So what happened on our 15th annual long range trip this year? Capt. Bob and I are in this business because we love fishing. We've been lucky enough to be able to share the sport with thousands of folks over the past 19 years we've owned the Queen of Hearts. But when we're working, rarely do we have a chance to have a pole in our hands unless it's helping someone else. So, in order for us to catch some fish ourselves, we take a busman's holiday every year and head down to San Diego to jump onboard the Royal Polaris, one of the top long range boats in the fleet. For info about the Royal Polaris, go to: www.royalpolaris.com. Here's my rundown on this year's trip: Tuesday, August 4: Everyone lined up around 9:00 a.m. anxiously waiting to roll our carts full of gear down the dock and jump onboard the Royal Polaris, and no one's cart had more stuff than ours with all the gear Capt. Bob brings. You never know what you might need, you know. But if anyone on the trip was in need of a new kitchen sink, I'm sure they would have found it with the stuff Bob brought. The organized mad dash began and the duffel bags and tackle boxes and rods made their way down the dock and were piled up on the deck to be grabbed and stowed. As the rods and reels start lining the sides of the boat, it's always amazing to think about the money that's invested in the rods and reels that are brought on these trips. Once everything and everyone was onboard, it was off to the bait receiver to stuff the tanks with scoop after scoop of the live sardines we would be tossing out on our hooks over the next four days. Then it was time to really get underway and start heading to points south. Our target was Guadalupe Island, about 150 miles south of San Diego. The San Diego boats just received their fishing permits from the Mexican government about a week before our trip, and Guadalupe had been cranking out good numbers of big yellowfin, so we were Guadalupe bound and made a beeline to our destination. Click on any photo to enlarge it: Fisherman's Landing San Diego Loading time Finally underway How many rods ya need? Wednesday, August 5: We arrived at Guadalupe around 11:00 a.m. and were met by fairly strong winds that never really gave us much of a break the entire trip. But the good news was it made fishing the kite an immediate option, and once we were located the balloon was in the air. The crew made the decision to start the kite rotation with tag 1, which meant I was up to bat first. Fishing the kite can be a treat or a real punishment. When the fish are biting the kite, they can explode out of the water with a huge exciting splash on the bait dangling right along the top of the water. But when the fish don't want to bite the kite bait, it can be a long, boring and frustrating stretch watching others hook fish all along the rails while you try to wait patiently for a fish to come along and grab your line. I know, because it happened to me before where I was on the kite for a couple of hours until I finally asked for mercy. But like Capt. Bob says, you never, ever give up your turn on the kite because that's your chance of hooking one of the really BIG fish that hang out just outside the typical reach of our baits. Thankfully it didn't take long before I was bit this time, though, and I had a huge yellowfin crash on my bait. It had been a long time since I had hooked a decent size yellowfin, as the last three years' trips our catch was made up purely of yellowtail and kelp patty fish as the permits for Guadalupe didn't come in time for our trips and the offshore tuna were off the bite. As I fought this fish, I had to remind myself to stand up tall and not lean over, as yellowfin will put a hurt on your back if you let them. The thought immediately came into my head that either these fish were getting stronger or I was getting older...unfortunately I know the latter is the honest truth. After I landed my kite fish, a good 50 pounder, next up was our daughter Marie who joined us for her first long range trip. She's never caught anything even close to the size of these fish, so the 55.7 pound yellowfin gave her quite a battle. Bob was next up and it didn't take long before he was on. We had a pretty steady pick going where at least one or two people had a fish on the majority of the time. By the end of the day, the 35 anglers onboard had landed 37 yellowfin, all in the 40 to 60 pound range, and the Ingles' had a respectable count of 5 fish with our tags on them as Bob and I both landed another yellowfin each on bait. We fished until the sun went down and spent the night on the anchor, which always makes for a nice night of well deserved rest. I heard a couple of folks did fish a little before heading off to bed and were rewarded with a couple of big yellowtail. I even remember hearing a loud THUD hit the deck at one point, but I leaned my head up to our stateroom window, didn't hear much yelling or whooping going on so I crashed back onto my pillow for the night. Click on any photo to enlarge it: Kite hook up Fishin' the bow That's the kind Billy and Sherry Bob on the kite Marie's 1st yellowfin Thursday, August 6: We were up well before the crack of dawn, ready to do battle again. First call for breakfast was somewhere around 5:30 a.m. if I remember correctly. We had to have enough time before we started fishing to begin our daily stuffing of wonderfully cooked meals that happens all day long on these trips. Every day were are fed three fantastic full meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a morning snack (piping hot homemade cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven and handmade blueberry, cherry and apple turnovers, to name a few of my favorites), an afternoon snack and some type of decadent dessert after dinner to top it all off. As soon as the sky started turning from dark to light, we were on the move to find some hungry tuna. It didn't take long and the pick began again. We fished until around 2 or 3 in the afternoon which gave everyone a good shot at landing at least one of these hefty yellowfin before we ventured over to a couple of other islands in search of some yellowtail. I had the right mojo going today and ended up being the hot stick, landing 7 out of the 43 tuna that hit the deck, giving me a grand total of 9 out of the 80 tuna boated. I love catching tuna, and before this trip the last time I caught some was before we bought our shop way back in 2004 (they caught tuna on the 2005 trip but I couldn't go as we had just opened the door to the shop a couple of days before the trip), so it felt really good to land so many fish. I had an absolute ball, and kept my reputation in tack for catching more than my share of fish. How did Bob do today? Well, he had a fish come unbuttoned early on and couldn't get bit again to save his life. No worries, though, plenty of fishing left and he'd put the hurt on more than his share of yellowtail over the course of the next two days. Click on any photo to enlarge it: Bob and Billy One of seven! Marie on the rail On the hook Friday, August 7: After leaving Guadalupe Thursday afternoon, it was a bouncy ride all the way through the night to Cedros where we tried to find some cooperative yellowtail. We made a few drifts and tried yoyoing up some fish, but the wind was howling at Cedros, blowing a solid 40 knots along with a good size swell. After giving it a try for a little more than an hour or two and landing about 7 yellowtail, we threw in the towel at Cedros and headed for San Benitos to try to find a little better weather and better fishing. Arriving at Benitos a few hours later, we were greeted by less wind and fish that wanted to bite. We had a wide open yellowtail bite of cookie-cutter 15 to 20 pounders and had a blast landing fish after fish. Bob made up for lost time and was a yellowtail-catching machine. Marie got in the action a couple of times, too, landing a few fish Bob and I would hand off to her...trying to explain how to fish a live sardine in the middle of mass pandamodium just doesn't work. We anchored up long enough to have a comfortable, non-rocking dinner and then we hit the waves again to head up the line for some run and gun kelp patty hopping on Saturday. Click on any photo to enlarge it: Yellowtail time Wide open Cooperation One the sealions didn't get Saturday, August 8: Being a long way from home we didn't even worry about putting out trolling rods as we headed uphill; unless we found a decent kelp that was holding some fish there was no reason to stop. We had a couple of stops in the morning that didn't produce much until we found one kelp that was absolutely loaded with a smorgabord of football size yellowfin, yellowtail, dorado and even a few small bluefin. It was wide open, hook them and loose them as fast as you can kind of action, with something like 180 mixed fish landed in a little over an hour. Nice way to end the trip, but it seems like finding that wide open kelp bite is just about a traditional way to wrap up most trips. We all tried to save up our appetites for one final decadent dinner of prime rib, baked potato, broccoli and cheesecake for dessert. Somehow, some way, we managed to get most of it down without too much trouble. Sunday, August 9: We were first boat up to bat at the docks, arriving before the sun came up at 6:00 a.m. The gear that came onboard had to make its way back off the boat as fast as we could so the carts could start being loaded with our catch. The process is pretting amazing nowadays, with most of the fish going straight from the boat's hold to the processors' large ice-water filled rolling containers after a quick weigh-in on a scale, and then they head straight up to their trucks in route to their warehouses for cutting and vacuum packing. Bob, Marie and I had about 250 pounds of yellowfin filleted and vacuum sealed along with 200 pounds of yellowtail that were done and ready to pack in our coolers by just shortly after 11:00 a.m., and we weren't even first in line for cleaning. We left another 300 pounds of yellowfin and 180 pounds of yellowtail behind to have smoked and/or turned into jerky and shipped up to us. Not a bad haul at all, I'd say. Bill Roecker who collects the long range fish reports for Western Outdoor News had told me before we left on our trip to save a "pretty" fish for him to take a picture of, so I had one of the yellowfin I caught tagged so that it would be brought up to the sidewalk where folks grab their fish they don't want to have processed. That pretty fish just happened to end up being the second biggest fish on the boat and weighing in at 68 pounds. There was no doubt about the first place fish as it towered above the rest by almost 10 pounds at 76 pounds, but third place wasn't far behind mine at somewhere around 66 pounds. And there you have it...this is what happens on a very typical five day long range trip. If you really like fishing, and you really like eating like kings, you can't do better than go on a long range trip...which is why Capt. Bob says he'll be going on a trip every year until we feed his ashes to the sharks. Our trip for 2010, the 16th annual Queen of Hearts sponsored long range trip on the Royal Polaris, will be a seven day trip leaving on Saturday, July 31, and returning the following Saturday, August 7. By bumping up the trip from 5 to 7 days, it will give us the time to head to Alijos Rocks, a great spot for yellowfin tuna that can oftentimes get into the 100 pound range, as well as the possibility of wahoo, a fantastic, exciting fish to catch and a real treat. There are also some monster yellowtail at Alijos, and over the last couple years the August trips that have headed to Alijos have had great catches. If you want to grab a spot of next year's trip, call the Royal Polaris directly at 619-226-8030. They require an initial $200 deposit to hold the spot and will give you the rundown on their deposit requirements and cancellation policy. The trips aren't cheap running right around the $2,100 mark, but they are well worth the money for a fantastic fishing adventure on one of the top boats in the fleet where you're fed like kings. And feel free to give me a call if you have any questions, too. We expect the 2010 trip to fill up well in advance, so grab a spot sooner than later if you are interested in going. Last, but not least, I'll be posting pictures of our trip within the next few days...be sure to check back in in a couple of days and hopefully I'll have them posted.