Trip 5 Report: Thunderbird 2.5 day, August 9-11, 2022

This trip was the Club's only 2 1/2 dayer and it fished in the middle of the week. And who would have guessed that it would be the first trip to fill during the sign-ups? It was also a trip with all members. The groups included the following: Roy Patterson, Steve Strum, Stewart Finley, Riley Dyer, BJ Dyer, Mike Castillo, Brian Wynne, Brandon Lockwood, Paul Casillas, Mike Higa, Paul Morgan, Nick Burson, Bill Parks, Murphy Parks, Ron Shrout, Jeff Stephens, Jeff Hinrichs, Hayden Claisse, Steve Lenker, John Lenker, Michael Harris and your scribe - Luke Burson.

This trip was the first time we departed on a Tuesday night and that created a new wrinkle for all. Wednesdays are street cleaning days so everyone had to park on specific sides of the street or risk being towed. It worked out fine but made parking a bigger challenge.

And yes the usual suspects were there for breakfast to be in line first. Hayden of course followed by Brian Wynn, Jeff Henrichs, and a few others. Again it looked like we were departing on a 10-day long-range trip.

The Thunderbird returned a little early because they had a stellar trip fishing Dorado off kelps. Our plan was to try and do a repeat. We would be going south to start the day looking for kelps and dorado. It was a smooth ride in calm weather.

Our first kelp was spotted at 6:45 AM but nobody was home. It did get everyone up and ready to fish. At 7:00 AM Nick spots a patty that the crew missed but again nobody was home but there was another close by. This one broke the ice with Steve S getting the first dorado followed by Stewart F getting the second. Paul C did a masterful job of hook and release except he never saw the fish. Bill also got bit on his "pattened" sinker rig but again the dorado got away. We were on to find the next patty and it did not take long......7:45 we found one holding fish. We hit it 4 times for 6 YT, 8 Dorado, and 3 BF. The BF were nice fish.....pushing 30#s. This patty also had a breezer of tuna nearby but they simply breezed right on by. This patty produced a lot of action for all.

Kelps were getting harder to find and the ones we did find were empty. Right around 11 AM a monster kelp was found and on 2 passes it produced 12 YT, 5 Dorado. Then things went dry.....and dryer. Jeff decided to make a 35-mile move. While traveling a few guys trolled and two small Dorado were caught but nothing else. Then a significant patty was spotted right at 3 PM. That one turned out to make the move a good call. We got well quickly putting the finishing touches on the day. Our total for day 1 was 68 YT, 30 Dorado, 3 BFT, and 7 YFT. A decision was made to not cut the fish that night so the JP / Patch winner would not be known until the next night. The three BFT were bigger than all the other fish.

Day 2 started at 5:00 AM with the boat moving toward the east. We did not find a kelp until 8:00 AM. This kelp only produced Dorado for Nick B and Mike H. There was an odd occurrence after those fish were landed. Steve L decided he wanted a picture so he borrowed a fish. I have never thought about a picture with someone else fish before, still wondering about that one. At 10:30 AM we were in an area with a few kelps but they produced little, just 2 Dorado. Jeff marked lots of YT on one of the patties but they were not interested. A short time later another kelp that yielded 2 more Dorado and a larger YT, maybe JP / Patch contender. Then it finally happened just after 1:00 PM a kelp with fish that wanted to go for about 10 minutes. During that time we landed 25 YT, for a few minutes it was WFO. As the day went on we found a few more kelps with both dorado and YT. We ended the day with 14 Dorado and 64 YT. Day two turned out to be pretty windy and at times a bit uncomfortable.

The two-day total was 180 gamefish.

Like most trips some guys were hot and others struggled. Here is a recap by angler without naming names of total fish caught: 20, 16, 16, 14, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, and 3. Yes, there are 22 numbers and the total seems to exceed the 180 gamefish count kept track of in the galley. Hey, we are anglers.......truth and reality rarely meet!

Now for the JP / Patch winners: Day 1 was a ~28# BFT caught by Brandon L who narrowly beat out Roy P (probably was an honest 30# fish before being fileted, all the BF were gill and guts before going into the fish hold). Day 2 was a hefty YT caught by Paul M who narrowly beat out me (by the way it was not taped or weight because there was a monster caught earlier in the year)

Congrats to both Brandon and Paul.

Guys with lots of fish share with others as the fish for both days were cut on the way home. The crew cut all the way back \ to the dock pulling an all-nighter on deck.

It was a fun trip with lots of action and lots of fish!

Scribe Luke