5 days on the Riley

Here are a few pictures from our 5 day, 608 mile adventure on Yale's sweet ride "Riley". Aug 17-21, 2009

Monday morning 8/17
Mike Jones, Phil Erickson and I met up at Harbor Island Marina at 4:30am and were off to Marina Coral by 5 AM to top off the boat with fuel. The trip south was uneventful and after a short wait for the fuel dock to open we were topped off with 425 gallons of fuel and headed to San Martin Island. As we expected the water inside was cold and varying shades of dirty all the way to San Martin. We fished the island and Ben’s Rock and our low expectations were soon justified. We anchored up and had a relaxing dinner of roast chicken, rolls and salad.

Tuesday 8/18
The next morning we gave the area a quick second look and headed south to Sacramento Reef. About 10 miles north of the Jeronimo Island the water color improved significantly although the water temp was still cool in the low 60’s. We zipped on by the island and headed to the reef where the fish were eagerly awaiting our arrival. The action was pretty much non stop and we finished the day with 33 quality Calicos, 7 Johnny Bass, 10 Reds, 9 Coppers, 8 Brown rock fish, 2 white fish, a ling and one yellowtail Mike caught that weighed in at 18 lbs. Mike had to find out just how hard he could pull on 20 lb. line to get the yellow. Lots of kelp and not much room to work with but he got the job done. All the fish were released except 5 of the Reds and the yellowtail. The Reds stayed for lunch and the Yellowtail jumped into the cevichi bowl with some lime juice and onion. Late in the afternoon we headed back up the line to spend the night at Jeronimo. After a dinner of flank steak which Mike barbequed to perfection it was an early lights out.

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Wednesday 8/19
Wednesday was pretty much a repeat of Tuesday. Water and weather conditions were deteriorating but the fishing remained good at the reef. The tally for the day was similar to the day before with 37 Calico bass, 4 Johnny bass, 6 Reds, 4 lings, 1 Yellowtail, 1 Whitefish and 5 brown rockfish. The largest Calico went 8 lbs. We quit fishing in mid afternoon and pounded our way back up to San Martin for the night. We made some bait and prepared our tackle and the boat for offshore fishing the next day.

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Thursday 8/20
We left the island at 3 am and headed offshore. It was late morning before we crossed a temp break and the water started looking like tuna water. Most of the day was spent on a scratch bite of mixed 10 lb class Yellowfin, Skipjack and an occasional Dorado thrown in. the largest Dorado went 22 lbs. Just before we were going to hang it up for the day we had a single albacore and a bit later a double. The Albacore were all in the 20lb. range. We set the sea anchor and looked forward to getting back up to our Albacore marks in the morning. The fish count for the day was 5 Skipjack, 11 YFT, 4 Dorado and 3 Albacore.

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Friday 8/21
We hit the deck early and after a couple of cups off coffee we started trolling north toward our marks from the day before. We had drifted 5 miles south during the night. The next four hours were a steady bite of mostly multi fish stops. By 10:30 we had to call a halt to the game as had all the fish we could ice down. We never made it back to our previous day’s fish. The catch was 11 Albacore in the 20 to 30 pound range and two yellowfin one which weighed 19 pounds. After cleaning up the fish and the boat we headed home. Fortunately we had enough of an angle on the swell that we were able to run at 22 knots all the way home.

http://bocaboard.com/data/noslack/albi1.JPG

http://bocaboard.com/data/noslack/albi3.JPG

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All in all a great trip!

Can't wait to hear the stories. Is that two fisted fishing I see going on in one of the photos? Hope it all went well, it looks like it did!

Did you guys run into some weather on the way back? Cause it sounded a little snotty yesterday. The fish look great.

Now that looks like fun!
Just a few Blackman boys pullin on some fish!

I look forward to trip details but, the pics pretty much tell the story.

Fat calicos.

Green with envy, that's all I have to say.

Added Yale's write up.