Another long trip

It is now September 29. It is a week and a day or two away from a trip I have been looking forward to for 20 months or so. In 2008, I was on the Rooster for 15 days in January. After that trip, we discussed and decided on this trip on the Intrepid. At the time, it was the first scheduled trip to Hurricane Bank. I began the slow painful process of paying off this trip. About a month ago, during one my vicarious fishing trips on the net, i noticed something interesting. The Q had scheduled a long trip a week before ours. What fricking nerve. The bastards decided to do the 'one-upsmanship' (read 'macro-phallic) thing and replace us as the first ones on the bank. Well, you know what? We will be on a much nicer boat - and not only that, they are going to get the fish in biting mode for us. I have been on the Q before. It is very low in the water - and for fishing purposes, a great boat. But it is old now. And so am I. It is a fishing trip - and it is about going fishing. However, I have gotten to a point now - where it is not just about getting there ASAP and fishing. It is now about how I get there as well. The food, the stateroom and really the boat in general. Even how the boat looks counts - where it did not really count at all before. And let me tell you, the boat looks 'awesome'. As the days wind down to hours before this trip leaves, I cannot help but think about how selfish these trips are. No phone, no car, no email (relatively recent phenomena), no fax (used to be telexes), no family (yes, I will miss my wife......after a week or so......well, maybe two weeks), no dog (I will miss him, but not picking up his turds), and even if something REALLY bad happened - I am over 900 miles away in the middle of the ocean. I could not do a damn thing about it anyway! The first long trip I took was in the late 1980's on Yo's first long trip. It was also the first long trip for many of the so-called 'reigning kings' of long range fishing today. Butch Green was on this trip. Russ Izor used to call him - 'Butch Green - boy fisherman'. What a fishing machine he was. His fishing arsenal was simple. Penn 50's - no wides, and a narrow 80. There was no spectra at that time - so it was straight 100 pound monofilament. All his reels had one of the sets of clamshell spring washers replaced with a solid brass ring. Basically, it made his reels put out 50 pounds of drag or more - without all the fancy re-working done at various locales now. He fished straight 50's for all his bait fishing - and he did not lose very many. The 80 was used for trolling his favorite jig - a big Dynatroll. For those of you unfamiliar with Dynatrolls - the lure was later replicated in smaller models by SeaStrike I think. Not sure. All I remember was - the damn jig was about a foot long and had hooks all over it. He let me troll with his rig once. That jig was bit ALL the time. He trolled it further back than most - because he was looking to catch a 200 pound tuna, he used to say (in those days, there just weren't that many 200 pounders - let alone 300's). For wahoo though (which incidentally, was also the name of his dog), he would tell me to NOT yell 'HOOKUP' until we drug the wahoo for a little while. He said if I yelled as soon as it got bit - the wahoo would fall off. Sure enough, the first time it got bit with me watching it - I yelled 'HOOKUP'. As soon as I started to reel it in - the fish came off. Amazing. So when we got the boat going again, sure enough it got bit right away. But I waited....and waited.....and waited, had to be 30 seconds or more (which is a long time when you have a fish on the end of your line and are doing absolutely nothing about it) - finally yelled 'HOOKUUUUUUP'. It stayed on the hook and up came my first wahoo. Amazing. Now that I think about it, the tackle used on the long trips now is vastly improved from what it was. We were told not to use the rails. It had to be because the owners did not want their nice wood railings scratched up. The long trips now consider 100 pound mono to be too light. Getting back to Butch. He used a harness - but no butt belt. People used to wonder - how the hell could he fish that tight and not use a belt? I was determined to try and keep up. The first day at San Benedicto - we both had about 20 or 25 fish - they weren't real large, probably between 100 and 150 pounds. Caballitos were the bait of choice - and we had to catch them almost every night. Night fishing was also standard on these trips - almost everybody would have a set time for the deckhand to wake them up. These were straight catch your own - fish your own (i.e. catch your own bait and fish your own bait) affairs. On the last long trip - I thought about why it is that night fishing has all but disappeared. I think it is because the islands (Revilla Gigedo Island chain) are now off limits to fishing. Why tuna would be nocturnal feeders near an island - and not when they are in open water, does not make much sense to me. Matter of fact, I think this trip - I am going to put in some time fishing at night. Two to three in the morning. Yeah, that's a good time. Looking forward to a trip for this long is both good and bad. Good, because.........it teaches you patience, and proves that some things are worth waiting over 20 months for. Bad, because........I know I have fished this trip in mind countless times in the last 6 months. In that sense, this trip will be anti-climactic. And lastly, many changes have taken place since that first long trip. The improved tackle, the boat owners allowing the use of the rails, chunking, kites, just a multitude of stuff that has made it much easier for the fisherman to catch bigger fish. I recall catching an absolutely rude quantity of tuna on my first long trip. If I traded it all for cans - I would probably still have canned tuna. Later, I would end up going on Taka's first long trip - on which I landed a 'fish of a lifetime'. You know what though? I still hate soaking bait. Maybe I will be a little better at it this time. The dog and trick saying comes to mind.