Ricky-Ray
08-02-2009, 09:42 PM
Once again for a second year in a row I had the opportunity to jump on the 976-tuna 2 day trip aboard the Seahorse. Last year's trip was so much fun I just had to do it again this year. Wednesday night 6pm and I'm off of work and I'm heading down the 405 to Dana Point. I finally arrive there at about 8pm and I see the Seahorse just getting back in from an overnight trip. A few of the deckhands remembered me and I asked them how did they do today, and their response was they went offshore and got 2 yellowtail and 1 Bluefin. Hmm..... things not looking too good.
8:30pm rolls around and we get the go ahead to board the boat. Tonight's crew would be Captain Tyler at the helm and second captain would be Todd. Matt and Jordan would be the deckhands and Travis serving up the food in the galley. This trip was limited to 26 people but we lucked out we only had 17 on this trip so it was an ultra limited load for us this time. 9pm rolls around and we are off to the bait tanks where we load up with sardines and anchovies. The game plan would be we would head offshore and see if we can find the Albacore. Depending on how we did would determine the game plan for Day 2.
Day 1, Thursday morning and the jigs are in the water and we are on the hunt for Albies. Not too soon we had our first jig strike our bait's hit the water. A couple of hookup's and it was game on. A few Albacore hit the deck and things were starting to look good today. We continued on trolling and we would occasionally stop on a paddy here or there and find nobody home and we would also stop on some meter marks and sometimes the fish would come and play with us and sometimes they didn't. By mid morning at least half the boat had already got at least one fish in the sack and throughout the day everyone made sure that those that didn't have a fish in the sack yet would get their chance. A few hours later everyone had fish in the sack and there was still plenty of time left in the day. By the end of the day we had a total of 39 Albacore and 4 Bluefin tuna's on the board. All of our Albacore were in the 20-34 pound range. Lot's of them were thinking they were Bluefin as these guys had some serious shoulders. They kept fighting to the very end. Everyone was in high spirits as this was much better than the total combined fish counts of the last several days. As the boat shut down and drifted for the night Travis served us a great dinner of steak, and shrimp with potatoes and mixed green beans with garlic toast and for dessert, German Chocolate Cake. Two great things about Travis in the galley. One is he cooks up some really great food. The second is when he cooks the food, there's plenty of it. After dinner quite a few of us turned in for the night and a few of us stayed up to enjoy the weather and sit about an enjoy each other's company as the day's catch was being cleaned and placed on ice. A little later into the evening a few of the guys decided to drop a line into the water just to see if they could get anything. Pretty soon some baby humboldt squid showed up and a few were caught on the iron for laughs. A couple were kept for bait. Captian Todd mentioned that there could be mako's out here so we hung a sack over the side of the rail with a few carcases of Albacore and we rigged up one of the rods with a makshift bobber and a 16/0 hook and an albie head as bait. Sometime during the night after I turned in a mako did appear and take out bait. By morning everyone had a few mako stakes to take home.
Day 2, Friday morning and I hear the engines start up and I'm thinking they are just motoring back to the area that they want to start so I'm just going to lie in the bunk for a few more minutes before I get up. Not a minute later I hear Captain Tyler yelling “They are boiling everywhere, brail bait, wake everyone up!” I scramble out of the bunk and onto the deck and grab my rod and quickly pin on an anchovy and send it on it's way. Not more than 10 seconds my reel starts screaming and it's game on for me. In about 5-10 mins I deck a nice 24 pound Albie and I look around and the school has sunk away but we managed to get 8 Albacore before they left. I can't think of a better way to wake up in the morning. Jigs go back in the water and not 2 mins later another jig strike, and that would be it for that stop. We would get a lull for a while and a lot of us took that time to get cleaned up and get some breakfast. We would continue on the rest of the day with a jig strike here and there or a bait fish here and there until about noon or so when Tyler said it was time to head home but keep the rods ready as we would leave the trolling rod's out on the way back home. For the 17 of us we ended our trip with a total boat count of 49 Albies, 6 Bluefin and 1 mako. We were all in high spirit's and it was a wonderful group of anglers to fish with. Everyone made sure that everyone got aleast one fish and we were all working with each other to make sure that they were able to get around the rail if they needed to. We finally arrived back at the landing about 7pm and even though we all had a lot of fun we were all glad to be back on dry land.
My final count: 4 Albacore, and 1 more hook and hand offs.
I wold like to thank Captain's Tyler and Todd and the crew of the Seahorse for putting us on some great fishing. It was not wide open but we all managed to go home with quite a bit of fresh fish and some wonderful memories. You guys ROCK!!!!
As we passed San Clemente Island we noticed quite a few helicopters flying around and some ships in the area. I wonder what they are going to be up to this week.
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd135/rkchiu/Seahorse%207-29-09/Seahorse7-29-09Image010.jpg
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8:30pm rolls around and we get the go ahead to board the boat. Tonight's crew would be Captain Tyler at the helm and second captain would be Todd. Matt and Jordan would be the deckhands and Travis serving up the food in the galley. This trip was limited to 26 people but we lucked out we only had 17 on this trip so it was an ultra limited load for us this time. 9pm rolls around and we are off to the bait tanks where we load up with sardines and anchovies. The game plan would be we would head offshore and see if we can find the Albacore. Depending on how we did would determine the game plan for Day 2.
Day 1, Thursday morning and the jigs are in the water and we are on the hunt for Albies. Not too soon we had our first jig strike our bait's hit the water. A couple of hookup's and it was game on. A few Albacore hit the deck and things were starting to look good today. We continued on trolling and we would occasionally stop on a paddy here or there and find nobody home and we would also stop on some meter marks and sometimes the fish would come and play with us and sometimes they didn't. By mid morning at least half the boat had already got at least one fish in the sack and throughout the day everyone made sure that those that didn't have a fish in the sack yet would get their chance. A few hours later everyone had fish in the sack and there was still plenty of time left in the day. By the end of the day we had a total of 39 Albacore and 4 Bluefin tuna's on the board. All of our Albacore were in the 20-34 pound range. Lot's of them were thinking they were Bluefin as these guys had some serious shoulders. They kept fighting to the very end. Everyone was in high spirits as this was much better than the total combined fish counts of the last several days. As the boat shut down and drifted for the night Travis served us a great dinner of steak, and shrimp with potatoes and mixed green beans with garlic toast and for dessert, German Chocolate Cake. Two great things about Travis in the galley. One is he cooks up some really great food. The second is when he cooks the food, there's plenty of it. After dinner quite a few of us turned in for the night and a few of us stayed up to enjoy the weather and sit about an enjoy each other's company as the day's catch was being cleaned and placed on ice. A little later into the evening a few of the guys decided to drop a line into the water just to see if they could get anything. Pretty soon some baby humboldt squid showed up and a few were caught on the iron for laughs. A couple were kept for bait. Captian Todd mentioned that there could be mako's out here so we hung a sack over the side of the rail with a few carcases of Albacore and we rigged up one of the rods with a makshift bobber and a 16/0 hook and an albie head as bait. Sometime during the night after I turned in a mako did appear and take out bait. By morning everyone had a few mako stakes to take home.
Day 2, Friday morning and I hear the engines start up and I'm thinking they are just motoring back to the area that they want to start so I'm just going to lie in the bunk for a few more minutes before I get up. Not a minute later I hear Captain Tyler yelling “They are boiling everywhere, brail bait, wake everyone up!” I scramble out of the bunk and onto the deck and grab my rod and quickly pin on an anchovy and send it on it's way. Not more than 10 seconds my reel starts screaming and it's game on for me. In about 5-10 mins I deck a nice 24 pound Albie and I look around and the school has sunk away but we managed to get 8 Albacore before they left. I can't think of a better way to wake up in the morning. Jigs go back in the water and not 2 mins later another jig strike, and that would be it for that stop. We would get a lull for a while and a lot of us took that time to get cleaned up and get some breakfast. We would continue on the rest of the day with a jig strike here and there or a bait fish here and there until about noon or so when Tyler said it was time to head home but keep the rods ready as we would leave the trolling rod's out on the way back home. For the 17 of us we ended our trip with a total boat count of 49 Albies, 6 Bluefin and 1 mako. We were all in high spirit's and it was a wonderful group of anglers to fish with. Everyone made sure that everyone got aleast one fish and we were all working with each other to make sure that they were able to get around the rail if they needed to. We finally arrived back at the landing about 7pm and even though we all had a lot of fun we were all glad to be back on dry land.
My final count: 4 Albacore, and 1 more hook and hand offs.
I wold like to thank Captain's Tyler and Todd and the crew of the Seahorse for putting us on some great fishing. It was not wide open but we all managed to go home with quite a bit of fresh fish and some wonderful memories. You guys ROCK!!!!
As we passed San Clemente Island we noticed quite a few helicopters flying around and some ships in the area. I wonder what they are going to be up to this week.
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd135/rkchiu/Seahorse%207-29-09/Seahorse7-29-09Image010.jpg
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