Just another guy trying to learn how to boat & fish while having fun on the water!

Hi!

My name is Elly Madrigal. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always been going fishing with my dad, friends, and cousins or hanging out on the beach with my friends. Throughout college, I would go on party boats with my sister, brother-in-law and anyone else that wanted to come out. We mostly went out of the North Shore of Massachusetts for bluefish, cod, haddock and anything else the boats were catching. Every now and then, we’d take a trip to the Caribbean and go on a charter to catch mahi, barracuda or just jump off the boat to snorkel. After college, I ended up working for about 10 years until this one event changed everything for me.

My family and I were staying at a my sister-in-law’s boyfriend’s house (wife>sister>boyfriend>house) in Vermont. We didn’t really know them so well, but we knew they had a boat. They invited us on their 16 foot boat on Lake Champlain to go for a ride and do some tubing. My youngest daughter, Jasmine, was only 1 or 2 years old at the time, and since this was a visit for my wife’s side of the family, I let my wife go boating while I watched my daughter at the house.

  

They were having a ton of fun! I could hear them laughing, falling off the tube, jumping off the boat, etc. When they came back to the dock, I rushed down to hand off my daughter to my wife, and the captain of the boat said he was too tired to continue driving the boat.

UGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!! @#$@#!$#@$!!!!

Sadly, I did the walk of shame, held my breath and walked back up the dock. On the 3 hour ride home from Vermont, I was still fuming for not being able to get on the boat. It was at this point that I decided – I’m not going to let someone else decide when I can go boating. 2 or 3 months later, we bought a boat off Craigslist.

Our first boat was a 17 foot Larson bowrider. It was a great starter boat – small enough to trailer behind us and big enough to fit 5-6 people comfortably. We used that boat on lakes rivers and even once in the ocean. We kept it at our house in Westford, MA and would take it out about 5-6 times a year. We had it for about 8 years, until we decided to go bigger.

Why? In 2016, we moved to Gloucester, MA – the oldest seaport in the U.S. We were able to get a slip at the East Gloucester Marina, luckily, as many other places had close to a 3 year waiting period.  So one day, I was on the boat with my daughter Amber and my friend Mike, outside of the breakwater of Gloucester Harbor and we were taking waves over the bow. Mind you, these are some of the most daring people I know – and both of them were looking at me like I was nuts.   They didn’t even need to say anything, and “we” decided to head back in before we all fell overboard.

Fast forward a year to 2017 – I decided I wanted a larger boat to go fishing in a safer manner, and maybe even go out 10 or 20 miles to try my luck catching Bluefin Tuna (eventually).  I ended up selling the Larson to get a 25 foot Mako Center Console.  It has “twin screws” (yeah, that’s boat lingo) – two 200 hp Honda engines.  It is about 13 years old, so I really don’t need to polish it everyday like some of these psycho boat owners on the dock.  Yay!!!!

Over the 2018-2019 winter, I started taking classes to get my captains license.  This was probably one of the hardest tests I’ve ever taken, and I’ve taken ALOT of tests.  After 6 or so hours in the testing room, I came out as Captain Elly Madrigal, Master license 50 gross ton.  Yes, I am qualified to captain a 50 ton vessel.  We started going 5 miles further off shore every year until eventually we landed at Stellwagen Bank, home of the bluefin tuna.  We caught our first tuna in 2022 after 4 years of trying.  Then a week later, we caught another one.

At the end of the season in 2022, I sold my Mako and bought a bigger boat with a closed bow, a Grady White Islander 270.  The most important part of this boat is that the front of it is closed so if we get in rough weather, the boat will not act like a shovel and scoop all the water in.  It’s happened a few times on the Mako and that was enough (do you see a theme).  In addition to the closed bow, there is much more protection from the weather so we can fish longer, because 14 hours a day isn’t enough.

The guy with me 95% of the time is my buddy Ron.  He was in the Navy, and we both share many interests in making things/DIY, technology, music and obviously fishing.  We try to put science, statistical analysis and experimental design into how we fish and prep our gear, but with any type of fishing there’s also so much you can do, and you have to rely on luck and the mercy of the tuna gods to be successful.  We have been students at the Gloucester Tuna University Master’s program since 2018.

So welcome to my site! It’s my collection of all of the things boating and fishing that I’ve learned so my kids, friends, and others can learn. Hope you like it!

Best Fishes,
Elly

Oh why is this called “Surf Herders“? Well if you don’t know me, I’m a huge Star Wars fan. (checkout luckyxero.com) One of the lowest possible ranks in the Star Wars universe is called a “Nerf Herder”. Since I’m a Nerf Herder on the water, then…….well you get it……