2017 Trip Reports

DWRRC Trip # 8 Fortune - Fishermans Landing Scribe: Parks Fortune two and a half day, Fisherman's Landing San Diego. Everyone on board early, left the dock about 6:30 p.m. 45 minutes to load bait. Then we sat at the bait dock until 1:30 a.m., we got word the fish were only 30 miles from port. We encountered the first large Paddy at 9 a.m. . It was dry. We found six additional dry paddies before we decided to abandon the area. At 12:30 we arrived at the 43, there was a spot of bluefin that popped up, they look like the large models. They acted just like bluefin tuna, just seemed like we needed a Chinese fire drill to get the big gear ready. Trolled kite with yummy flyer. Towards Clemente, No Love. On to Clemente, to try for yellowtail and Calico Bass. Again no love on the yellowtail , they just did not want to cooperate. At 5:15 we started fishing calicos near the East End of the island, had a real good bite on the wonderful bait that we've been saving all day long. Bill P ended up with the biggest Calico of the day at 5.4 pounds, and that turned out to be our jackpot fish for a day of tuna fishing. All of the trophy holders for this year were on this trip and heckling each other as usual. It was a fun day. Had a great dinner with lots of camaraderie. On day two, we woke up on desperation Reef at about 4 a.m., and started fishing Flat Falls,with heavy gear. Murphy was the first to hook up and fought that Bluefin for 20 minutes before the crew decided that it was probably a rock.( big swells, with lots of wind. )Many laughs where had , he was a good sport. Good training for the real tuna in the fog week. We fished desperation reef for small Bluefin in the 15 pound range. We put 8 Bluefin on by about noon. The highlight of that morning was Tim with his 92 pound bluefin that he truly mastered on 30 pound line, gitting it in in just around 30 minutes. Nice job Tim. We left desperation Reef around 2, headed for Pyramid Cove to try to fish yellowtail. First stop produced nothing. Second stop at the East End Pinnacles produced a very good yellowtail bite on fish between 15 and 25 lb. Probably a 3 to 1 casualty on those fish because they really liked to head into the bottom structure. We ended up with Seventeen very nice quality yellowtail. Jackpot of the day went to Tim with his 92 pound bluefin tuna. Again finished off the evening with a nice steak dinner, done up by Chef Paul, while we were sitting in the cove. After dinner we started to motor home and pulled into San Diego Harbor right around 4 a.m. for a 5 a.m. offload. That's the trip PARKS ​

9/7/17 - 9/9/17 DWRRC Trip # 7 Thunderbird – Davey’s Locker Departed: September 7th Returned: September 9th evening Scribe: Nick Burson Thursday, September 7th The first to the dock was no surprise, Mike Trunk. We assumed he had gotten there at 7 am to get a head start on Coors Light intake, however I believe he actually arrived around 1 pm. Over the next few hours the rest of the club members arrived and got in line, with big Bluefin on our minds. There was a surprise visitor to the docks, Five Start Fish Processing from San Diego. Apparently a corporate charter hired them to process fish and ship the filets to their employee’s homes. The charter came in and it was apparent the long drive from San Diego was for very little, I think a few sand bass and a sheephead were given to the processors. At least they got paid in advance for coming up. The two main topics of conversation at the docks were the KC/NE game, and the weather. The news of KC beating NE in Foxboro was much better news than what the weather was going to be. We were all prepared for a very bumpy, unpleasant ride. We boarded the Thunderbird at 9 pm, and had a guest angler joining us. Andrew Viola was on as a guest, and we were prepared for him to put on a clinic. A quick stop to the bait dock, where they had been reserving cured bait for 2 day and longer trips, resulted in beautiful 6-8 inch sardines. After loading up, we were off to endure the bumpy ride to San Clemente Island. And a bumpy ride it was, I think most of us got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep. Friday, September 8th After barely sleeping, we were up early and ready to find some fish to pull on. We started fishing off the island, looking for Bluefin. We made a few stops on metered fish, but nothing bit. It was still very windy and the swells were big, making a few club members feel a little under the weather. As we continued searching for fish the wind eased off enough for us to fly the kite. We trolled a flying fish from the kite for a few hours, however it resulted in no bites. After messing around off the island for about 5-6 hours, we decided to move in closer to in, to an area where there had been some smaller grade tune. 12:30 – We found a spot which metered some fish and proceeded to get the anchor down. The anchor had trouble getting set, and we had to pull it and reset. This time it stuck. For the next 1 ½ - 2 hours we would hook, and lose, 6-8 Bluefin. The first fish on the boat went to Ron Henry, a 30 lb Bluefin. The next fish landed was a 40 lb Bluefin by Mike Allen. Now we were getting with it! 2:30 -6– The bites were picking up and we were having a much better landing rate. There were still some casualties, as a few hammerhead sharks had found us. One shark was hanging around on the surface, however we believe there was another 1 or 2 sharks deeper down. We had 4 fish come up with their tails missing from shark bites, and another 6 or so that were completely lost. Even with the sharks we were able to land some quality fish. At the end of the day we had landed 28 Bluefin, ranging from 30lbs – 100lbs (using Jeff’s blue fin tax added to the YFT formula). Unfortunately, some of the larger fish were casualties of shark bites, having their tails bitten off. There were four anglers who were hot sticks, each catching 3 BFT. Ryan Burson, Mike Allen (who also had his personal best at 70 lbs) Gary Thompson and guest Andrew Viola. These four definitely showed the rest how tuna fishing is done! Big fish and the patch for day 1 went to Bill Parks for his 88 lb Bluefin. Congrats Bill! 7 pm – we began to head to the cove for the night, however during the last 7 hours on the anchor it had wedged itself and had gotten stuck. After working back and forth to get the anchor unstuck, it finally broke free. There was some work the crew needed to do to repair the anchor connection to the chain. Dinner consisted of a wonderful Trip Tip, baked potato and salad prepared by Goofy, with many glasses of wine, beer and cocktails being consumed. Being in the calm of the cove was a much needed reprieve from the constant wind and bouncing from being off the island. Tonight we would all sleep much better. Saturday, September 9th We woke with about 16 boats fishing the area we were the day before. Word had gotten out. As we were driving through Jeff didn’t meter anything worth looking at, so we proceeded to head off the island in search of the bigger grade tuna. We drove around metering fish, with making stops on 3 different marks which none of them produced even a bite. After a few hours we decided to up to the front side of the island to see what we could find. On the way, Trunk released his blowup doll to the sea. Hopefully whoever finds it will find as much enjoyment with it as Trunk did. 10:00 am – While rounding the point heading to the front of the island we drove past 35+ boats. While driving past we kept an eye out to see if any had fish hooked up. There were a few that were hanging fish, they were the boats closer to the island. We saw one get gaffed, looked like small 15-20lb tuna. We made one stop in front of the fleet, however nothing bit. Moving up the front of the island we made another stop on some metered fish. We had a few boil on chum, but didn’t hook any. We kept moving up the island, looking for a spot to fish yellowtail. 12:30 pm – We stopped on a spot for yellowtail, and we immediately hooked two. The first landed was by Chris Ramsey at about 15 lbs., while the second was landed by Nick Burson and was a solid 20 lbs. The bite picked up and we were constantly having fresh hook ups and fish going. At one point there were 5 fish going on the port stern! The grade was mixed, ranging from 5 lb-25lb. A healthy, strong bait was the key to getting bit. While some were picked up immediately, many others were hooked on a long soak. Around 2 pm we called it a trip and got ready to head back in. We had ended the day with 33 yellowtail between 5lb-25lb. Jeff pointed out that we had finally caught some fish on the second day of a charter! Big fish and patch for day 2 went to Roy Patterson for a 25 lb Yellowtail. Congrats Roy! Final count: Bluefin Tuna: 28 Yellowtail: 33

8/17/17 - 8/18/17 August 17, 2017 By 4 p.m. most of the anxious anglers have already arrived. Once again, the DWRRC Team has brought a lot of nice gear – everything you need to catch a giant bluefin tuna to calico bass (and everything in between). Everyone is enjoying the traditional pre-boarding drinks, snacks and conversation. Where should we fish – the giant bluefin grounds off San Clemente Island or head further offshore to the Tanner and/or Cortez banks where there had been decent numbers of larger yellowtail and school-sized bluefin? What did the fleet catch today? What will the weather be like tomorrow? At 7:10 p.m., the Thunderbird returns to the dock. Captain Jeff walks up the ramp to give us a briefing on the latest conditions. Jeff is concerned about the weather outside on the Tanner or Cortez – he thinks recent winds have hurt the conditions. He’s also concerned that the boats that have fished the banks the past 10 days have been getting less fish each trip. The trend doesn’t look good. On the other hand – Jeff says the big bluefin tuna are still there off San Clemente Island. However, the bite has been very slow in the mornings – but he heard they were biting this evening. Jeff thinks the late bite on the big bluefin is our best overall bet. He’s willing to try to take us to the Tanner or Cortez for the morning bite – but he wants to have us on the Clemente bluefin grounds for the afternoon/night bite. He says it’s up to us. After a brief discussion, a vote is taken and we decide we’re going to fish San Clemente. We’ll fish bluefin in the morning, head inshore for bass/yellowtail, etc. until the afternoon, and then head back to the bluefin grounds for the late bite. This is the plan. The DWRRC Anglers board the boat: Roy Patterson Tom Anderson George Miller Mike Guest Bryan Upcraft Mike Zinniker Joe Stassi Ron Rudrud Tim Schneider Ron Henry Paul Casillas Luke Burson Tony Beall Bill Parks Mike Trunk Chris Ramsey …and special guest – Mike Thompson. The Thunderbird Crew will be Jeff, Andrew, Goofy, Brian and Kevin. We depart around 8 p.m. – plug the tanks with very nice small/medium sized sardines and we’re off. It’s a bumpy ride most of the way – perhaps it’s ok we aren’t heading to the Cortez. August 18, 2017 4:40 a.m. – the engines slow and we’re on the hunt. At 5:45 – we mark several big fish in beautiful conditions. We drift for 45 minutes…no biters…so we’re back on the hunt. At 7:00 – we run across a nice spot of dolphins and Jeff sees yellowfin swimming with them. But once again...no biters. At 8:00 Jeff finds a good sonar school of what looks like medium sized bluefin. A good-sized school at 220 feet. Beautiful conditions. The fish are building under the boat. The kite is up. It looks like this is about to happen. But it doesn’t. We keep hunting and trolling for 1.5 hours. But once again...no biters. That’s it -- Jeff says we’re going to stick to the plan and head into the backside of Clemente and fish inshore until the afternoon. Then head back to the bluefin grounds in the afternoon. At 10:15 as we head into the island, we run across a good sonar school. Good marks. There’s a big boil. Time to anchor up. We all fish hard. But once again...no biters. At 10:45 we anchor in 120 feet off seal cove. Two small calicos are caught – well, at least that’s a start. Goofy has a full griddle full of chicken grilling – lunch looks and smells good. At this pace we may need to start drinking soon. At 11:15 we anchor up off Eel Cove. There is a decent pick on medium calicos at this spot. Some fish begin breaking off the bow and Luke hangs a 5 pound bonito on the surface iron. As he is about to throw it back, he says “wait – that could be the jackpot fish” – so into the sack it went. Chris catches another jackpot contender bonito a little while later. Things just aren’t going right. At 1:30 p.m. – we anchor off the Incinerator spot. We continue a steady pick on medium sized calicos and one barracuda (that Jeff prompted filleted for lunch). The kelp here was very thick – but that didn’t stop Luke and some others from asking Jeff to let out some more scope so we could fish literally inside the kelp forest. We continued to pick at the bass…and to get tangled in the kelp for the next hour. At 2:30 we’re on the hunt heading back offshore to look for big tuna. Jeff wants to stick to the plan. 4:30 p.m. and were still flying the kite and looking for bluefin. At 5:00 p.m. we stop on a good sonar mark. We see a couple boils and Jeff says the fish look like 100 pounders on the electronics. We all fish hard. But once again...no biters. At 7:45, Jeff gets on the P.A. and announces that, “Well, we stuck to our plan. It was a bust…” Time for dinner. Time to start breaking down your gear. Time to have a few drinks. Time to get cleaned up. At least for most people that is. (Luke and Chris are hard-core diehards and still fishing). After awhile during dinner, Jeff starts calling out on the P.A. – “Good marks at 40…good marks at 60…now marks at 20…good marks off the bow…good marks off our stern.” This goes on for quite awhile and the dinner crowd chuckles thinking Jeff is having a good time teasing Luke and watching him run all around the boat. Finally, at 8:57 Jeff says, “Wind em in....” Here’s where it gets good. 8:58 “FRESH ONE!!!” Luke who has been fishing in the cold and dark off the starboard corner figured he could drop his booby-trapped flatfall back down for one more last drop before the boat started for home. He didn’t get bit on the drop… but he got bit on the final grind up! It was as if he just willed that fish to bite. At 9:05. “FRESH ONE!!!” Chris gets bit off the stern and quickly his fish drags him up to the bow. 9:16: Luke puts the screws to his fish and lands his big bluefin off the starboard corner in under 20 minutes. Chris also has put the screws to his fish. He has it at color on the bow, but then it sees the boat lights and it freaks out – it runs to the stern, and then across the entire stern to port side. The fish is hot. At 9:19 Chris’s fish is gaffed off the port side next to the bait tank. What a great way to finish the day. Incredible…just incredible. The crew puts a hose down the mouth of Luke's big bluefin – and lots of squid and red crab wash out all over the deck. The fish are feasting down there. Time to tape out the fish. They both are easily over 100. Luke’s tapes out at 116 – Chris’s at 134.5. Luke says to Chris, “My bonita was bigger.” Chris responds, “B.S.” Luke: “Were gonna measure them!” These guys just never give up…and that’s why they both deserved to catch those beautiful bluefin. At 10:00 p.m. Jeff gets on the P.A. and says, “Wind em in…for real.” We had a plan. We stuck with it. And with a little luck and lots of effort – it finally paid off. Scribe: Tony Beall

8/10/17 - 8/12/17 The weather on this trip was nice. Got a little windy as you would expect getting closer to San Clemente Island with a little over cast around noon on 8/11, but other than that you couldn’t ask for better weather. Moreover the water was clam throughout the trip. Mike T was nice enough to bring penis shaped cookies for everyone, a male blowup doll, penis shaped gummies and penis shaped lollypops. 8/10 PM (Got on the boat at 8:30) Everyone getting their gear ready for tomorrow morning Goofy’ s very informative safety meeting loaded up on bait At about 10:15 everyone hit the bunks hoping for awesome fishing tomorrow 8/11 AM (Day started at 5:51) Andy, Brian and Gary all got hooked up on Bluefin before noon Ryan got picked to reel in the kite fish 8/11 PM (San Clemente Island) Started bass fishing a little afternoon Luke fined himself and is was bleeding like a pig. Thank goodness Goofy was there to kiss it and make it feel all better Fishing stopped at 7:30 with the club as you would except hitting limits on Bass and couple of yellowtail Goofy made an awesome dinner loaded with potatoes and beef. 8/12 AM Was sick this trip so I was sleeping most of this day. It was something I had eaten befor leaving on 8/10 so don’t have all the details on 8/12 Fished the Island for bass Fishing ended about noon Worth noting I think is that when we got back to the dock and started loading the cars, Luke found that his car was nicely park in a spot where he was up able to get out. Well until 7 club members picked up the car that was blocking Luke and moved it closer the curb where it should have been to begin with. Fish count: 6 Bluefin Tuna, 170 Kelp Bass, 5 California Yellowtail Scribe: Randy Beebe

7/27/17 - 7/29/17 Scribe - Mario Caporuscio​ July 27th: Everyone has to hurry up and wait! We all fight Newport's bull@#$ traffic. To get "in line" for getting on the boat. Gear, gear, gear. We have more gear than the any tackle store, lol! Looks like a 10 day we're prepping for. Beers, good company and the latest fish stories were all shared. After many stories and many rigging suggestions to one another and perhaps a few beers later the boat finally shows up. Late of course... We all board the Thunderbird in a polite gentlemen's rat race to place tackle boxes and rods in ideal locations for the chaos to come! Captain says we're go to Desperation Reef. There's big ones he says, BIG ONES! We can catch a fish from 20 to 300 pounds! Mind blowing range to cover, but with the knowledge and experience with the fishermen aboard, we could do it. Within skiff range from our very own local harbors, we're gonna target possibly the biggest fish of our lifetime. Let's do it! July 28th: 2am and the hunt is on. Captain has his eyes glued on the sonar. Just waiting to find a school. Flat falls are supposed to be the ticket. There's 17 guys fishing, 17 flat falls tied on. Leaders of 130 to 250 floro to even the tie on wire leaders. 3am, about 5 guys awake. 4am 10 guys awake and on out on deck. 5am everyone is up and ready. We all await for the throttle to ease up. Throttle off, flat falls down! 45 minutes of nothing. Mario, drops down a sinker rig with a sardine. 300 feet later...zzzzZZZZzZZZzzZZzzZZ FISH ON! First bite of the trip. Mr. Mayor Tony Beal hooks up on flat fall! To only break off soon after the hook up. 6 laps around the boat later, Mario is completely pinned on the rail with a big one. Captain Jeff says he can see it on the sonar! About 80 yards of line from boat the braid broke at the surface of the water. Rods go limp. The walk of shame to the tackle box. Heartbreak big fish story...bummer. We get called in later from another boat. We go and and start chumming. We stopped and mayhem broke lose. 30 to 45 pound bluefin! Everyone is getting their chances and getting some on deck. 2 hours later 15 to 30 pounders bite, then some big ones moved in. Mike trunk was in the middle of the action oddly. Gary hooks and lands a beastly 70 pound yellowfin in the middle all these bluefin! Action so good we even got a 163 pound bluefin on the double trouble kite rig! Fellow club member Jeff put the beastly animal on the deck in no time, perpared with a 50 wide he put the wood to it. National geographic kite bites were one we are never going to forget. the D.T. rig did work! Mario throws a megabait into some big big farmers off the stern. 10 cranks in he's bit! 2 hours later Mario learned to never throw 40 pound test on a jig stick for fish of this quality. 80 pound bluefin was the result of the 40 pound megabait challenge. End of the day and head to pyramid to anchor for dinner. July 29th: Fish D.R. with 50 plus boats at 1am. A maze of boats covered the high spot. Day break comes fast. Club member Paul drops down and connects! He's on but his 100# set isn't bending much at all. "20 pounder" he says... "20 pounder". Moments later the fish saw the boat and game on. Paul was quickly corrected about it being 20 pounds. From not pulling any drag. The fish dumped line out. 35 minutes later Paul saw his biggest fish hit the deck of the boat. 143 pounds later. Some 20 pounder! We move into the island. In search of some trophy San Clemente Island calico bass. We pluck away at some nice 3 to 6 pounders. We move from spot to spot doing so. After many laughs and beers later we ran out of bait at about 2pm. Just in time to end the day and start the voyage home. Taking off all the rigging and a 5 hour nap later. The boat was docked and we all left with fish and some fishing memories that well cherish.

7/6/17 - 7/8/17 Download the PDF here. Scribe: Bryan Upcraft It all started at the docks of 22nd St. Landing aboard the Fortune for the DWRRC’s fourth trip of the season. Club Members included Roy Patterson, Alex Mesko, Ron Henry, Steve Lenker, Andy Sienkiewich, Joe Stassi, Carl McKinley, Stewart Finley, Luke Burson, Tim Schneider, Ron Rudrud, Chris Ramsey Jr., Bill Parks, Mike Allen, Mike Trunk, Steven Sturm (Stewart Guest), Cody Ramsey and myself. Bruce was our captain. It was a gorgeous evening as we prepared our gear while discussing the various possibilities to come. At about 6:30pm we left the dock and made our way towards the bait barge. ​ We arrived at St. Nicholas Island at around 5am. Roy was the first to get picked up by a white sea bass, then Stewart Finley and then Alex Mesko with a trophy 52# white sea bass. Steve Lenker and Luke Burson each caught a nice Halibut. For breakfast, we had eggs to order with bacon, potatoes and toast. After breakfast, we made a move to do some rock cod fishing. We brought on board some quality lingcod and nice reds, which we all enjoyed catching. About noon we settled for lunch, Chicken & andouille sausage with penne pasta & pink sauce, it was excellent! At the next stop, while fishing along the kelp bed, Mike Allen managed to get hooked up with a bruiser of a yellowtail. It was a good fight in which Mike was victorious. Later that evening Bruce decided to head back to Catalina to fish the bait grounds that evening and into the morning, so we did. For diner, we had Rahm schnitzel, red whipped potatoes, French green beans and tossed salad. For desert, we had mixed berry crisp w/ vanilla ice cream. We got to the bait grounds at about 1am that Saturday, the squid were thick, right away Mike Trunk and Steven Sturm got bit, before you know it there were a couple more guys bit, then a couple more, then it would get quiet. After a brief pause in action, the action would pick back up. The final Tally was 48 white sea bass, 6 halibut, 1 yellowtail and various rock fish and sheepshead. Bill Parks was the hot stick with 6 white sea bass and Alex Mesko won the jackpot with an impressive 52# white sea bass. All in all, it was trip to remember.

6/22/17 - 6/23/17 Download the PDF here. Scribe - Carl McKinley Trip #3 - Thunderbird I arrived at the dock at 2pm and was the first to arrive. Ryan showed up at 3pm followed by Mike T, Tom A, Gary, Bill and Ron. Others arrived in quick succession. Gear was assembled and everyone was ready for the trip. Tom Anderson shared a 12 pack of Coors Lite while we waited for the Thunderbird to arrive. Upon boarding there were sandwiches in the galley for those who were hungry. We left the bait barge a little after 10pm with some good size sardines. Most everyone then hit the bunks as we headed for San Clemente Island. The morning started at Pyramid Cove fishing dropper loops with squid. At 5:10am Tom Hill hooked up first and landed a nice YT quickly followed by Mike T. The bite lasted till 7:30am and we had landed 23 YTs. We then moved to the other side of China Point, started fly lining sardines and by the time we left there at 10am we had landed another 20 yellowtail. We then fished for Calico Bass at several different spots with some success. Jeff the Captain caught a nice one in the 7lb range and Mike Thompson and Bill Parks also had some good size ones. After that we tried several places that looked promising for some YT but to no avail. The rest of the afternoon we spent fishing for Calico bass and landed quite a few decent size ones. We tried dropper loops again that night for YT but no luck. The weather was overcast most of the time but when the sun would peek thru the jackets would come off and everyone enjoyed the sun. Goofy made a nice breakfast of eggs bacon and toast followed by hamburgers at lunch and a real nice dinner with meat, potatoes, vegetables and a salad. At dinner Bob Wheeler opened up a really nice bottle of Zinfandel at the table I was sitting at and shared it with everyone at the table. It tasted great after a long day of fishing. The biggest YT was caught by Gary Thompson. It taped out at just under 35 pounds. Arrived back at the dock Saturday around 5am.

6/9/17 - 6/10/17 Download the PDF here. Scribe: Cody Ramsey Day 1: We started out our morning fishing dropper loops in hopes of catching some WSB and Yellowtail. The brave members sat out in the wind and rain until the rain finally lightened up and we picked up anchor. As we worked our way up the island searching for fish we came across big schools of bonito and a few quality sized calico bass. Tony landed the first yellow of the day on a swimbait, but decided to release it. Shortly after a few more yellowtail we caught with Mike and Chris being the lucky members. As we continued our way up the island we came across the thunderbird. A few members decided to moon Jeffrey and crew as we passed by. For the rest of the day we picked away at the calico bass that felt like biting, and caught plenty more bonito. Day 2: The morning started out with a few yellowtail that wanted to play. We managed to pick away at a few yellowtail despite the wind and weather not wanting to cooperate. Luke hooked into a nice black seabass and was able to get the beautiful fish up to the boat. With time running out and bait supplies dwindling we managed to put a few more fish on the boat. We ended the trip with 18 yellowtail total. Big fish honors went to Chris Ramsey for day 1 and Ryan Burson for day 2.