Thanksgiving 2010

Our annual Braid Products 16 day trip began on the boat Thanksgiving day with a traditional turkey dinner prepared by Chef Jason Fleck. Sixteen of the seventeen passengers plus friends and family joined the celebration. Even Ingrid Poole joined the festivities. Al Scow gave Thanks with a lovely short story and dinner was served.  What a wonderful way to get acquainted and begin our annual Excel trip.

Early Friday morning crew arrived, non-passengers departed the boat, milk and produce deliveries were loaded and formal check-in was completed before 6:30 am. We were at the bait receiver by 7 am loading a combination of healthy sardines and mackerel. We cleared the point by 9:30 and headed south.

Crew traveling with us this trip included Captain Justin Fleck, Second Captain Mike Ramirez with Joel Fleck, Jeff Bunde, Derrick and Rudy on deck. Galley crew was headed up by Jim assisted by Brandon (who by trips end was known as Frodo). Jason Fleck, Excel's regular Chef, was home awaiting the birth of his first child, daughter Sage Elizabeth.

Weather for our departure was unusually cool for this time of year and actually continued for the majority of the trip. Staterooms were barely 61 degrees for the first three days as the boat has air conditioning but not heat. Blankets were at a premium.

Captain Fleck gathered us all in the galley for the safety seminar and informed us we were headed to Hurricane Bank, a four day ride south. Trip regulars Al Scow, Ralph Mikkelsen, Andy Marcum, Basil Pappas, Steve Lindsey, Bob Kelley, Bergie, Ken Cirks, James Hassan, and Dennis Braid were joined by newcomers Kim Hasselbalch, Roland Reesby, Kil Song, Shin Song (a Korean TV Fishing Star) Shin's cameraman, Lee, and Dennis Braid's cameraman, Tom Pollard.

Dennis brought along his cameraman to shoot footage for one or more episodes of the Outdoor Channel's Monster Fish series. Shin had his cameraman filming for his own programs to be shown in Korea. Shin also owns a tackle store in his home town. Both cameramen were quite professional and never interfered with the fishing. I found it interesting one afternoon to find them comparing camera information on the back deck.

Four days travel were crammed with putting reels on rods, eating, making leaders, fishing seminars, eating, reading, watching fishing videos, playing Wii Tennis and bowling, and more eating. We not only ate breakfast, lunch and dinner but were served mid-morning and mid afternoon snacks as well. We were really ready to work it all off when we reached the bank at 3:15 am Tuesday morning. We were greeted with choppy seas and the bank lived up to its' name blowing 25 knots.

Justin gave the bank a quick check and quickly got the anchor down. I fished a sardine on a sinker rig using 130# Big Game mono top shot with a 130# Berkley Aqua Blue Fluorocarbon leader crimped to the new Mustad 39942 BLN 8/0 hooks (3x Strong). Having lost a big fish the previous year from two straightened hooks, the 3x with its' thicker diameter wire gave me confidence I wouldn't have had otherwise. This was my “go to rig” for most the trip adding a sinker in the morning or when the birds became a nuisance. A similar outfit in 100# was used during the middle of the day with a Mustad 39943 BLN 7/0 4x hook. For this 100# rig, I was testing a new Penn 12 VSX which I loaded with 400 yards of Power Pro red spectra, a 20 yard 100# Big Game top shot and a 100# Berkley fluorocarbon leader.

It didn't take long until some smaller tuna showed up ready to bite. I sent my first two to the galley for the fish eating contingent on the boat (which included me). The first couple Wahoo were also donated by generous passengers. Fishing was pretty steady then the skipjack showed up. We quickly switched to our big bait rigs - a 10/0 7691 hook on 200# leader crimped to 130# mono. James Hassan scored big with a 256 lb. yellowfin. What a beautiful fish. I fished a small yellowfin tuna on my big bait rig and also caught a nice tuna although not nearly as big. Mine was estimated at 185 lbs.

We continued using a variety of baits and catching some tuna and many nice big brown sharks. A big white tip was also in the mix of sharks caught that day. At days' end, we had tagged 22 tuna (I had 5) and 6 Wahoo. Although the tuna were nice ones, we failed to capture any more cows this day. I was able to land 3 nice tuna from 80 to 120 lbs. on the new Penn 12 VSX and it performed very well.

Wednesday we fished the bank until noon for 1 tuna and 5 wahoo before taking off for Clarion. Shin Song also caught a big tuna that weighed in at 258 lbs. which was the only tuna of the day.

 

We spent the next four and a half days fishing the buffer zone of Clarion Island. We had to check in with the camp the first day and were issued our wrist bands allowing us to fish the buffer zone then we were off chasing porpoise schools. Fishing was quite good for 50 to 187 lb. tuna. In the four days around Clarion, we caught over 185 tuna and enjoyed beautiful weather in the 80 degree range.

During our time around the Island, Miss Sage Elizabeth Fleck arrived in good health on the morning of December 4th immensely pleasing her parents, Jason and Hillary Fleck. Congratulations to the new parents!

With over 200 quality tuna in the hold, we had the opportunity to invest a little time in pursuit of a trophy tuna over 300 lbs. We traveled a day and a half to reach the promised land affectionately called the 300# bank (actually named the Lusitania Bank). A short detour first lead us to Mag Bay for bait making. A midnight to 2:30 am bait making ordeal resulted in about 200 mackerel to add to our bait supply. We were on the fishing grounds by 9:30 am the morning of the 8th. The weather was warm with calm seas and crystal clear waters. By 10 am, we started seeing big tuna boils all around the boat - mostly a distance away. Everyone fished hard trying 100# line, small hooks, fluorocarbon, short top shots, chunks, sardines hooked in a variety of ways, balloons, kite, sinkers, etc. These fish would not bite a bait with a hook in it. Just at sundown, Kim hooked and landed a 181 lb. tuna, his personal best.

The next morning we tried it all again. Roland finally hooked one but pulled the hook at color. Before traveling up to the ridge, Justin tried a drift and Rudy hooked and handed a nice 160 lb. tuna to Ralph and that was the end of the trophy hunt.

The Captain charted a course for home that included a couple stops for yellowtail and stops around Colonet for rock cod. The weather and waters turned cold for the trip home and blankets were again appreciated in our bunks.

Dennis Braid held a drawing for giveaways most every night of the trip and we also had the famous wine tasting event. This year we had eight contestants with only four tasters tasting all 32 bottles of wine. The last evening was Prime Rib dinner served by Captain Fleck and award night for the wine tasting and Jackpots.

Ken Cirks won the High Roller Jackpot and thrust all his winnings into Captain Fleck's hands for the crew. Nice job Ken. The wine contest was apparently no contest at all as Basil won for the best bottle (Chateaux St. Jean) and best four bottles for tackle and a couple pairs of Maui Jim sunglasses. Nice going Basil! The boat jackpot was also settled up with Shin Song taking first place with his 258 lb. fish, James Hassan taking second place with a 256 lb. tuna and Ken Cirks taking third with a 187 lb. tuna. Congratulations guys!

Shin brought a banner advertising some Korean Tackle and asked each passenger and crew member to sign their name on the banner. Shin informed us he plans to hang it in his tackle store commemorating the trip. I thought this was a very nice gesture on his part.

There was just one other jackpot to settle up and that was a weigh in on the dock scales. Dennis Braid bet $500 that Kim would weigh over 300 lbs. at the end of our trip. Walking around the dock barefoot with a big grin on his face, Kim was barking at Dennis "I told you so! I'm only 297 lbs. so get in the tackle shop and get me one of your Braid Harnesses to settle up!"

At last, our fish was sorted and shipped off to processors then we said our fond farewells. Another Thanksgiving trip is in our memory banks.