2015 alantani.com/spirit of adventure charter

2015 alantani.com/spirit of adventure charter

short version - great boat, great crew, great charter group, lots of tackle, very few failures, almost everything worked, nearly full limits of yellowtail, great fish processing, and computer screen still moving at 3 feet every 10 seconds this morning and it's hard to type because my hands are still cramped up trying to hang onto the rods and reels.  great trip!

sunday - june 14th, 2015

check list - rods, reels, extra line, terminal tackle, ice chests, giveaways, clothes, shaving kit and, um, a few bottles .....   ;D



everything neatly packed.   :-\  this year i'm going to try a new spinner from okuma, the raw.  it will match up nicely with the the phenix hybrid spinner that i just ordered. 



while the rest of country is suffering floods, most of california is in drought mode. 



it's a long drive from saratoga to san diego.



hit a couple of spots of heavy traffic, but overall not so bad.



a few locals hanging out at parking lot?  nope, those are our guys, starting at 3pm!



my co-worker, ben tsutaoka, on his first (of many) long range trip.



miguel's is only a block away, so everyone headed over at 5pm.  i've decided we need a sponsor from the beverage industry.  meet lee from santa cruz, aiala from palm sprimgs, jeff from san jose, mark so cal, and jimmer wisconsin!



joey from the fisherman's warehouse, mike from georgia, wes from san jose, ben again, and my brother ed from hayward.



now mind you, we "started" at 3pm and it's now 7pm.  joe from san francisco is waving hi!



this will be joey's first long range trip. he and a couple of the other younger guys will be designated "gofer's," but mostly they will be reeling in fish for us when we get too tired!



a few more dinner shots (literally)!  i went straight back to the hotel and crashed out.  a few others were not so fortunate! 






monday - june 15th, 2015

a quick breakfast at denny's and back out to the landing.  meet warren and scott, both from southern california. 



we will start loading at 10am.





ed and mike are marking off 10 rod holders for everyone.  by popular demand, everyone is getting 10 spots. 



we had ALOT of stuff to give away on this trip.  many thanks to okuma, phenix, boca bearings, jerry brown, smoothdrag, pennparts.com, p-line, penn, rapala, prochallenger, jon vadney custom rods, vintage offshore tackle, ultimate upgrades from bryan young, keta's kustom parts, tiburon and mr. tank himself, sal!!!





those of you that have been on board know that the spirit of adventure has a rack just behind the bait tanks on the rear deck.  this one is all mine!  here are the loaners for the trip.  the rod arsenal is made up of 12 phenix black diamond hybrids, four plain black diamonds, two calstar grafighter 700L's, and five of the old heavy fiberglass calstar westcoasters for dropper loop. 

the reels assortment is made up of four makaira 10's, four makaira 8's, four andros 5 II's, six antique progear classic series 501's and five TLD 20 two speeds.  they are all spectra-backed with jerry brown's hollow-core or alan chui's hollow thunder, a tony pena knot to a 25-30 yards berkeley big game topshot, and a 5-turn uni knot to a 3/0 ringed owner gorilla j-hook.  drags were all set to 25-33%, the TLD's were strung with 60# topshots, the mak 10's were strung with 40# topshots and everything else was strung with 30#.

no gear or knot failures that i know of for this entire trip!



the captain loaded up with a nice load of sardines for bait and anchovies for chum. 



a reminder that san diego is a navy town!



through the jaws at noon, sandwiches for a quick lunch, corey's "melt in your mouth" ribs for dinner.  lee's son, nicholas, is seated to the left of his dad. 



ken, randy, jack, joe, tom and wai!



mike, aiala and scott.



dean, dave and ben. 



everyone got settled in for a very smooth ride down hill.  it was mike pate's birthday so we had a scotch (or two), finished up rigging and most turned in early.

tuesday - june 16th, 2015

first call for breakfast!



instead of running close inshore and fishing the kelp, mike decided to head straight for san benitos island to take a shot at the yellowtail.  mid morning he said the water cleared up enough to troll so evan and jp put out the boat gear.  wes is inspecting. 



just hangin' out on the back deck!  joel, mark, jimmer, ed, mike and joey. 



you will see this stuff again.  joey brought it with him.  a good friend of our's, rick berg, makes alot of odds and ends for local rockcod.  we are going to have a "rick berg" challenge later in the week. 



joel and mike ludovico from roseville.



ed and randy.



wai having pasta for lunch.



big dave!



scott, aka sundaytrucka.



let the carnage begin!  it took 27 hours from the time we left the jaws at san diego for warren to stick this san benitos yellowtail!



the guys actually let me fish a little!



you will be seeing a few more photos of scotty!





jeff stokes and deckhand, scotty.  it's nearly impossible to get either one of these guys to ever smile!





deckhand evan with mike pate (aka wally-one-five) and his new favorite combo, the mak 10 and the phenix bdh 700h. 





the sorcerer's apprentice!



on the flat fall jig.  i don't think this one was getting away!





one of ben's first yellowtail ever!  you'd think he'd be a little more excited!









now, here's somebody that gets excited!



meet tim dang!  it's great to have these kids along.  if you hook into a fish and you get tired of cranking, just hand it off to one of the kids!



joel is 75 years old.  he had a slow start last year, but held his own very well this year!



warren, hooked up again!



ken's magic number is 8.  that would be 8 casts and 8 fish in a row!



ah, there's that smile!



randy had to work a little harder, but he still got 'em!





the captain was dragging back two fish at a time from the bow. iron was very productive on this trip.



ed, jack, lee and randy.



yeah, we had a heck of time getting this gut to smile!

an eleven way hookup!





ed and jp!



yowza!



jack with his penn torque! 





warren!



we had some sea lion problems.





fishing will never be the same.  tim is officially spoiled!



we fished from 3pm until 8pm and stuck 121 yellowtail.  a great day by any measure!







alaskan salmon for dinner!



we anchored up at san benitos and did a little night fishing! 



we had a bait stealer all night.  he picked me up twice, then picked up randy, so we switched to a wire leader. 



wednesday - june 17th, 2015

first call for breakfast!







still fishing san benitos today.

















here is the morning video.  i counted 15 guys hooked up, some more than once.



fish tacos!!!!!







in the afternoon we tucked into the shallows between two of the islands.







ed has a little mishap.





a few minutes and i got him back in business!



afternoon snack!





breaktime!  we've just added another 200 fish to the pot and guys are feeling pretty good!



joey discovered surface iron!



first call for dinner!

thursday - june 18th, 2015

eggs benedict!



somebody has been hiding from the camera all week!





evan getting ready to start a chum line.



took a little time to sneak up to the wheelhouse and get a photo of our two captains, bryan and mike!







finally made it to cedros!















we stuck 327 yellowtail at san benitos and would add another 40 at cedros.



pastrami sandwiches for lunch. 



we had a laser minnow challenge yesterday and randy pauly won the jigmaster 99, but the last thing he needs is another jigmaster so he donated it back.  today is the rick berg challenge where you have an hour to fish with something out of the bucket.  first place is the hotrodded narrow frame 6/0 and second place is the jigmaster 99 conversion.









our challenge was only an hour long.  mike ludovico took second place with a 1.15 pound blue perch and scott rodriguez took first place with a 20 pound yellowtail.





first place!





dave picked up a yellowtail on bait. 



hamachi sashimi and sake for an afternoon snack!





38 more yellowtail for the day, 365 total so far, 10 short of limits. 



good bye cedros, hello wind and waves. 



fresh seared yellowtail for dinner!



it was really bumpy that night.  a bunch of guys close to the bow had to sleep in the galley.  guys were getting lifted off their bunks in the forward cabins.  hard night for everyone. 


friday - june 19th, 2015

huevos rancheros. 



a bunch of rods were knocked out of their holders up on the bow.  gotta remember the bungee cords next year. 



we headed up the line to san martin bank and mark stuck a nice yellow.



fresh calico sandwiches for lunch today. 



yeah, it was a little rough last night. 



even the kids were worn down!



at least somebody got some sleep!



well, sleep or no sleep, we're fishing!  i'm tellin' ya, they make these boys tough down south.  20 years in the army doesn't hurt, either. 





all done, headed for home!  the rods and reels were all soaped, rinsed, towel dried, sprayed with corrosion x, wiped down again and packed away.   even our personal gear is all packed up and ready to go for tomorrow.



tri tip for dinner!
















saturday - june 20th, 2015

ed and i heard the engines throttle back at 4am and that got us up.  we tied up at 5am and we had all of our gear off the boat by 5:30.  the 5 star crew was there to off load our fish and it went straight to their processing facility and we went back to denny's!













the guys at 5 star worked like crazy.  ed and i were the last guys out and we were on the road by 10am.



thanks to sara at 5 star for making our "no tag" format possible!



thanks to the captain and crew of the spirit of adventure, to all the companies and individuals that donated prizes for our charter, to 5 star and to all the guys that joined me, some from across the country, that helped make this such a great trip.  alan

Awesome! Thanks for taking us along, Alan.

Thanks a lot for sharing the trip with us Alan. 

WHAT A REPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those are some monster YT's ya'll got there.

Thanks for such a detailed report.  I have always liked your reports and reel info.

Well done Alan.

Now ... are you guys sure you don't want to do a 5 day Islander trip next June?

-Allen

Well done Alan.

Now ... are you guys sure you don't want to do a 5 day Islander trip next June?

-Allen

Hey Alan - How many of the days that you guys were out there were kayak-fishable?

That was awesome. 

My vote for ReportOfTheMonth!!!

i ate a bowl of oatmeal while reading,looking and imagining i was there = THANKS Alan!!

Outstanding!  My uncle has been on every boat in the SoCal area, the Spirit of Adventure is all he'll run on these days...top notch!

Awesome trip! Thanks for sharing.

eeeh!  looks very boring.  what did you all do to "kill time"

Great report and love all the YT porn!   Thanks for taking us along with all the video and pics! 

Now I just need to go wipe the drool off my face.