Spirit of Adventure - Report

[alantani]

short version - five days on the spirit of adventure, 26 guys from the website, between 10 and 11 yellowtail each, one white sea bass caught by the kid, an assortment of reds and a few lings, some fish at cedros, most fish at san benitos, about 50 yellowtail, assorted reds and several lings at san martin, one idiot in a parker at san martin, that deliberately buzzed the boat and cut off several lines, we shot about 33% from the field, lots of sea lions and busted leaders, 30 pound test was most productive for me, all the rods and reels worked fine, most fish on bait, few on iron, great charter, great crew.

i had to look back to be sure, but my first long range trip ever was on the spirit of adventure in 1997.  mike keating and i were both 40 years old, i'd been married for 7 years, my oldest daughter was three years old, another would be on the way in another month, i had just started tinkering with reels a few years before, my arsenal was made up of jigmasters, senators, tld two speeds and calstar rods and i was green as hell!  fast forward 20 years and it's a whole different game.  only the boat is the same.....



sunday - 6/19/2016

well, the vagabond is also the same as 20 years ago, just these guys are different!  from left to right, meet andrew, jimmer, mark, tim, wes and matt!



sunday night was dinner at miguel's was fine, but watching the warriors lose was no fun.  


monday - 6/20/2016

the next morning was breakfast and denny's, then waiting to board the boat.  







the first thing was to set up the raffle table.  boca bearings sent tee shirts and a bunch of gift certificates!





wendy tochihara sent some one pound spools of izor mono!



sarah from 5 star send a bunch of gift certificates and tee shirts!





thomas kanemoto from p-line cut me a really good deal on my favorite jigs, the laser minnows.  there are 25 each of the 3 ounce and 4 ounce.  i did replace the hooks with some heavier trebles.  



thanks to jeff tseng of phenix for the tee shirts and hats for everyone!  



and we all know mo and scott albertson at mysticparts.com!



once the raffle stuff was out, i did roll call and made sure we took the group photo before these guys scattered on me!



one of our new guys, steve schuster, donated a beautiful custom rod.  



okuma donated a spiral carbon tech rod, an andros 12 and a cortez!



our big winners, from left to right, are tomas moffet with the steve schuster custom rod, my brother ed with the okuma sct rod, dave hoffman with the andros 12 and justin stokes with the cortez.



while we were picking up bait, i had a chance to rig up all the loaner gear.  four makaira 10's, four makaira 8's, four andros 5 II's, metaloids and old star drag progear classic series 501's.  there were 12 phenix black diamond hybrids, four plain black diamond's, four calstar grafighter 800L's.  







dinner was ribs, beans, corn and cole slaw.  meet the "other" david tang, matt, andrew and johnny bravo!



we had to deal with a south wind and swell all the way down.  it was one of the roughest trips down that i've ever seen.  


tuesday - 6/21/2016

first call for breakfast!  meet our chef, corey, with eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast.  i would gain 7 pounds this week.  



we were supposed to have calico sandwiches for lunch, but with the poor bite we had to settle for jalapeno chicken instead!



fishing was pretty slow and our skipper was running all over to try to find fish.  just trying to kill a little time.  



tim in particular was having a hard day.  dang!!!!!!



no one else did any better.  



dinner for tuesday night was fajitas!



meet jimmer, wei, lee, joel and mark!



meet jeff, steve, warren and my brother ed!



meet georgia mike, tim, jack and johnny bravo.  yeah, i have no idea what's going on either!



bill, dave and tomas.



frank and big ed!



tim, andrew and dave!



matt, brendan, wes and justin!




wednesday - 6/22/2016

eggs benedict!



nothing was happening all morning except for lunch!  corey really outdid himself.  he put together a killer fish taco bar!







man, these kids can eat.  





we gave up on cedros and headed out to san benitos where the water was clearer.  it was a good move.  frank's got a nice one!



bill stuck a nice one.  



this fish looks a little small, but that's just because ed is so big!



we were having a HUGE problem with sea lions.  i was getting bit plenty, but i lost a bunch because i was fishing 30 pound test and i couldn't horse them in as fast as others.  i decided to play this one to keep the dogs busy and give others a chance to land their fish.  



it was nice to finally see things bust open!



we really lit 'em up in the afternoon!  here are georgia mike and warren!



this is tomas' first long range trip.  from the looks, you would have thought he was a veteran.



dave lost one in the prop.



johnny bravo!



and the kid gets schooled!!!!!



thursday - 6/23/2016

fishing was alot slower.  just couldn't get them to bite.  we had until late afternoon to stick as many as we could, then we had to start gaining some altitude.  we would fish benitos the rest of the day, then san martin on friday.  

we had a nice yellowtail dinner in the evening.  





friday - 6/24/2016

woke up to huevos rancheros and a surprising 49 yellowtail that we added to the slammer!

after that idiot in the parker ran over our lines and killed the bite, we headed off to another spot for reds and ling cod.  



it was just like fishing at home, only the reds were twice the size.  







dinner was flat iron steak, broccoli and a baked potato!




saturday - 6/25/2016

we were back at the dock at 5am, ahead of all the other boats, and had out gear off loaded by 5am.  the SOA crew tossed the fish into the carts and the 5 star crew pushed the carts up to the driveway and on to their processing facility.  we had breakfast at denny's, then filtered over to 5 star.  









ed and i were on the road at 9:30am, we dropped off the fish to mom and dad's place at 3:30pm, had a light lunch and were home by 7pm.  what a day!

i want to send out a big thanks to all the the companies that donated prizes for our trip - boca bearings, izor, 5 star, okuma, p-line and mysticparts.com.  thanks to steve schuster for donating that beautiful rod, thanks again to sarah at 5 star for taking such great care of our fish, thanks to the captain and crew of the spirit of adventure, and to all the guys from the website that signed up and put up with all the craziness to make this such a great trip!  alan

[sundaytrucka]

Impatiently waiting for the rest.

I know this reports take some time and effort, so thanks ahead of time.

-Scott

[Dominick]

Impatiently waiting for the rest.

I know this reports take some time and effort, so thanks ahead of time.

-Scott

I am also.  So far so good.  Dominick

[MarkT]

Nice, but it's Jeff, not Scott, in the pic with Steve, Warren and Ed. The meals are in the wrong order. Dinner Tuesday was Salmon with a dill sauce, asparagus, rice and lemon meringue pie for desert (I had 2 Slices). I'll take your word for the breakfasts since all I had was coffee and fruit each day.

[Big Tim]

I prefer the report with mistakes. It somehow makes us all more human. Now in the pic with me Jonathan, Peaches and Jack, I would prefer to have a lie about what Jack is looking at  

BT

[sdlehr]

Looks like it was a good, fun trip for all! Maybe next year for me!

Sid

[MarkT]

True dat Tim. Even to those who were there it doesn't matter which day was Salmon vs Fajitas. I kept detailed notes each day but even to me it doesn't really matter, unless you call me Scott... or Tim! As I recall the only Scotty is a deckhand/2nd ticket. We've had the same crew for all 3 years except that Mike went to a funeral so that Brian moved up to Captain, Scotty became the relief skipper and Jim (retired after 16 years on the SoA) came back as a deckhand for this trip. Scotty is a major Springsteen fan (he just got back from a show in London at Wembley stadium) so we get along!

[Aiala]

Excellent photos, video, and reportage... great job, Boss, thanks for letting us all share in the adventure! 

~A~

[coastal_dan]

Looks like it was amazing...glad all went well!

[Steve-O]

Nice report and pics. The videos were great to get an on board point of view.

[johndtuttle]

Stoked for you guys and glad you had a good trip.

heheh Georgia Mike now knows the cousin of the AJs he has probably pulled on before. Reef Donkeys! 

[mo65]

Looks like an awesome time!

[theswimmer]

I prefer the report with mistakes. It somehow makes us all more human. Now in the pic with me Jonathan, Peaches and Jack, I would prefer to have a lie about what Jack is looking at  

BT


Don't blame it on me BT, Miss Mari and I were on the beach at  Courtright........
Mistaken identity 😜
best,
Jonathan

[Shark Hunter]

Good work Gentleman!
Glad everyone made it back safe.

[David Hall]

Great report and even better video.  Thanks for posting.