Islander 2.5 Day Trip - Report on Page 21

I didn't take nearly as many pics this time, but I think I got some pretty good ones. All of these of Mike battling a YT came out pretty good.

 

 

I picked up 4 YT on Day 1. All of them after lunch. Here are number 2 and number 3. The young deckhand who was running the skiff somehow managed to lose these two by not having his staple gun with him to label them right away. Andrew ended up hooking me up with the two he thought were mine, but mine were bigger. 

No biggie on the lost YTs, as there would be more to come.

I caught my first three YT on my little Penn Liveliner 4500/Shimano Trevala combo. By this time my leader was getting all tangled up and it was bugging the shit out of me, so I switched over to my heavier conventional set-up which was a medium heavy Trevala with a Revo Toro 60 loaded with 50lb braid and 30lb flouro. It turns out fate was on my side and this was a critical decision, as....

While dropping off the two previously mentioned fish to the deckhand I told him to hook me up with the big ass mackerel he had in the bait cooler. Not long after I get a heavy fish that just wants to slowly go back down to the bottom. It starts pulling me all over the place, but pretty slowly. It didn't make any screaming runs, but slowly dragged me around for 10-15 minutes. I got to my leader six or seven times but each time it would slowly swim back down a few dozen yards. I was pretty sure it was a BSB. After awhile it stopped being fun and my arms were getting sore. I was wondering what the hell this thing was so I started putting some serious pressure on it. I was mentioning that I was gonna be pissed if it was a batray (I was almost positive it wasn't) when I get to color. At first I thought it was a WSB, but then when it came circling from under my boat I saw it was a gangster YT.

29lbs on the boga, my PB, and Day One's jackpot winner.

Pretty much nobody wanted the mackerel on Day 1. On Day 2 there was a shortage of mackerel. 

I was tired, ecstatic, and covered in YT blood. 

 

Cod Almighty, AbDiver, and shutting down Day 1.

Day 2

The Big Boat and a sexxy Shu.

One of my favorite pics from the trip.

Mike playing with the calicoes. Later in the day he would get so fed up with the pestering bonito that he pedaled like a mile and a half away to get away from them. 

I was referring to him as "Muy Bonito". 

Nick re-arming.

Blue sky peaking through the clouds.