What is the worst weather you would go out in to go trolling in the ocean?

3-5 ft wind waves with mixed swell is the limit for me when fishing on a 22' boat. What about for a jetski?

My neighbor and i went to the rock pile south of the coronado islands a few months ago.
The swells were 15 - 20 ft.
Throttle up one side, and hold of for a free fall on the other side.

Pretty freakin' scary.
Wont be doing that again.
You know its bad when san diego bay has 6-8 foot swells inside the harbor.

Joe

jctuckmar wrote:The swells were 15 - 20 ft.
Throttle up one side, and hold of for a free fall on the other side.

That's crazy I don't know that I could do it. 15-20ft on a jetski! That is very hard core a little crazy but hard core.

I have only been offshore in boats and kayak. I dont care what the ski can handle I AM NOT GOING IF the conditions are forcasted for more than 3-4's ,5's on a stretch. That way if forcast says 3-4 then normally when I show up it is 5-6ft and that is doable but uncomfortable. Anything over that is just dangerous if conditions deteriat! I have been in life threatening conditions before when coast gaurd was called after engine failure(I was safer in my kayak) in bad conditions and this sailor will sit on the beach with a cold one and watch the waves before I tempt my luck again!

Of course none of this is taking into account the swell period which is the time between waves....lol

Happy fishing and BE SAFE
Longshot

longshot wrote:Of course none of this is taking into account the swell period which is the time between waves....lol

Im glad you said that, most don't consider that. I headed to packery saturday because it was forecasted to be little to no surf. Swell info had it as ankle or less, and they are usually pretty good. Well I got there and launched. Headed out past the jetties and at the end it was like a washing machine. Really sketchy figured what the hell maybe it will smooth out. Got out about a mile and the chop was bad. These small swells were coming in on like 1.5 seconds apart. Beat the you know what out of me. Could not even anchor in fear of tipping the ski. So I tried to troll some bait but the chop made for some rough riding. I would much rather had bigger swells coming in slower then little ones coming in fast. So what you said about swell period is very important at least to me.
I ended up running bad to the intercoastal waterway headed both north and south fishing shallow coves. I would just motor off at the edge and drift the shallows. Had to pole back to the channel to get started back up. But kinda cool passing those fast fishing boats like they were standing still. Most looked at me like they never saw a jetski rigged for fishing. Flying by them at fourty plus knots was real fun.

Yup that's happened to me too. But luckily, after a few trips, I know that if it's windy in the morning, might as well go back to sleep.