Hi Guys,
We just came back from 3x300lber super cow Rick Ozaki on the Graphtec/Raider/Avet sponsored charter this morning. The famous @Soda Pop was on the trip and the usual regulars: Rick Ozaki, Ken (Bocelli) Buzzell, Phil Nasida, Louie Louie Marzari, Jim Evans, Jim Isacc, Garry Buzzard, Frank Bartel, Max Macias, James Salmorin, John (Doc) Metcalf, and a bunch of new guys. Shon Eastridge, Ron Rotter (RINO), Rickard Berg, Blake Skirvin, Tony (Coach) OConnell, Justin Carpenter, Pete Wright, Akio Higashi, Scott (Life Guard) Linkletter, and Mel Villalobos.
The crew was Captain Matt, Captain Brian, Captain (Super Tanker Driver) BIlly, Captain (Super Dave), Romo, and Shane. And the chefs' Ed and Rollo who fattened us up every morning, noon, and night. All the crew were great and worked hard. Super Dave was always active and was always Johnny on the spot. Brian is one strong dude and he can hold my trolling reel and hold it like a bait caster. Billy. I would ask him big ship captaining questions and he would answer. Romo always busting his butt. Matt always looking for fish and giving me a hard time for fun.
We started out the trip as usual and had the option of loading up the day before and sleeping on the boat the day before. It's always nice to load up the day before and Max, Phil, and I made the run to Costco for booze and other things we forgot or wanted. Then a Chinese food dinner before heading back to the boat and sleeping in for the trip to begin. The usual heading to the bait barge and loading medium size healthy sardines and small mackerels as bait for hours and off we go heading south. I am sure you guys have headed back up the line with big swells coming home. But we had the rough weather a few miles outside of the harbor. The waves were rough and choppy and we were getting rocked pretty well. Justin had his rods and reels on the rod holder near the bow with the bungee cords and we hit one wave I was looking out the window and thought that it snapped his rod in half. What had actually happened was the wave hit so hard on the port bow that one of his rigs had just washed off the boat. It was insane and I've never had the waves wash so hard on the way down.
Finally, the condition was calm enough and the giveaways provided by Rick were handed out. People got shirts, sweatshirts, hats, Raider jigs, and Seaguar fluorocarbon. Then the raffles started, Avet 50 SDS 3 Speed, Avet 30 3 Speed, Avet HXW 3 Speed (Soda Pop won and gave away), and other Avet reels. Rick's charter has always had the best giveaways and raffles ever. I won (given) an Avet 50 SDS 3 speed and was stoked and was hoping to have a chance to get to use them.
Then Soda being Soda, he had brought aboard the wheel of fortune for the crew. On the wheel were $100 bills, lower currencies, gift cards for Starbucks, Mcdonald's, and other goodies. Soda also brought aboard 700+ bottles of soda pop of all favors. I am not kidding, Soda drinks lots and lots of soda. :-D The crew drank lots of soda pop and I called them diabetics in a bottle.
Soda Wheel of Fortune. Video 10 Minutes...
The next day was rough but it was a bit calmer the more we headed south. Captain Matt said he was split between Hurricane Banks and Clarion Buffer Zone and would make the decision to choose the starting destination as we got closer down south. Eventually, Captain Matt decided that we would start at the Hurricane Banks and see what the conditions are looking like there. We arrived with anticipation at the bank around 11ish and start the troll. No sports boats have been there in a few weeks and we thought the wahoo fishing should be pretty good with high hopes we started the troll for wahoo. We got ready with Raider jigs, and bombs, and started the troll with Mauraders, DTX, and my JRI Intruder.
The wahoo was far and between and very small. We would get a single wahoo troll strike and no jig fish. You would expect wahoo fishing to be phenomenal but the wahoo and most life were not on the bank. We anchored up and started the fishing and all we caught were small YFT and not much else. I was happy to have caught a 35lber and tagged that fish to be on the board at least. At anchor, we would hook man bait size skippies and YFT and nothing better. Like I said, I was the JP fish with 35lber that day. Sharks, did I mention sharks? They would bite the small tuna and jack up your leaders and you would lose your expensive designer hooks.
The crew made flying fish and the crew was on fire. Captain Brian got 55 of them in quick order himself.
The next day we woke up at the banks and we tried the early morning man bait fishing and fly line to get away from the footballs that were all over the place. I would myself send one Skippie out about 300 yards and not one bite while the bait was swimming well. Once your bait got weak and then Mr brown shark would eat the bait. Many times you would get the perfect corner hook on the brown shark and then you would have to fight it in to cut the leader.
When the sun came up and even the small tunas disappeared. We set on the wahoo troll and we went around and around and around the bank with less than a handful of wahoo biting. Again these wahoos were very small and not the usual wahoo fishing you would expect. Then we went and anchored on the other side of the bank and tried again.
Complete void of life. Once we anchored up there was no small tuna no nothing. Not even the shark was biting. It was like something turned the switch off and life was gone. No rainbow runner or nothing.
One of my favorite times on these long trips is the travel between the two locations. My buddy Max and I would start to do some drinking and smoking cigars and nice naps as needed.
Another Soda Pop story was Soda's Mak 20 wasn't free spooling right or the drag wasn't the usual smooth Mak style. I and Max were working on reel maintenance on the way down and Soda knew. So he asked me to look at it, I took it apart and did the usual lube the bearings and look at his drags. He had some moisture inside his drags so I cleaned that up and gave it back. So Soda being Soda again. He goes do you want a reel? To be honest who doesn't want a free reel? He gave me the Avet HXw Raptor 3 speed he had one on the raffle. Soda can be one generous guy. :-D
So now the sad news. Rick now Mr. 3x300 said he was going to stop being the charter master of the 16-day trips. Fishing the last few years down south has been iffy in April. The travel of 8 days for so so fishing wasn't worth it and time would be better doing other time of fishing. I started to fish with Rick on the 16-day trips starting in 2010. 12 years of fishing these long trips and for the time being for me anyway and a few of us it's now on pause. I am sure I will go back on one, one day but not next year.
Some of the things which cross my mind were what I really enjoyed about these long trips. Obviously fishing for big tuna of course. But why did I come back even when fishing was so so year after year????
I guess for me it's seeing old friends and making new ones. The first time I joined Rick's charter 12 years ago, I went on with my buddy Jeff Liu and we were the new young (relatively to other anglers
) guys. Rick has had a core group of guys who fished the Excell and other boats and moved to the Indy after his friend Paul and Mark finished building the boat. We were new and full of energy and wanted to catch everything and fish hard. I'm pretty sure they thought we were assholes. But, then we came back year after year, and the regular guys kind of got to know us and we became friends.
For example people like Louie Louie. I believe he is 82 and can walk around and fishes hard and pulls hard on fish still. I tell Louie Louie every year he's my hero. I think he can pull harder than many 40 year olds. A few years ago Louie pulled in a 298 all by himself.
Jim Evans. Jim is retired and 84 and he walks and is super active. He is super nice and a true gentleman. The entire boat knows especially Captain Matt that I like grouper. (Of note. One trip I brought home grouper. Then my wife and kids told me no more tuna or wahoo. Grouper). I was in the galley eating breakfast and Matt came in and said that Jim caught a 50lbs grouper. I thought Matt was messing with me but went outside anyways. I saw it and I asked JIm if I could have it and Jim said sure. Matt wanted to have it for dinner, but I need to go fishing again you know. Got to keep the wife happy.
Ken (Bocelli) Buzzell. Ken is a retired captain from the LA fire department and also was the former fire dept union rep. Ken has no problem telling people what he thinks. My buddy Max who I brought to the charter 7 years ago on his first trip cast over Ken's line and Ken let him have it.
. It took a while to get to know him but he is a great guy and if there are no doctors on the trip. He's probably the first person you want helping you out. He killed the wahoo this trip.
Phil. I started fishing with Phil on the Shogun and we got out first cows in 2005. We got hooked on big tuna and started to come on Rick's charters. He is very patient and not pushy and easy to laugh with. We used to go to the scale by Fisherman's landing beginning of the trip and after to see how much weight we gained. Let's say we stopped that long time ago. This trip, we both started to get like guppies. He is sucking his stomach in on this picture.
Jim Isacc is a retired park services from Santa Barbara. Now he is retired now and he does kayak tours on Santa Cruz Island. Max and I voted him healthiest passenger and if the ship went down the person we want to hang on to.
Frank is a retired aero space engineer and he is always a fun person to talk to.
Tony (coach). He missed a few years but came back this year. He's a great fisherman and when he talks he still talks in the coach's voice and tone. He was my sisters PE coach at her Jr. High. When he tells me to do something. It was always "yes, coach".
Garry. He broke his leg biking late last year and wasn't going to make the trip. But he made it. We rocked out on old school heavy metal.
The regular guys who didn't make this trip. Dale, Allen Smith, Alan Aiyama, Rockie who I've fished with years and years. Gonna have to do the 8 dayer with Rick to see them.
And the new guys you meet and make friends. Shon is one person I meet this trip. Steve K was suppose to come but couldn't so he sold the trip to Shon. Shon was great to meet and we had some serious laughs. He was fine on the 4 days down, but the last two rough days ride up was getting to him.
And of course Rick Ozaki. He is one of the best fisherman I know and he is always giving stuff to people. He is generous beyond words and if you ever needed a Raider. He would tell me to go into his box and grab one. Oh and bait catchers. One year he gave each of us one bait catcher and then said ok now I am going to sleep. Also lots of t shirts, hats, flouro, and you name it and reels and rods. I have enough t shirts for a lifetime from his trips.
Myself and Max are not going to stop fishing. But our 16 dayers are on pause for now. "Ok!!!"
Harddrive
We just came back from 3x300lber super cow Rick Ozaki on the Graphtec/Raider/Avet sponsored charter this morning. The famous @Soda Pop was on the trip and the usual regulars: Rick Ozaki, Ken (Bocelli) Buzzell, Phil Nasida, Louie Louie Marzari, Jim Evans, Jim Isacc, Garry Buzzard, Frank Bartel, Max Macias, James Salmorin, John (Doc) Metcalf, and a bunch of new guys. Shon Eastridge, Ron Rotter (RINO), Rickard Berg, Blake Skirvin, Tony (Coach) OConnell, Justin Carpenter, Pete Wright, Akio Higashi, Scott (Life Guard) Linkletter, and Mel Villalobos.
The crew was Captain Matt, Captain Brian, Captain (Super Tanker Driver) BIlly, Captain (Super Dave), Romo, and Shane. And the chefs' Ed and Rollo who fattened us up every morning, noon, and night. All the crew were great and worked hard. Super Dave was always active and was always Johnny on the spot. Brian is one strong dude and he can hold my trolling reel and hold it like a bait caster. Billy. I would ask him big ship captaining questions and he would answer. Romo always busting his butt. Matt always looking for fish and giving me a hard time for fun.
We started out the trip as usual and had the option of loading up the day before and sleeping on the boat the day before. It's always nice to load up the day before and Max, Phil, and I made the run to Costco for booze and other things we forgot or wanted. Then a Chinese food dinner before heading back to the boat and sleeping in for the trip to begin. The usual heading to the bait barge and loading medium size healthy sardines and small mackerels as bait for hours and off we go heading south. I am sure you guys have headed back up the line with big swells coming home. But we had the rough weather a few miles outside of the harbor. The waves were rough and choppy and we were getting rocked pretty well. Justin had his rods and reels on the rod holder near the bow with the bungee cords and we hit one wave I was looking out the window and thought that it snapped his rod in half. What had actually happened was the wave hit so hard on the port bow that one of his rigs had just washed off the boat. It was insane and I've never had the waves wash so hard on the way down.
Finally, the condition was calm enough and the giveaways provided by Rick were handed out. People got shirts, sweatshirts, hats, Raider jigs, and Seaguar fluorocarbon. Then the raffles started, Avet 50 SDS 3 Speed, Avet 30 3 Speed, Avet HXW 3 Speed (Soda Pop won and gave away), and other Avet reels. Rick's charter has always had the best giveaways and raffles ever. I won (given) an Avet 50 SDS 3 speed and was stoked and was hoping to have a chance to get to use them.
Then Soda being Soda, he had brought aboard the wheel of fortune for the crew. On the wheel were $100 bills, lower currencies, gift cards for Starbucks, Mcdonald's, and other goodies. Soda also brought aboard 700+ bottles of soda pop of all favors. I am not kidding, Soda drinks lots and lots of soda. :-D The crew drank lots of soda pop and I called them diabetics in a bottle.
Soda Wheel of Fortune. Video 10 Minutes...
The next day was rough but it was a bit calmer the more we headed south. Captain Matt said he was split between Hurricane Banks and Clarion Buffer Zone and would make the decision to choose the starting destination as we got closer down south. Eventually, Captain Matt decided that we would start at the Hurricane Banks and see what the conditions are looking like there. We arrived with anticipation at the bank around 11ish and start the troll. No sports boats have been there in a few weeks and we thought the wahoo fishing should be pretty good with high hopes we started the troll for wahoo. We got ready with Raider jigs, and bombs, and started the troll with Mauraders, DTX, and my JRI Intruder.
The wahoo was far and between and very small. We would get a single wahoo troll strike and no jig fish. You would expect wahoo fishing to be phenomenal but the wahoo and most life were not on the bank. We anchored up and started the fishing and all we caught were small YFT and not much else. I was happy to have caught a 35lber and tagged that fish to be on the board at least. At anchor, we would hook man bait size skippies and YFT and nothing better. Like I said, I was the JP fish with 35lber that day. Sharks, did I mention sharks? They would bite the small tuna and jack up your leaders and you would lose your expensive designer hooks.
The crew made flying fish and the crew was on fire. Captain Brian got 55 of them in quick order himself.
The next day we woke up at the banks and we tried the early morning man bait fishing and fly line to get away from the footballs that were all over the place. I would myself send one Skippie out about 300 yards and not one bite while the bait was swimming well. Once your bait got weak and then Mr brown shark would eat the bait. Many times you would get the perfect corner hook on the brown shark and then you would have to fight it in to cut the leader.
When the sun came up and even the small tunas disappeared. We set on the wahoo troll and we went around and around and around the bank with less than a handful of wahoo biting. Again these wahoos were very small and not the usual wahoo fishing you would expect. Then we went and anchored on the other side of the bank and tried again.
Complete void of life. Once we anchored up there was no small tuna no nothing. Not even the shark was biting. It was like something turned the switch off and life was gone. No rainbow runner or nothing.
One of my favorite times on these long trips is the travel between the two locations. My buddy Max and I would start to do some drinking and smoking cigars and nice naps as needed.
Another Soda Pop story was Soda's Mak 20 wasn't free spooling right or the drag wasn't the usual smooth Mak style. I and Max were working on reel maintenance on the way down and Soda knew. So he asked me to look at it, I took it apart and did the usual lube the bearings and look at his drags. He had some moisture inside his drags so I cleaned that up and gave it back. So Soda being Soda again. He goes do you want a reel? To be honest who doesn't want a free reel? He gave me the Avet HXw Raptor 3 speed he had one on the raffle. Soda can be one generous guy. :-D
So now the sad news. Rick now Mr. 3x300 said he was going to stop being the charter master of the 16-day trips. Fishing the last few years down south has been iffy in April. The travel of 8 days for so so fishing wasn't worth it and time would be better doing other time of fishing. I started to fish with Rick on the 16-day trips starting in 2010. 12 years of fishing these long trips and for the time being for me anyway and a few of us it's now on pause. I am sure I will go back on one, one day but not next year.
Some of the things which cross my mind were what I really enjoyed about these long trips. Obviously fishing for big tuna of course. But why did I come back even when fishing was so so year after year????
I guess for me it's seeing old friends and making new ones. The first time I joined Rick's charter 12 years ago, I went on with my buddy Jeff Liu and we were the new young (relatively to other anglers
) guys. Rick has had a core group of guys who fished the Excell and other boats and moved to the Indy after his friend Paul and Mark finished building the boat. We were new and full of energy and wanted to catch everything and fish hard. I'm pretty sure they thought we were assholes. But, then we came back year after year, and the regular guys kind of got to know us and we became friends.For example people like Louie Louie. I believe he is 82 and can walk around and fishes hard and pulls hard on fish still. I tell Louie Louie every year he's my hero. I think he can pull harder than many 40 year olds. A few years ago Louie pulled in a 298 all by himself.
Jim Evans. Jim is retired and 84 and he walks and is super active. He is super nice and a true gentleman. The entire boat knows especially Captain Matt that I like grouper. (Of note. One trip I brought home grouper. Then my wife and kids told me no more tuna or wahoo. Grouper). I was in the galley eating breakfast and Matt came in and said that Jim caught a 50lbs grouper. I thought Matt was messing with me but went outside anyways. I saw it and I asked JIm if I could have it and Jim said sure. Matt wanted to have it for dinner, but I need to go fishing again you know. Got to keep the wife happy.
Ken (Bocelli) Buzzell. Ken is a retired captain from the LA fire department and also was the former fire dept union rep. Ken has no problem telling people what he thinks. My buddy Max who I brought to the charter 7 years ago on his first trip cast over Ken's line and Ken let him have it.
. It took a while to get to know him but he is a great guy and if there are no doctors on the trip. He's probably the first person you want helping you out. He killed the wahoo this trip.Phil. I started fishing with Phil on the Shogun and we got out first cows in 2005. We got hooked on big tuna and started to come on Rick's charters. He is very patient and not pushy and easy to laugh with. We used to go to the scale by Fisherman's landing beginning of the trip and after to see how much weight we gained. Let's say we stopped that long time ago. This trip, we both started to get like guppies. He is sucking his stomach in on this picture.
Jim Isacc is a retired park services from Santa Barbara. Now he is retired now and he does kayak tours on Santa Cruz Island. Max and I voted him healthiest passenger and if the ship went down the person we want to hang on to.
Frank is a retired aero space engineer and he is always a fun person to talk to.
Tony (coach). He missed a few years but came back this year. He's a great fisherman and when he talks he still talks in the coach's voice and tone. He was my sisters PE coach at her Jr. High. When he tells me to do something. It was always "yes, coach".
Garry. He broke his leg biking late last year and wasn't going to make the trip. But he made it. We rocked out on old school heavy metal.
The regular guys who didn't make this trip. Dale, Allen Smith, Alan Aiyama, Rockie who I've fished with years and years. Gonna have to do the 8 dayer with Rick to see them.
And the new guys you meet and make friends. Shon is one person I meet this trip. Steve K was suppose to come but couldn't so he sold the trip to Shon. Shon was great to meet and we had some serious laughs. He was fine on the 4 days down, but the last two rough days ride up was getting to him.
And of course Rick Ozaki. He is one of the best fisherman I know and he is always giving stuff to people. He is generous beyond words and if you ever needed a Raider. He would tell me to go into his box and grab one. Oh and bait catchers. One year he gave each of us one bait catcher and then said ok now I am going to sleep. Also lots of t shirts, hats, flouro, and you name it and reels and rods. I have enough t shirts for a lifetime from his trips.
Myself and Max are not going to stop fishing. But our 16 dayers are on pause for now. "Ok!!!"
Harddrive
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