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| Not the kind of end to the season that we were hoping for. At the end of my last report I touched on an abrupt season ending catastrophic engine failure that we experienced on my charter boat just before the fishing report was supposed to post. We had limited the boat out with another beautiful box of Walleyes and had just throttled up to make the 15 mile run home when about two miles into the run the starboard engine just blew up with no warning. There was a sudden drop in RPM’s and loud popping and snapping sounds and before I could even throttle back and shut the engine down, she died. Somehow without even looking I knew this one was going to be serious. And it was. I shut the port engine down and took a quick look under the starboard engine box to only see in dismay oil everywhere with even more pouring pouring out of the side of the block. Yup, this one was going to be serious. With my heart in my throat we throttled the remaining good port engine back up and made the long slow ride back home limping back to the dock for one final time in this season of 2024. |
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| With the helpful guidance of one of my smarter then me mechanic buddies, he quickly reaffirmed what I already knew. There was a huge bulge and shattered oil pan where it meets the block. First guess was that a piston rod had cut loose and went through the block. Hence the massive loss of oil into the bilges. What a horrible mess. After considering my options as I had mentioned in my amendment to my last report, I came to the decision that it just wasn’t worth the trouble and rush to try to get a new motor back into the boat and get it re-splashed in hopes of getting just a couple of handful more trips in. When the motor blew, I was in my last big hurrah with about 7 more trips in a row. I sure wish it would have held off for at least one more week! Ugh. Regardless had I decided to put a frantic engine swap into the works immediately after it happened I was going to loose most if not all of those 7 trips. And as it turned out, a week after that we had yet another big wind event that shut all fishing down Friday through Monday. So even had I got repaired and back in the water, I wouldn’t have been able to fish any of those days anyway. |
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| So the decision was cast and we set out to strip the boat as we do each fall just a few weeks early. We did a deep scrub from top to bottom, inside and out including the bilges which now had about 7 quarts of engine oil spread across a summers worth of grime and slime. What a nasty mess! Arrangements were made for a lift and a good power wash of the bottom and to have the boat set on the boat trailer for the ride back home to Pymatuning for the repairs and a long winters nap. As I write up this report the boat is in her winter home now and we have since already pulled the motor and made arrangement for the new motor. This time around we are going to do a motor build instead of just buying a new one as we have been doing every time we have repowered in past years. The problem with everything new anymore is that everything is frigging JUNK! Junk materials. Shoddy assembly. Nothing is built to last anymore. We now live in a throwaway society. Everything is built to fail so you are forced to buy more! I’ve chosen a proven race shop engine builder to assemble me a brand new motor as bullet proof as humanly possible with enthusiasm on durability and not on building anymore horsepower. We’ll see how this all plays out. Incidentally here is a picture of the carnage that we found in the bottom of the oil pan when we dropped it from the engine! Holy crap! Upon a closer inspection in looks like a piston disintegrated scattering shrapnel through out the engine just destroying everything in it’s path. A hole in the cylinder walls, destroyed heads, oil pan, crankshaft and God knows what else at this point! Holy total destruction Batman! |
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| But enough on the motor and onto what this last report had been primarily supposed to have been about. That is thanking everyone that chose to fish with us again this year. Whether we got out or not! I say every year that I am one of the most very blessed charter captains on the whole lake. I have the most faithful, loyal bunch of guests and friends that just keep coming back year after year after year with me. Some for the entire 38 years I’ve been doing this! We’ve been through a lot together. Deaths in families. Births. We’ve shared laughs and tears together (literally!) Good times and bad. Great weather and then again some that was not so much, lol! Great fishing, good fishing and even some days that I don’t even want to talk about! Not too many of those fortunately however these last few years! Ha! Anyway your friendship and incredible generosity towards me and my wife Joyce both humble and amazes us. Thank you so very, very much! Speaking of Joyce, many of you got to meet her this summer for the first time as she has now been retired for almost a year and has taken on more of a role as a first mate aboard THE TROPHY this past summer helping all of us! Thank you so very much Joyce! We all had tons of fun as we fought it out each day as to who’s “side” was better! “My side... my side!” Just too funny! Finally, as always I want to thank everyone for following along here with my little fishing reports and bi-weekly blogs and sometimes rants. I still enjoy doing them even though sometimes my own content just brings me down! But till we all meet back up again next year be it here in print or actually onboard the boat, I’d like to wish everyone a joyous & safe offseason. And may I be one of the first to wish all of you a warm and happy upcoming holiday season! It will be here before you know it! Take care everybody... Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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