Sorry for the lateness in posting this but at least I finally got around to it. All photos are thanks to Barry Wiggins who is a professional photographer who is on quite a few of the
Independence trips. Nice to have him on board as you don’t have to worry about stopping to take pictures, all you have to do is pose for the shot.
Day 1 almost everyone got loaded on the boat and we headed out to the bait barge to load up with bait. I say almost everyone as one of the guys was way late checked in with Judy and caught a ride out to the bait barge on got on the boat there. That is what I call cutting it a little close. We got moving and had our standard safety briefing etc and after a little bit had a fine Prime Rib dinner.
Yep life on the
Independence is really hard. If you get a chance to go on one of these trips make sure your pants fit a little loose as they will fit tight by the time you get home.
Day 2 was pretty much a driving day we fast trolled some feathers and picked up a couple of small yellow tail for our efforts. They where under 15 lbs so they where sent back to grow up some to be caught at a later date. In the evening we had a briefing from the Captain Jeff. on rigging our gear for the Alijos rocks. After the briefing the two sponsors of the trip Jims Custom Rods, and Youngs’s Tackle handed out some fine swag. Robin from Young’s also did a drawing for a custom wrapped Kencor Rod which proved to be a lucky stick for the winner.
Day 3 we arrive at the Rocks.
Unfortunately the conditions where not that great while we where at Alijos. Water temp was 64 degrees with no current. We scratched the fish for a couple of days but nothing outstanding a few decent yellow fin tuna came on board. The fish that would have been the jackpot fish at about 60 lbs or so got sharked, but if you are going to pay the taxman it was done in the best way. It only got the tail. Also some decent yellow tail came on board but a lot of fish below 15 lbs got tossed back to grow up some. This was mostly finese fishing with most folks down to 30 lb outfits.A fair amount of smaller yellow fin tuna came on board but nothing outstanding. So at the end of day 4 the Jeff decided to head north to Cedros and Benitos for some better grade yellow tail. All in all the warm water looks like it is going to be late this year.
Day 5
Do I love Cedros in the spring time. The yellow tail fishing was excellent with very few fish under 20 lbs. We spent day 5 and 6 fishing here and Benitos with excellent results.
We did loose a few fish to the dogs.
On day 6 due to being tired at Benitos and having slimy hands the new custom wrapped Calstar 700 H rod and Avet HXJ reel in the pictures above ended up on the bottom of the ocean. I was bummed for about an hour or so, but washed my hands had a couple of cigarettes which I had to bum as I decided to quit smoking while I was on the trip ( Boy was that a mistake by the end of the trip I am sure all of the smokers hated to see me coming. At least last year I was the guy handing out cigarettes. I promised that on next years trip I would bring a couple of cartons whether I was still a smoker or not.) In any case I rigged a Tady 4/0 in scrambled egg on my Standard Avet HX and factory wrapped Calstar 700H and after two casts caught a 35 lb yellow tail. Sorry no pictures of that one as Barry was in the galley prepping that evenings photo show. The interesting part of all of this is that I decided it was getting close to dinner and I was getting tired so I went in the galley to get something to drink and wait for dinner. It was getting pretty close to dark and most of the guys where in the galley when Dan one of the deckhands comes running up to me with a jig in his hand and says is this the jig you where fishing with when your rod went over. Sure enough it was. Then he said I think we may be rescuing your rod. I went charging out the back corner of the deck and Dave from northern
California (Dave I am sorry I forgot your last name if you read this post pm me and I will edit) was pulling up spectra one arm length at a time. After a bit he said it was getting heavy and all of a sudden there was deep color and my new rod and reel came back up over the rail. I cleaned up the reel a with some salt X and fresh water on the boat. A soak in salt X after I got home, a tear down, cleaning a little corrosion X and grease and the reel is good as new. I am one lucky guy, and thanks to Dave again for that one and a bazillion snag of my line laying on the bottom.
We drove all night north and to the coast and started day 7 by bottom fishing picking up about 300 reds and some lings and other assorted bottom fish in the morning. Then it was time to head home. We got back to the docks on Saturday a little after 6:00 am and unloaded the fish. This is some of my pile.
All in all a great trip and I am sure everyone had a great time. I love early spring time trips as you never know what will happen, but the yellow tail fishing is at some point in the trip going to be outstanding. I love eating them yellows. I will post next years trip. Salsa Chuck, and a few other BD members where on the trip also, it is nice to see some BD folks on these trips. Hope to see everyone on next years trip.
. They show up for me fine. I am using Mozilla firefox for my browser. I will check out a few things that may have affected them. I changed some things please let me know if you can see the pics now. 
www.killerdana.com
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