2014 Trip Reports

10/2/14-10/4/14 Download the PDF here. Despite a number of anglers arriving at Fisherman’s Landing about 3:00 to get a place in line with their gear, the boat did not actually leave the dock until about 9:30. We hit the bait receivers about 10:00 and loaded up on good quality 5-7 inch sardines. At the bait barge nice sardines. We left the bait receiver at about 10:30. The captain was Bruce Smith, second captain was Cha Chi, the cook was Joel and the deck crew was JB and Mike. After gathering in the galley for the usual pre-trip meeting, it was announced that we would head to Tanner Bank, about 10 hours drive away. This seemed to be the best option for larger BFT and YT. The other options consisted of looking for YFT on paddies along the way in warmer waters and possibly going into SCI on Saturday for YT and Calicos. The weather was downright balmy as we cleared the headlands and promised to be a mild warm weekend on the water, even as far out as we were headed. Day 1 Trolling started just before sunrise and produced our first jig strike shortly thereafter. It happened while going by a large kelp paddy about 19 miles from Tanner Bank. The boat put about 22 YFT aboard during the stop some good sized and some smaller. Luke grabbed 6 fish with his Flatfall jig, Roy boated 2 with a Megabait and sardine. George had two fish at this stop also. Murphy seemed to have maintained his fishing skills and was very hot with the surface iron. This was an auspicious start to our trip. At about 10:00 the boat anchored over Tanner Bank. There were about 4 other boats there already. The bite was steady but not wide open all day. It produced a lot of fish using fin bait on the surface and yo yo irons. Since the water here was a little cooler, the fish caught were mostly YT and BFT. We moved around a few times to try different spots on the Tanner, but in the end we left Tanner headed for Cortez Bank for dinner and hopes of catching some mackerel for extra bait on Saturday. The mackerel were smaller fish about 4-6 inches. The larger baits did not seem to be there. We ate dinner (Enchiladas, Rice and Beans) with on the Cortez Bank and cocktails and the usual fine selections of wine. We spent a rocky night on the Cortez, but the weather held out and it was very warm and mild. Fish count after the first stop Roy with a nice YFT Fish out on the deck after day one The fish counts for the first day were: 132 YT 22 YFT 40 BFT Day 2 At about 0400, Luke met with some resistance trying to roust everyone from their bunks to again try to catch mackerel. The bait turned out to be more of the smaller variety in the 4-6 inch range. It was decided to put as much of it in the bait tanks as possible to use as chum and possibly bait for calicos. This could save the sardines for our primary bait. After a few hours of bait catching, we had several hundred mackerel. Special thanks to Bill and Murphy who sat on the bait tanks and unhooked bait until their hands hurt. At about 0700, we arrived back at Tanner Bank. The boat was stopped by Mike Trunk trolling a purple Halco jig for a nice BFT. There were many more boats today at Tanner than yesterday. I counted about 9 or 10 at one time. The boat anchored close to our great spot from yesterday, but not exactly on the spot since some other boat seemed to have gotten there first. The bite was a steady pick bite for BFT and YT and a few mixed species of rock fish and sheep head on sardines and jigs. After repositioning and anchoring on several spots, we left Tanner Bank headed to SCI at about 1100. Tanner bank yielded another 25 BFT and 12 YT for the morning. We trolled all the way to San Clemente Island. At about 1400 hours, we had a kelp paddy stop which yielded a few smaller YT. At 3:30, we had another paddy stop which brought a nice YFT on board and some smaller YT. One late jig strike in particular yielded a few YFT and some YT. It was made interesting by one of the trollers forgetting he was trolling, forgetting to wind in his outfit and throwing in a bait on the slide. This caused a fairly large fishing line macramé and a lot of choice language. In that fisherman’s best interests, it was decided not to name him in this gazette, but his initials are Andy Woodfill. After deliberation of the club leadership, they meted out a punishment that landed Andy in “trolling jail”. He seemed to take his punishment in stride and was even later seen sleeping through the next mandatory assigned trolling rotation. We arrived at SCI at shortly after 1700 and began to fish for our club’s favorite fish the Calico Bass. We anchored inshore and used sardines and those smaller mackerel as baits. We found an incredible bite on the Calicos. The fish were biting fast and furious and many described it as “F’ing Epic”. Yours truly was even hooking them with a surface iron. Most of them were larger than 4 pounds. A couple of those fish were sure to be possible contenders for the Calico trophy. We quit fishing at about 7:30 and sat down for cocktails and dinner. The dinner was something special consisting of prime rib, baked potato, broccoli and salad. It was quite a treat. Second Day Fish Totals were: 1 YFT 25 BFT 7 YT too many Calico Bass to count all released but 4 The club patch for day 1 was awarded to Mike Trunk for his 25 pound YFT The club patch for day 2 was awarded to Tom Anderson for a 22 pound BFT The jackpots for both days were awarded to Eric Lund (Chris’s Son) for a 38 pound YFT on day 1 and a 25 pound YT on day 2. Top Angler for Day 2 Tom, Chris Lund and (2 day JP winner) Eric Lund Congratulations to all the top anglers. This was a great finish for a great trip to end a very good fishing season. After dinner, the Fortune left for home. The ride home was very smooth and restful. We arrived at the harbor entrance at 0500 on Sunday morning and were in the dock at 0600. Respectfully submitted by Bob Wheeler (acting scribe) Accuracy implied but not guaranteed. Club members were: Ron Shrout Tom Anderson Luke Burson George Miller Dave Moritz Chris Lund Andy Woodfill Bob Wheeler Bill Parks Murphy Parks Mike Trunk Roy Patterson Guests on the trip were: Ron Henry Eric Lund Ichiro Randy Beebe Kevin Kom Joe

9/12/13-9/13/14 With our hoods and masks, ropes, crops and whips, harnesses, gags and plugs neatly packed. All the leather oiled and stainless steel polished, we all anticipated our pleasure of peril evening…. oh wait, dang! Wrong club… With our hooks, plugs, leaders and poppers; and our glistening rods standing proudly in the breeze for all to see, fourteen mostly middle aged men sat on a bench on the boardwalk of Balboa with content smiles as the pretty girls walked by in deep anticipation of hooking up. There that’s better, this is the DWRR club trip #6 Offshore Gazette, sorry ‘bout that. The men on the bench, middle aged or not, consisted of Andy Sienkiewich, his guest Bill Giser, Roy Patterson, his son Jeremy, Stewart Finley, Bryan Upcraft, Gary “Huey” Thompson, Gary’s guest Tony Peall, Brian Wynne, Jeff “Jeffy” Hinrichs, Bill Parks, and Paul Casillas, with Joe Stassi and myself, Mike Zinniker, taking last minute openings. Mr. Thompson, who was busy lobbing for the interest of us oft forgotten sportsmen of the deep, left us in the ever dependable hands of skipper Tom “Shano” ( I think I got that right), second ticket Bob, Chef Ichero, and Conner, making an admirable crew. Our targeted departure time was bumped up from 9:00 PM to 7:00 PM, due to poor bait at Newport, which meant a trip up north to San Pedro. Although the ‘covies at Pedro were no bigger than the ones in the Newport receiver, they had been cured for five days and were not as “slimy”, as it was described to me. I must say, I have never in my entire life been so disappointed by 3 ½ inches, as I was when I looked in the bait tank and saw those anchovies. That being said, the trip up to Pedro was definitely the right call, although, I thought having the crew make an early run to Pedro get the bait, and then pick us up would have been awful accommodating. The sub-four inch anchovies were an improvement from prior tanks of even smaller fin bait, which Ichero had explained to me, had been the norm lately and required pinning multiple baits to a hook in order to allow the anchovies to lug those heavy #4 and #6 hooks through the water. The plan was to head to San Clemente Island and fish the Mackerel Bank southward along with the rest of the So Cal fleet. The ride, although a little stuffy at times in the lower bunk room, was mild and uneventful; with a little chop building the farther along we went. Friday, we started out pre-dawn fishing a few meter marks under the boat to no avail, as we found ourselves with the rest of the fleet “above and outside the mackerel bank and about two miles off the island “quoting Shano. Once the sun broke the horizon and about 7:15, standard operating procedure was followed as the news was broke to the first four members on the jackpot/galley list that they must now serve their sentences at the trolling rods, off we went. As would be the norm for the two days, the majority of our stops were prompted by meter marks or visual surface action, rather than by jig strikes. As a matter of fact, the jig stops we did have most were small Yellow tails, you know, a little bigger than the kind Hayden likes stuffing his sack with. I believe only one or two stops were from a Yellow fin over the two days. It was on one of these meter mark stops around 10:15 that Mr. Upcraft continued his blazing hot streak from trip five and got us going with two Yellow Fins on a popper. That popper, at this point, could have probably been sold for at least five times its face value. I also happen to know, Bryan, you brought this popper along in hopes of catching a Wahoo, not Yellow fin! As if in wasn’t enough that he had landed the first and only two Tunas during a slow starting morning which the rest of us unsuccessfully soaked baits:. Bryan, then quietly put the popper away, tossed a ‘chove, and landed the first bait fish of the day. Probably the most insulting part of this, to me at least, was that when asked why he wasn’t using the popper (which had produced a fish in two of its six cast), he said… yes, wait for it….” I dunno, I wasn’t doing it right”. How I kept from depositing my entire arsenal of tackle into the Pacific Ocean at that point still remains a small miracle to me. If he keeps this up there may be some scheduling changes at Millennium Electric regarding Fridays off. Regardless, he did break the doldrums and get the party rolling, so because of that I am grateful. Not to be outdone Roy added a fish on his popper (that looked like something he stole from Hayden’s tackle box. Jeff chimed in by adding a bait induced fish, to bring the first productive stop total to five modestly sized, 10 -15 lb, Yellow fin. Gary figured out that still fishing on marks was probably the hot ticket for the Tuna, so around 10:40 he figured he’d stop the boat with a Rat Yellow tail with a jig strike just long enough for him to pick up his first bait fish. The rest of us stood there trying to figure out if there was a popper stocked tackle shop on SCI. One fish stop and back on the troll. 11:30 Shano stopped on more marks and a full on, briefly lasting, “Mack Attack” except instead of mackerel they were firecracker yellow tail. Most of us couldn’t resist putting a few in our sacks before tossing the surplus tails back to grow. Having already put one on these on the grill, I would not be ashamed to do the same thing again. The three-ish pound fish yielded two fillets per fish with the absence of the dark blood laden meat around the lateral line. Although that meat darkened up on the grill the fish was delightful and mildly flavorable. To me, though, the highlight of the morning was watching Tony defiantly battle a sea lion for what seemed like an eternity over a respectable yellow fin. Supplementing my enjoyment of watching this futile battle was listening to Gary instruct an already rubber-armed Tony to “Reel faster” every time the sea lion dropped the tuna for a quick second. Kudos to Tony, as it needs to be mentioned, the battle was only terminated by a straightened hook. Tony you were relentless, and remember to save that dose of Gary’s sarcasm in your memory banks for future retribution. About 12:00 PM, Shano, who had earlier proudly avowed his Robert Frost like passion for taking the road less travelled out the starboard window of the wheelhouse, headed back towards the fleet. As we head south things kept slowly improving. Starting about 4:00 PM the bite kept growing steadily and sustaining until about 7:30 PM. As the bite steadily improved as the day went on, and proved to be strongest in the afternoon, so did the wind and chop. By the time we had worked our way about five miles south of Pyramid Head we felt full effect of a decent wind and chop. Enough so to send me to fetch another dose of Bonine and hide out in the bunk room until the medicine worked its magic, missing what was probably the acme of the bite. We fished until we couldn’t see our lines anymore and then, we fished a little bit more. The bite did not disappoint as fish were still being hooked in darkness. With the exception of a couple of moves we had stayed in the same general area all afternoon, and the stops were usually initiated with a good dose of racing stripe chaos which would change color as the desired species surfaced and took over. As darkness set we headed back to Clemente ,which had now snuck ten miles to our north, for what would be a later than normal dinner. Chiro, as usual, out did himself, as my steak was perfect and just as ordered. It is also clear to me, and needs to be addressed at the next sign- up meeting, that Mike Thompson is hereby banned from buying the steaks and that job is the exclusive responsibility of Ichero. Day one hot sticks belonged to Brian Upcraft and Bill Parks quietly landing 8 and 6 YF respectively, Stewart, Roy, Tony, Paul and Gary, not so quietly put 5 fish each on the deck. Brian Wynn contributed 4 and Joe Stassi put 3 in his sack in a way only Joe can, way to go Joe. The rest of us contributed, including Jeremy despite his father’ guidance and advice, bringing the days total to 54 Yellow fin and 23 Yellow tails. Jackpot and a chevron went to Gary Thompson with a Yellow fin taping out at 26 lbs and 4 oz. Day two started pretty much like day one, with the exception of starting at the location we had left off the day before. The wind was not there, and although not yet 9:00 AM it was getting downright sultry. A few of us were actually hoping for at least part of the wind to return. As was the case with day one, Tom metered fish deep and kept us informed as they rose to Conner’s steady delivery of chum; the bite once again built up momentum. Although still pestered by Skippies grabbing our bait right off the cast and heading immediately parallel to the rail, the ratio of Yellow fin to Skip jack was much more favorable than the morning before. Paul got us going this time with the first Yellow fin of the day. To me the day two fish seemed to be a bit larger than those of day one. Notable moments of the morning for me was witnessing Bryan Wynn and Jeremy pull off a simultaneous saw off and Conner actually finding a couple of sardines. Once again smaller hooks were necessary and many fish were lost to pull outs. The bite kept building, to the point that the stern of the boat was total M &M, mayhem and macramé. Bill Parks, Stewart and a few others had the wherewithal to fish the bow with equal if not better production than those at the stern. I, on the other hand, proceeded to involve myself with more lines than Marion Barry, found countless ways to lose fish, and finally took a seat and observed alongside Gary who was resting after stuffing all the Tuna he desired into his sack. At this time I would like to apologize, to Joe, Jeffy, Brian W, Roy, Bill G., Gary, Paul, Tony, Andy, Brian W. ( I know, I said Brian W twice, there’s reason) . It was at this time that I meandered to the bow and sheepishly watch Bryan U, Stew and Bill Parks peacefully and calmly land one fish after another. I think I did the right thing by resisting my urge to toss in next to them and disrupt their gleeful tranquility. Anyway, now that Bryan Upcraft had figured out what was wrong with the mechanics of his retrieve, and had developed a ballet type synchronicity and beauty to the jete and splash of his “Wahoo Killer” popper; yep, you guessed it… skunked on the popper! With the exception, that is, of one “looker” (those of you on the trip get the pun already) who got too close of a look. Bryan set the hook and proceeded to reel in the solitary eyeball of a tuna who is now sporting 20/0 vision. Roy, by the way, you forgot to tape the eyeball. Consider that if you brought in a fish missing an inch of his tail; I’m sure that it would still qualify for the jackpot. If it was missing, say, a pectoral fin; I’m sure that would count, wouldn’t it? So why not an eyeball that was missing only the rest of its body? I guess we would need to verify it wasn’t the eye of an oar fish, halibut (no wait I think those count now),bat ray, or other non jackpot qualifying species, so I guess an eyeball doesn’t count, sorry Bryan, I tried. Well, with morning coming to an end, and stuffed sacks hindering access to the bait tanks, Shano decided to help his friend out on the Oceanside 95 by transferring our bite by dumping the balance of our bait and gently slipping off a boiling surface of feeding yellow fin who were reluctant to eat bait from Oceanside. As we all watched the transfer (except for Tony, who wasn’t done killing) I don’t know what overcame us more; the satisfaction of the benevolent gesture of passing the bite to a boat that appeared to have only one fish hanging before we passed the bite off, or that boastful better-than- you satisfaction of passing our hot bite to a boat that appeared have still only one fish on as we pulled away. Hard to say, kinda. It was 11:30 AM and time to head north, the 6:30 ETA to the dock was appreciated by all, as everyone had contributed to a respectable fish count. We had a split decision regarding the day’s trophy, as nonmember Jeremy Patterson edged out Jeff Hinrichs’ tuna, therefore taking the jackpot. Jeff took home the day two chevron. Congratulations to all three winners. Jeremy you’re only allowed to do that one more time before membership becomes mandatory no matter where you live. Day two added 61 Yellow fins for a trip total of 115 Yellow fin and 23 Yellow “Hayden” tails. Our trip ended after a pleasant trip in hitting the dock about 6:30PM with all members, guests and non-terminal tackle accounted for. For me the last minute decision to jump aboard the this trip was a winner, and after being lucky enough to be on the previous epic trip, I hope the boy’s on the next trip can continue with similar results. Chas if your reading this, Best of luck to you and Colette.

8/21/14 - 8/22/14 Download the PDF here. I was grateful to have the opportunity to fish with a bunch of my DWRRC buddies before heading over to the Big Island to start my retirement. The local fishing conditions were incredible, with yellowfin being caught in mass quantities about an hour into Mexican waters. Joining Charter Master Luke and myself were Mike Zinniker, Brian Upcraft, Joe, Stewart, Mike Guest, Jeff Hinrichs, Bill Gardner, Chris Lund, Snackmaster Extraordinaire, Dave Moritz, Gary Thompson, Bill Hammer and guest angler Scotty Mendez. Due to the Amigo having a turn-around trip, our departure from the dock wouldn't be an early one. Mike threw the dock lines at 8:30pm and headed for the bait receiver. Shano had brought the Amigo back with a few scoops of primo 'dines in the forward tank. The 'dines we ended up picking up at the receiver were not exactly prestine. Out night-tract heading was to head south about 65 miles, below the 182 and just into Mexican waters. The ride was a bit rolly at first, but seemed to mellow out as we worked our way south. Most of the anxious anglers rolled out of their bunks around 5am. Mike cut the throttles down to trolling speed a few minutes after 6am. With warm, overcast skies and light winds, it was T-Shirts and shorts for most of the guys. At sunrise we found ourselves in 72.7 degree water in the vicinity of the 302. It appeared the entire San Diego fleet was around us, including several of the high-liner Long Range boats. Shortly after 7am, Mike stopped the boat on a patch of puddler's. Immediately a half-dozen rods went bendo with 15 pound yellowfin. Dave hooked a larger unit on his 20# outfit that tied him up in the corner for an extended tug of war. He won the battle and a chunky YFT came over the rail. Mike announced the side-scan sonar was clear, so it was time to get back to trolling. The rotation lasted all but 5 minutes before Mike spotted another group of puddler's. The jigs were cranked in and another flurry of bait fish were hooked, stuck and sacked. At 8:20am, we had our first jig strike of the day, an exhilarating triple-header. Unfortunately the fish didn't want to come to the boat, so no bait fish were hooked. We had a couple hour dry period that started to get Mike a tad perturbed. In an unusual move, Mike was called in by the Thunderbird that was running low on bait and had filled out their Mexican limits. The Amigo was brought in tight in the hopes that the school could be enticed to our transom with some fresh chum. We managed to hook a couple of fish, but it was obvious, the bulk of the school had bailed. Mike sparked the engines to go look for another batch of puddler's. It didn't take long and we were soon in the hottest bite of the day. We put over 47 fish on the deck, a couple of which were less-than-whole due an an extremely aggressive 8 foot hammerhead. Yours truly was the first to provide a sacrificial tuna. Dave also donated a generous aperitif. The early afternoon re-cap had Luke as the hot stick, Brian was having a good day with a limit of yellowfin. Dave and Gary were one fish away from their Mexican 5-fish limits. There were several club members with 3 fish to their credit. My 3:30pm update highlighted a 2-hour meter mark stop that brought us up to the 70-fish count we were striving for. The fish werea veraging 15 to 18 pounds, with a few in the low twenties. Luke was on fire, hooking and passing fish at a brisk pace. The terns were starting to be a bit pesky, especially with my long-soaked 'dines. I managed to hook a few, the last of which I tried unhooking myself. Bad idea, the manic bird immediately chomped down on my finger. I'd swear that birds beak was full of razor sharp little teeth! He left a couple of clean lacerations on the top of my finger which bled profusely. Note to self, always let the crew unhook your bird! We experienced a bit of a rare mishap during the flurry of the hot bite. During an untangling exercise in the starboard corner, there was a bit of a miss communication between Ichiro and Stewart. The end result was Stewart's outfit getting dropped in the drink. Ichiro made a gallant effort, quickly grabbing a gaff and desperately lunging for the butt of the rod. The rod angled off into the deep, rapidly disappearing into the blue abyss. It's always a shocking event when it happens and certainly a very rare one on the Amigo. It was a first for this 14-year club member. Mike announced we were done fishing Mexican waters. He was going to push the Amigo up to cruising speed for an hour to nudge us back into US waters where we would spend the rest of the afternoon trying to finish out out our 10-fish US tuna limits. Under clear skies and a moderate breeze, we put the jigs back in the water. It wasn't long, when we experienced Mike putting the pedal to the medal. He came on the PA and announced he had spotted breaking fish. After about a five minute run, we were in the area, completely by ourselves! The jigs were pulled in and the an absolute WFO bite ensued. This was a much nicer grade of fish. For over an hour, they were eating every bait that hit the water, no matter what size line it was attached to. The 30# and 40# pound outfits were a no-brainer, Luke had to break out his 60# outfit just for kicks and giggles. That fish never got a chance to turn its head! At this point we had burned threw most of the bait and were now down to the lively seasoned 'dines Shano had saved for us. Don't you know that had a positive impact on our hook-up ratio! Mike thought we were approching our 10-fish limit, so a few of the diehards started breaking fish off at the side of the boat. Not surprisingly, Mike announced we were done and in one of those very rare occasions, the Amigo drove away from breaking fish! He set a coarse for Fish Hook Harbor on the lee side of Clemente. We weren’t 10 minutes into our journey when Mike came back on the PA and nonchalantly commented that we were approaching “acres of breaking tuna”! It just doesn't get any better that that! The anchorage in Fish Hook was pretine, as was Ichiro's ribeye dinner. The crossing to Newport Harbor was flat calm. We hit the channel entrance at 4:30am and a few minutes later were securely tucked into the slip. The final fish count was 145 yellowfin. Hot-stick Brian Upcraft was the JP winner, with a nice fish in the high twenties. This was an incredible way to end my 14 years of fishing with the greatest bunch of fishing buddies a guy could have. I'm hoping many of you will be making a trip to the Big Island in the not-too-distant future. I'd love to show you the island and get you out on the Kila Kila for a shot at a Kona bruiser! Aloha! Chas

8/1/2014 - 8/2/2014 Trip #4- 2014- Amigo 2-Day Trip- Aug 1st & 2nd It was a balmy evening Thursday, Jul 31st as 14 stalwart club members and guests gathered early at Newport Landing for an early departure on our 2-Day venture to the land of the tuna gods. Luke had advised everyone ahead of time that we would have to travel to San Pedro to get bait (sardines), so we were looking at a 7:00pm departure. Our crew for this trip was Mike “Wiggy” Thompson Bob “Spreader Bar” Melville Ichiro “Saba” Shintsubo Conor “Little Shano” Shanahan We also had a crew guest- Stefano, a friend of Bob’s visiting from Italy. We loaded up around 6:30pm and left the dock at 7:10pm. We arrived at the San Pedro bait barge around 9:20pm and were greeted by the most “bohunk” sardines I have seen in a while. We got 34 scoops but due to the size, that is less bait than normal so we certainly will be in bait catching mode at some point in the trip. We left San Pedro light at 9:55pm and headed south. Weather conditions were very nice going out and would pretty much stay nice for the entire trip except for a bit of wind Sat evening. Day 1- Fri Aug 1st We arrived in the “zone” at 4:45am. It had to be the zone because the entire San Diego fleet was there, including half the long range fleet. Needless to say, there would be competition for fish today. We were at about 70 miles just above “the line”. Water temp was 71.8 degrees. We drifted until daylight and yours truly, Gary T, managed to get the first fish of the trip around 6:00am, a BFT around 15lbs. No more bites and we started trolling around 6:15am. A note here- we did not get one hit on the trolling rigs in two days. Highly unusual, but that had been the pattern for the boats fishing this area for the last several days. Over the next few hours, we had several stops on breaking fish and sonar marks for a handful of fish each time, mixed BFT and YFT. I think everyone had a chance at getting a fish or two, but the Burson duo, Luke and Ryan were in ‘em. Tom H was also having a good day. At 10:45am the morning batch of fish went down in the ice and we had about 35 mixed tuna. By 11:00am, we hit the mid-day doldrums. We trolled and we searched and we zigged and we zagged- for nothing. And it lasted all the way into the early evening. Around 6:00pm, we slid into a spot of BFT, a little larger grade, and we started hooking a few. Ron R, Roy P, and yours truly hooked the first 3 fish. Mine got away (figures), Roy got his, and one hour and 45 minutes later Ron got his. That was a tough fish! In the meantime, we had a few re-bites on both BFT and YFT, and had a decent plunker bite until dark. We called it a day and headed to SCI, 22 miles away. Fish count at the end of the day was 57 mixed BFT and YFT, 15-20lbs, with the jackpot fish around 30lbs. Not a bad day. But we went through a bit of bait to get those. We rolled into Pyramid Cove around 10:30pm and looked for squid in the bait grounds. Nobody home, so Wiggy said we will try for mackerel in the early morning and probably fish the island for bass most of the day. He mumbled something about the largest bass for the club for the year was going to be caught on the Amigo. Day 2- Sat Aug 2nd We started looking for mackerel at 2:35am. Looked around Fish Hook and up the front side a ways for no sign, came back down near Fish Hook and got on a spot of little Spanish. And I mean little- 3-5 inches. However, they were biting decent and in a couple of hours we managed to tank a couple of good scoops. With that, Wiggy decided that we might want to head offshore for a while in the morning and look for those tuna we had the night before and give it a try with the Spanish, and later come back and fish the island with the sardines. It proved to be a good decision. At 5:15am, we took off. We started trolling about 10 miles off the island and looking for fish. The weather was flat calm and we stopped on several spots of breaking fish, mixed BFT and YFT all morning. However, we would only hook a few each time, and sometimes no bites. They really didn’t want those Spanish that well. Maybe they couldn’t see them. The good news is, these were bigger fish- 25-35lbs and we saw a few of the larger 70-100lb models rolling around us from time to time. On our last stop, we broke out some of the sardines and managed to get a few more than we had been getting. At 11:10am, we headed back to the island to fish bass with 15 fish on the ice for our efforts. It was definitely worth going out there and giving that a shot. We arrived at the island around 12:30pm and fished 3 spots for not much. A few bass, decent ones, but no contenders for the club trophy this time. At 1:55pm, we called it a trip and headed home. Final total for the trip was 72 mixed tuna- 21 BFT and 51 YFT. Hot sticks for the trip were, of course, the Burson duo Luke and Ryan who bagged 9 tuna each. Roy P, Tom H and Bill P had 7 each. Jackpots and patches went as follows- Fri- Bill Gardner- 30 lb BFT, Sat- Ryan Burson- 33lb BFT. All in all, it was a great trip, with great weather and a goodtime had by all. Scribe - Gary Thompson Ps - my wound has healed from Wiggy gaffing me in the legD..

6/13/2014 - 6/14/2014 D ownload the PDF of the trip here. Fishing aboard the Fortune, we departed 22nd Street Landing at around 6:30pm. The wind was a bit brisk at about 10-12 knots and the question on many minds was, “Where are we headed?” The reports from the military on the availability of San Clemente had been sketchy, so there wasn’t really a clear plan for what our destination would be or what we were after. With the wind on top of that, there was some anticipation of a bumpy second day. First off, we pulled up to the bait receiver and proceeded to load scoops of anchovies into the tanks. Man, those were some small baits! I think I’ve seen bigger chovies on a pizza. With the fin bait lacking in size, broke out the sabiki rigs and started making larger bait tied up to the receiver. We made over 200 pieces of mackerel and tomcod in about an hour. No squid! So off we went and Capt. Bruce pulled us into the gallery to tell us our target was San Clemente. His plan was to play the odds on making squid at West Cove and use the small open area around SCI until the military kicked us out. Friday Morning - We made a few (emphasis on very few) pieces of respectable squid with the crowder but they were just not there in the numbers we needed. So we moved just off, “Wyne” to try our luck on the WSB, however they must have had other plans because the only fish to show were 6 - 8 sizable bat-rays and one 50 – 60 lb black sea bass landed by Bill Parks. Moving down a little farther, we pulled into the kelp and started to pull on some Calicos. It was a fairly decent stop with consistent action on squid, mackerel and plastics. Ryan and Nick Burson took turns out doing each other on the biggest fish with Ryan finally producing the big bass of the trip at 7lbs (22.25 x 14) according to the tape. That finished the morning and with lunch approaching Capt. Bruce announced that we were going to get 5 scoops of the squid from the Thunderbird. With reinforcements, we took another shot at the kelp in the hopes that there might be some cruising exotics. Once again, there was a pretty decent flow of bass with a couple of notable firsts for Bob Wheeler. He caught his first bass on plastics, had his first epic spectra backlash that required cutting the line free and using his fly rod, caught his first sport-fishing vessel by the radio antenna, wrapping the fly just short of the tip top. After that and a few more bass over the rail, Capt. Bruce announced we would make a run at rock cod before setting up for the night. Rock cod was very successful producing a number of large reds and most notably the day 1 jackpot by Tommy Hill with a 17lb “ling-asaurus”. Luke Burson’s 14lb ling made a good place for second along with his most talked about catch of the day. I’m guessing that he hooked a sea cucumber but after decompression got a hold of it, it was the size of a cantaloupe, colored orangish-brown and its stomach was turned inside out. There was no denying what the resulted looked like and we dubbed it the, “External Vagina”. We finished up Friday on the anchor near the barracks to try the WSB again…no takers. I would like to take this opportunity to thank, “The Bait Makers” who braved the rail at 2am to produce a good supply of regular greenbacks and Spanish mackerel. Saturday started with a jackpot for day two. Bryan Upcraft pulled an 11lb halibut with his first cast of the morning! Beautiful fish! With the rest of us hoping for more halibut or WSB, we tried a bit longer before moving down the way to look for any possible Yellow’s. Not finding much sign, we settled below Mayo to start day to of “Bass Armageddon”. The bite was wide open with frequent fish in the 4 – 6 range. We switched to dead frozen squid to preserve the premium live squid and the mackerel but that didn’t matter to the bass. Everything was working! Plastics in any color, iron and of course dead squid were all producing, “a-bass-a-cast”. My particular favorite was using dead squid on weed-less heads which still produced a number of larger bass. We finished Saturday with another stop that happened to put us on some very eager Sheephead. For those of us desiring to pull on heavier fish, they provided an excellent opportunity. I myself, kept several as they are a favorite of the family. Overall, it was good trip. We didn’t get into the WSB that we’d hoped for but the weather never became the factor we feared. The ride back to 22nd street was a bit longer than usual but then it also afforded a good nap. Paul