BY LANDON THOMAS
WON Regional Sales Representative & Charter Coordinator
DANA POINT – WON’s charter aboard the Fury out of Dana Wharf is the one of the few trips WON Managing Editor, Mike Stevens, leaves his desk for. This year, his annual trip to ICAST fell on the same date, so I took his spot, and it turned out to be a major bummer for the guy.
We were locked and loaded and headed to San Clemente when a buddy of mine, Terry Okel, looked at me and said, “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” I told him I agree and man were we right. We were anchored at 3:15 a.m. and by 3:38 we had our first slug yellow on the deck. This was the just the beginning of an absolute bare-knuckle beat down on island yellows. Everyone traded off hookups for the next three hours, putting over 55 fish on the deck. These were all solid-grade with multiple fish in the 30-pound class. A dropper-loop with heavy line and sinkers was the name of the game with the live squid.
I fished a 12-ounce sinker with a 6/0 Aki Twist hook and 40 pound. I was pinning two squid and pitching my setup far from the boat as possible. I went 6 for 7 on the yellows and hooked an 80-pound pound black seabass. It gave me absolute hell, running under the Thunderbird, the crew of which hand-lined it in and released it.
The “Fury Boyz” are one of my favorite crews to be around. They are always working hard with good team chemistry, I don’t know what else you could ask for. Every one of their guys is on deck ready to help. I wanted to give a shout out to their newest member, Ace. Marcus told me he has been on the boat for almost a week and for that being the case, he did a kick ass job: a young gun with a solid work ethic and attitude.
We ended our day moving around the island looking for schools and were able to scrape a couple more along with some bass, ‘cuda and boners. On our second-to-last stop, I was able to stick a yellow on the mint Meekster iron 15 yards from the boat, hammered. To the Captain and crew of the Fury: thank you. You guys are great at your jobs and everyone notices. To those who haven’t fished the Fury, call them, get on a trip, or book a charter, whatever it takes.
