up the coast following the Manta Rays. Anglers can easily spot the Rays and cast out to the cobia.
Blue LED lights were mounted to the transom for several reasons. One, these lights attract bait and fish when fishing at night. Second, these lights are great for when the crew is diving at night or early in the morning. The divers can spot the boat much easier, ensuring they won't get too far from the boat.
The boat also has 15 ft outriggers and a downrigger on each side. The outriggers are rigged so that 2 lines can be clipped on each pole so that bait and teasers can be pulled at the same time without tangles. Taglines also clip midway down the outriggers so that heavy high speed lures can be pulled fast for wahoo.
The downriggers are used mostly during the summer when slow trolling live bait for Kingfish but they are also used to pull teasers from the transom. Sometimes we even mount cameras to the downrigger to catch a fish as he strikes our deep bait!
There are two things that you can never have too much on a boat according to Captain Jeremy, (Well three if you count horsepower!) and that is rod holders and cup holders. These rod holders are mounted pointing out for when the crew slow trolls for Kingfish. (The Outriggers aren't sensitive enough for the small treble hooks and live bait.) Other rod holders are mounted all along the gunnels and transom. The key is to have plenty so rods that you are not using aren't in the way. The best place is usually in the middle in the rocket launcher or the T-Top. Cup holders are also great to have. Cup holders are great for holding extra weights, tools, bait, and occasionally a drink. Its great to have these scattered throughout the boat. They even make a rod holder that doubles as a cup holder. Now that's useful!
Electronics are very useful and quite advanced these days. In the top left you can see our temperature gauge. This is one of the most important gauges we have. Its critical to finding the right temperature water and finding temperature breaks. We recently switched to a Garmin 741 xs. Spend some time getting familiar with all of your electronics and know how to use them together. Make sure you are ready to mark to bottom numbers and make use of the track feature. Its great for getting back to the right area when you hook a fish while trolling. Also, remember to upload new waypoints to an SD card after each trip in case your machine crashes.