SPITFIRE 10 25 07
Thank you very much Nick for starting our report, nice write up. Like I said, the rest of us will add to the report, so here’s my contribution.
I woke up at 3 am to go pick up one_leg this morning, thanks for the wake up call alan. Picked up one_leg at 4:00 am, then headed to Redondo Sportfishing to meet up with the rest of our FNN group, that weren’t already on the Grande catching Salmon Grouper and Whitefish at Cortez. Rolled in the parking lot at 4:45 am, and saw Mike’s car first at the gate. He had Osiito in his car, who quickly jumped out when he saw me and asked if I could autograph the 8 X 10 glossy of me that he had. I thought that was a bit strange, and proceeded to sign the picture for him. Anything for my fans!! NFC was already there, ready to go “slumming” with us (he calls ½ day and ¾ “slumming” because in his mind, the only trips worth going on are Overnights, 1 ½ Days, and Multi-days, but like I told him, fishing is fishing, and at least it will be cheaper for him to go on shorter trips with us and not catch anything, then to go on those longer trips and not catch anything). Alan and I jumped out of my truck (yayyyy, I didn’t have to bring my wife’s Honda again!!!), and greeted everyone. Mike and the boys, oh, and one_leg, went to purchase our tickets, while I kept and eye on our gear. I do not have a shell on my truck, and there was NO WAY I was leaving my rods and reels while I went to purchase a ticket. Mike says “Oh, nothing is going to happen, we are in Redondo Beach!” Mike can get caught slipping, not me. After they purchased our tickets, we then proceeded to head to the parking lot just South of the pier, that is where the Spitfire is tied up. We boarded the boat a bit after 6:00 am, got our gear put away, and we were off in search of the elusive (at least for Mike) Sand Bass.
Crew today on the Spitfire was Craig, the Captain, Chris on the deck, and Derek in the Galley. Crew made his morning announcements, including what we were going to be targeting, and the recommended way to do it. Chris came around with the Jackpot list, which we all joined. After rigging up, I jumped into the galley to order a breakfast burrito from Derek. Ate breakfast, rigged up, and waited to hit the first spot. FYI, as far as when fishing “structure” (fishing in rocky areas, wrecks, etc), I would recommend fishing 25-40 lb test, with a 40 lb Fluorocarbon leader, with whatever the recommended bait/leadhead combo is for that day. Today, I fished with 25 lb test, a 40 lb fluorocarbon leader, a 1 ½ oz White banana head, tipped with either a live squid or a fresh dead squid.
We hit quite a few spots throughout the day, picking a few here, and a few there. Like Nick said, it seemed like every spot, the port side of the boat from the stern corner to just right above the bait tank, were the guys getting bit. So, since it was packed with guys on every spot, I basically had to watch the guys in the zone, pick at the nicer grade sand bass. One of the guys told me to “squeeze in”, but since I do not like people doing that to me, I said “no”, and waited for my opportunity. That opportunity finally came, one_leg called me over there, there was a spot open on the rail (thanks alan), and I jumped in it. I had to put the wood to sand bass, and make good on my promise to Mike from the previous “Spitfire Get Together” thread. The most humorous thing of the day was Craig moving from a spot where I was putting a dent on the sand bass population, and as he was pulling the anchor saying “Ok guys, lets find another one….they want to bite here, but only for 1 guy (me), and we all laughed. My 10 minutes of fame on the Spitfire, it was great!! I don’t recall the total count for the rest of the guys, but I ended up with 15 sand bass, mainly all good quality, 1 nice calico, and some scuplin. My largest sand bass was (what would k3vin kim say here?? Oh, I know) was about 22 lbs!! J/k, it was closer to appx 5 lbs, which swept both of the jackpots (the boat jp, and our FNN jp). I happily collected the FNN jp from the boyz, and told Chris to keep the jackpot money for himself and the crew. I had my fish filleted, and threw the boyz the money and an extra tip.
One of the best parts of the day was Korean barbeque afterwards. We called k3vin and his beautiful wife and daughters to join us, we had a BLAST!!!!! Thanks a lot mike for the barbeque!!!! Baja fish gear steve said he had never eaten so much meat in his life, hes lying!!! Ask him about last week!!
All in all, it was another GREAT day on the spitfire with the boyz. Thank you all, it was fun!!
On a side note guys:
I generally do not recommend boats for other fisherman to fish on, because I don’t want someone taking my recommendation, having a bad trip, then coming back at me. Also, I do not want to pi** off my Long Beach boyz for recommending another landing. With all that said, the Spitfire and crew are all TOP NOTCH. Craig is one of the hardest working captains that I have fished with in a very long time. He will take his boat wherever he needs to, move however many times are needed, etc, to put his customers on fish. He makes his announcements in the morning, letting you know where and how to catch fish that he is targeting that day. He comes down on deck to talk to his passengers, help them when needed, whether it be rigging up, taking fish off, etc. The crew is second to none. They run a very tight deck, I never had to wait for a crew member to come take my fish off and sack them up. They were RIGHT there. Derek is one of the BEST galley cooks I’ve seen in a long time. His burgers, imo, are one of the best I have ever had on a boat. We received this kind of service on my very first trip on the Spitfire a couple weeks ago, but I wanted to wait for my next trip on it to make sure it was consistent, which it was. I won the jackpot, and gave it back to the crew. I would recommend whoever is lucky enough to get JP fish to do that. You are not our there to make money, the crew is. This crew deserves every bit of what they make, and then some. Get your fish cleaned, and throw something EXTRA on top of that fish cleaning bill. If you don’t get your fish cleaned, or for that matter, don’t catch any fish at all to get cleaned, TAKE CARE of the crew. The above goes for ANY boat that you have good service on. I have worked on boats for MANY years, and trust me, crews do not make very much money, and they appreciate any and all forms of gratuities. But, back to the subject of the Spitfire, they get an 11 out of a perfect 10, I totally recommend that boat guys. They get the Ghetto Dad seal of approval, lol…..
Ok boyz, till the next trip, gd out!! Peace.
GD
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Originally Posted by k3vin_kim
