6/17 to 6/24/08 - royal polaris 6 day

[alantani]

been bustin' my hump to get everything done. finished all the household bills, finished all the household chores, caught up on e-mail, pm's and all the boards, then finished up the last reel that HAD to be done before the trip. ok, 11 pm on june 16th. forget this, i'm going to sleep.

5am on the 17th. time to pack. ok, i know all of my long range stuff is in this pile of crap somewhere.



i'm packing my tool caddy, the two boxes of parts you see here, and three more boxes of stuff.



my case of accurates and progears are under this mess.



ok, two tackle boxes of reel parts, three fliptop boxes of line, kolekar handle parts, tools and tackle.



a bag of belts for three, my personal duffle, reels, and the rod tube.



whew! almost forgot the tool caddy.



ready to go. i could have had my brother drive most of this stuff down if i had been more organized. oh, well.



a quick kiss from the wife and hugs from the kids and i'm off at 8am.



we'll see what this looks like when i get back.



highway 85 southbound. all of these poor bastards going to work.



highway 152 westbound.







interstate 5 southbound, cruise control set to, um, the prevailing traffic speed as to not, um, impede traffic.......





welcome to southern california!



took a little detour and stopped in the city of oceanside, just north of san diego. one of my favorite reels is the progear classic series 501. ken's tackle in oceanside has the one last connection with danny of progear.





it's an easy stop off of interstate 5 before you get to san diego. they've got a great selection of tackle.









this is ken. he does a first rate job of making sure the spectras and topshots are all wound properly.







wes is the guy that works on all the reels. he does an excellent job and his work includes drag upgrades with cal's grease and carbontex drag washers, bearing upgrades and handle upgrades. from anywhere in california, it would be a very simple matter of shipping you reels down a month ahead of time. you could get your reels serviced, get new topshots and load up on tackle all in one stop. his phone number, btw, is 760-967-7335. i had a chance to talk to wes and was very impressed. i service 100 reels a month, he works on 100 reels a week!!!!!



i made it to san diego by about 4pm. time to gas up. this is gonna hurt.





crashed out at the vagabond inn next to h&m landing. and had dinner at miguel's with my brother ed and his stepson joey.



wednesday, june 18th - breakfast at denny's. look who we ran into!





we loaded all of our gear into hand trucks and waited on the sidewalk behind fisherman's landing.





this was funnier than hell! eddie bought joey a beer, and joey bought eddie a beer. so both of these clowns are drinking on the walkway, at 9am. the lady that sold them said they could drink anywhere on the sidewalk but not to take it into the parking lot or out on the street.



they offered me one, but it was not noon yet, so i passed. good thing, too! a couple of cops came by and almost cited them.



meet john! he does the reel repair for the landing. great guy, picked up a few tips from him, offered a few, and left him with a set of kolekar handles to check out.



ok, finally on board. meet james and jimmy. these guys cooked our meals.



getting tackle out already.





here's the captain, frank lopreste, explaining how the week should go.





fishbelly's got his plans for the week......



..... and i've got mine.



here's our first dinner as we're heading out of the harbor. bev and joey.



darrell (crew), ed and joey.



add on's don and his son-in-law roger, and mike.



booty and roger.



mike, kurt and another add on, dan.



add on warren, scott and ross.



gary, the bloom-meister and dick.



stuart, mike onokai and mark.



dean, long john and fishbelly.



mary, big wayne, and lutyfish.



dudes, fresh yellowtail! meet jesus (crew).







that first night, jay insisted on fishing. it was just a preview of things to come. if there was room on the rail, he was there. i think he was the most intense fisherman on the boat.





i got to spend the night splicing topshots. here's the blackwater 16 strand hollow core spectra and the blackwater fluorocarbon. this is what the serve looks like.



ok, i'm organized!



thursday, june 19th - breakfast!



joey's first albacore of his life. should have made him eat the heart.



we scratched out a few fish. warren was just kicking back, stuart was getting desperate.



brad was definitely kicking back.



friday, june 20th - cedros island!







jay, stuart, joey and ed.



mike played catch and release.



don hooked into a nice fish using an okuma cedros rod and an okuma catalina 25. the catalina had a few minor modifications and i basically brought it along to see if i could make it explode. it actually held up well over the week.











i got one as well. i think it was this fish that turned out to be the 37 pound jackpot winner.



this fish and several others were handed off to joey. hell, if we're going to pay for his trip, he may as well do some work! not so sure about the split finger technique, though.





i was actually hooking up pretty well and got this one over to ed.



saturday, june 21st - joey actually hooked this damned thing!



joey and ed again!





roger's first yellowtail!



mike is hooked on iron.



that evening we made bait! you've got to watch out for the spines on those spanish macks!





sunday, june 22nd - right out in front of the saltworks at cedros. we had a great morning bite. lot's of boats out, including the boat i normally fish on, the spirit of adventure!



wayne was apparently not getting enough to eat. oh, and we were having a slight problem with sea lions as well.



fresh danishes and bud, the breakfast of champions!



in the afternoon, we launched the skiffs. there was not time to get everyone out, but the ones that did go had a great time!!!!!!









fishing from the big boat was a little slow, so i got some more pictures.











the last skiff group had engine problems, like they lost one. sucker fell right off!





here's how they get them back on board.







funnier than hell. both jay and warren are so big that the poor skif was running bow down the whole time.



monday, june 23rd. we headed out to troll for albacore and bluefin. that would get us halfway home. we went the whole day without a bite. the most exciting thing all day was dinner!



tuesday, june 24th - back to the harbor at 6am.









i stuck around long enough to load up the gear and weigh one fish that took third place! then back on the road.



it was a great trip. thanks to dan waddell and the rest of the fullspeed gang.