|
|
Send This Page to a Friend!
I recently had the opportunity to go on a long-range trip out of San Diego July 23rd to July 27th with my fishing partner Cal Stinnett. I had to work on Thursday, so Cal picked me up at my house in Antioch, CA around 7pm and we were San Diego bound! We arrived around 2:30am Friday morning. The Royal Polaris (our charter) docked around 6:30 that morning and began unloading from the previous trip. Around 10:30am we were allowed to board the boat, and by noon we were on our way to fill our bait tanks at the bait receivers. Shortly after Frank gave our safety lecture and provided a few tips for a successful trip. And then the news one would expect to brighten any fisherman's day, we were going to be fishing by nightfall. Well as one might imagine, my long drive to San Diego, and lack of sleep sent me to my stateroom early that evening. However, I did sleep with visions of the four remaining days ahead of me on the incredible boat! I thought the fishing during those four days was excellent, but to hear the veterans of trips such as these on the boat talk of past experiences, they seemed to think it was slow. But then again, slow is a group of 31 people, who in four days had a combined count of 403 Bluefin Tuna, 314 Yellowtail, and 108 Albacore Tuna. Most would say that's not a bad catch for a slow trip. |
||
|
Everyone aboard was pleasant and friendly, and it is hard to remember everyone by name, but people like Mike Brown and his two young boys, Jamie & Matt left definite impressions with me. I must say, for being on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I could not have met two more well-mannered Boys! Others in our group from the East Bay were Hippo Lau with the many handouts of different tackle and such compliments of Hi's Tackle in San Francisco, John Filbeck and John Lowell. The Royal Polaris is designed for comfort and fishing. The crew all work well together to make for a pleasurable trip. Frank Lopreste was our Skipper (also the owner of the vessel) assisted by deckhands Boots, Roy, Bill, John, and Daryl, and of course the incredible chefs, Jim and Greg. To try and keep this short, a few things that really surprised me with my first long-range trip would be simple things like the size of my stateroom, or the incredible food prepared for us. I must admit, a trip like this relaxes you so well that you can almost forget about the hustle and bustle of the world. My wife and I are now planning for our next trip already; personally this was a better trip than the Princess Cruise Line tour I took her on before! |
|
Copyright © 1997 - 2000 The Fish Sniffer. All rights reserved. |