kicker for a 23

[Fr. Frank]

Fr. Frank I'm curious , did you carry an extra tank for the kicker ,and when you needed it ,mixed the oil in or did you somehow connect to the onboard tank and add the additional oil in as needed.

My 5hp Seagull ran on 50-1 mix, the only SeaGull to do so (as others ran 100-1, and some 32-1), and it had both the original 1 gallon brass fuel tank, and an auxiliary fuel inlet, with a selector valve. Having no fuel pump, however, meant that I had to have an auxiliary tank higher than the carburetor to run off the aux. line. I had a bait-cutting board that hung over the gunwale on the port side, and I would set the aux tank on that and secure it with bungies.

I, too, had difficulty working a fish around the motors occasionally, and lost more than one nice fish that way, most notably a white marlin in the Tongue off Eleuthera back in the mid 80's that we estimated at about 30-35 lbs. Sadly, I have never caught or released a white marlin since. I have caught lots of other billfish: sailfish, swordfish, and black marlin, but never a blue or white marlin.

I was on a charter boat that did a Four Fish Slam once off Palm Beach,(Marlin, Sailfish, Dolphin, & Wahoo on the same trip), but I was the mate. None of the fish were spectacular, it's just that we caught all four on one trip. Heck, we caught three out of the four in two hours and had the wahoo and dolphin on at the same time. Just trolled up and down the sargasso weed line.

I don't live there anymore, but I still think offshore fishing from Dania to Sebastian is the best in America, and I particularly like Lake Worth Inlet to St. Lucie Inlet around the outer reefs.