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 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, striped bass, 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. Once we took the Larson outside of the breakwater off Gloucester Harbor, we were taking waves over the bow. It scared the heck out of me. I was once on the boat with my daughter Amber and my friend Mike, outside of the breakwater. 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.

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.

And that’s where this site comes in. Since I’ve documented little about how I manage, maintain, navigate a boat in the ocean, I thought it would be good to start. I spent the summers of 2017 & 2018 using the boat around Gloucester harbor, but now it’s time to really start learning. That’s what this site will capture, not really with an audience in mind, but really for me to house all of the things I 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……