Owner/skipper Bradley Phillips put on a couple of kelps in the morning that produced a good catch of small to medium size yellowtails. Everyone was pretty happy. On the next patty we caught several nice dorados. Check out the dorado photos of 8-year old Holly with her father Chris and Marice. Wan is shown pulling on the jackpot dorado for the first day of fishing. Wan was telling me how much she loves fishing and she dragged her husband on this fishing trip. “You go girl",the rest of us guys should be so lucky.
Skipper Bradley used his fishing sense to decide to stay out at 110 miles the first night because he liked the signs he saw and thought it was our best chance at bluefin tuna. Well, he was right. Just before gray light, we got our first bluefin on a jig. Everyone that won a Sala 6X Jr the day before was giving it a try. Hot stick on the bluefin was Steve. Here Steve (right) is posing with crew members Mike (center) and Alex (aka Tai).
The Izorline “lunker award” trophy went to David Joe from Pasadena for the largest bluefin of the trip. David was on his first tuna trip and I don’t think it will be his last. He was really stoked and his brother and father were there to share the joy with him.
At the end of the trip, I had the privilege of handing out the awards. David Joe with the Izorline trophy, second place to John Valentine (Izorline shirt), third place to Wan Hasenstab (rolls of XXX line), our inspirational angler Holly Slater with the highly coveted Izorline visor, myself and skipper Bradley Phillips. Everyone had a great time. Thank you to the First String owner and crew for a great trip.
Originally this trip was scheduled to be a 4-day trip and was cut back to 2-days. I hope you can all make the trip again next year. Try to save up enough vacation to keep the trip the full 4-days and we can fish further south and get into the larger model fish. Thanks to all the passengers for coming aboard the First String on this Izroline sponsored trip.
Gary Teraoka
