10/7 to 10/12/05 - spirit of adventure

Started by alantani, December 10, 2008, 02:35:15 AM

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alantani

jeez, what a rough trip! i usually don't get sick, but i was on edge the entire trip and spent the second night puking my guts up!!!!

brett towsend runs the grady white dealership in campbell. he charters the spirit of adventure out of san diego for us grady owners once a year. it's a 5 day trip, limited load, at an open load price. a 5 day trip is 4 days of fishing and a half day of travel in either side. i think that a 5-day is your best deal, and this particular trip is a great deal!



when it comes to gear, i'm definitely old school. the rods were easy. a full set of west coast calstars. my arsenal of reels consisted of a pair progear classic series 550's, two penn 113h yts', two 113h standards, four stock shimano tld 20 II's, and a tld 30 II and a tld 50 II lrs, both with willfish frame upgrades. every reel had a pete kolekar handle and was loaded to the top with spectra. for the first time ever, yozuri hybrid was used for topshots instead of berkeley big game (more on that later....). ringed owner circle and live bait hooks served as point. i packed a duffle of personal gear and ONLY 3 boxes of reel repair stuff.

bob byers picked me up on thursday morning and drove the entire way. what a guy! we got a hotel room at the vagabond, cruised the shops for a while, and met up with brett and company at the captain's quarters for drinks. dinner was at miguel's, 5 drinks total for the evening and 4 hours sleep the previous night, and i was done for!

friday morning we were up bright and early. that's what a hang over does to me! after loading my gear on board, my next task was to get a hair cut. gawd, it was funny. i found this place run by an older filipina lady. she was insisting that i had been into her shop 20 years before. i tried to convince her that it had to be some other handsome japanese guy, but she wasn't buying it. and imagine these three old ladies, sitting in their hair dryers, reading their cosmo magazines, and sucking up every word. anyway, i got my haircut, left her a big tip, and got out of there as soon as i could. back on board, we got our gear set up, got our bait, got the bad news about guadalupe, and headed out into open water. free at last! funny, my stomach was still on edge.



saturday was our first day of fishing. we headed south, paddy hopping, splitting the distance between guadalupe and cedros. if, by some miracle, the bite at guadalupe turned on, we could head there and have 2 and a half solid days of fishing. most likely, we would head to cedros on day two, with an option to go to guadalupe on day three. well, paddy hopping produced only a few dodo's, i was skunked, and the news from the 'lupe was bad, so we ran all night to cedros. it was rough. luckily, i only spent half the night vomiting.

well, sunday was another day. after saying prayers all the previous night, i was blessed with a hot stick! it was one yellowtail after another. i quickly went from 30, to 40, to 60, to 80# test, and stayed with my 80# troller the rest of the day. the killer combination was a 2/0 ringed owner live bait hook, 8 ounces on a dropper, and a 15 second freespool drop. i was literally hooking up in 3 seconds. by the time the carnage was over, we had a limit of 300 yellowtail, 10 to 25 pounds, in 8 hours. we easily broke off another hundred in the pandemonium. i used up 25 tags and had to ask for more. so ended fishing day two.

with a limit of yellowtail, the only thing left to fish for was tuna. that meant we had to run all night to guadalupe. we arrived at 10 am and scratched up two big yft's at 102 and 112#'s, and another six at 20-40#'s. we did a little night fishing and i lost a really nice fish on the dropper loop. i'm guessing it was a 40-50# yellowtail. it picked me up 3 cranks off the bottom, peeled out line against 20# of drag, and rocked me all in 10 seconds. three nice yellowtail came up in the next hour, but none for me. the decision had been made earlier to chase radio fish 100 miles due west of san diego, so at 10pm we hauled anchor and headed north. i was skunked on fishing day three.



day four found us in greasy flat open water, trolling all day, for nothing. it was a tough choice. we were leaving the few fish at guadalupe to find fish in open water. staying put meant only fishing until noon at the latest, then running straight home all afternoon and night. leaving guadalupe and running all night meant having the entire next day to fish. the skipper had some promising reports from seiners and spotter planes, but we couldn't find them. it was a tough choice. all we needed was one school that wanted to die. but it was a bust and the entire boat was skunked on day four.



that evening was our steak dinner. we all took time out to stow our gear and that evening, the rod racks were clear. at 7am we pulled into the dock and passed off the fish to my dad and his buddy. bob and i hit the road, and started planning for next year.









it's funny. you'd think after all these trips, i'd have it down. but every trip is a little different. this was primarily a yellowtail trip. and there were things that definitely worked for me ...

* calstar rods
* progear, penn and shimano reels
* greased carbon fiber drags
* pete kolekar handles
* lots of spectra and 50-75 yard topshots
* 80# test
* 2/0 ringed owner live bait hooks
* nose hooked baits
* dropper loops with 6-8 ounces of weight

there were things that definitely did not work me ....

* circle hooks, ringed or otherwise
* drag settings less than 15#'s
* 10 ounce weights
* rubber core sinkers
* butt hooked baits
* flylining
* alcohol
* oil and vinegarette salad dressing

and something i'm still not sure of....

* yozuri hybrid!!!!!!!!!!!!

damn that stuff! i lost several small yellowtail at cedros when the yozuri broke at the rubbercore sinker. that's not supposed to happen. and that big fish that i lost at guadalupe was on 60# yozuri hybrid with 20#'s of drag. i think it was the way i tied my dropper loop. i'm betting the weight got caught in the rocks and the main line snapped as a result. so that is one mistake that i will not make again. but that was not the only yozuri failure. dave had hooked up on a big yellowfin, and the 50# yozuri topshot that i had tied for him broke off somewhere above the knot. who knows why. but we do know that don olson hooked up on that same fish 15 minutes later and brought it to gaff. the captain pulled dave's hook out as well as don's. it was 112 pounds and earned don olson the jackpot! so basically, the 50# yozuri topshot that i tied for dave had cost him a jackpot fish. you can never know for sure why a topshot will fail. it could have been anyone of a dozen reasons. but the bottom line is two big fish and two big failures for yozuri hybrid.

i really like the idea of a full spool of spectra and a 50-75 yard topshot of fluorocarbon. i'm just not sure it will hold up as well as berkeley big game. i will talk this over with glenn at the fisherman's warehouse and decide before next year.

thanks to brett and harry at central valley marine, and thanks to captain mike keating and the crew of the spirit of adventure for a great trip. if you've ever considered a long range trip, start with a 5 day. i think it's the best bang for your buck. and for you grady owners out there, contact brett at central valley marine and see about joining us. it's a great group of guys.

send me an email at alantani@yahoo.com for questions!