Well! This has progressed horribly!

I ended up calling on 7/19. Lady answered and said to email info@avetreels.com and hurried me off the phone.

I wrote an email (7/19) asking for the specific parts and a quote, offering to exchange my shipping/billing info once I get the quote.

(7/29) They took 10 days to respond to the email. The response was an all-caps run on sentence asking for only my address. Didn't ask for CC info, nor did they give me a quote.

Gave them address same day (7/29) and asked for a quote (again).

(8/2) 4 days later, they say "GREAT WE WILL GET TO WORK ON THAT"

Honestly tried to forget what was happening for a while, mildly ashamed I am such a fan of these reels. Great anti-reverse......

I followed up (8/26) asking what's going on?

They responded (9/10) saying "HI JEREMY WE HAVE PARTS READY FOR A WHILE NOW WE JUST NEED CREDIT CARD INFO WE DON'T HAVE A PHONE NUMBER TO CALL YOU"

They finally attached an invoice to this one, dated 7/30........!!!!

I kinda wanna say why the f@ck didn't you ask for pertinent information sooner, respond sooner, send the invoice 6 weeks sooner, etc. Just gotta shut up and pay...This is all the more infuriating having worked in two different fishing customer service departments and knowing these things should be SOOOOOO much smoother.

Thankfully steel gears don't wear out too quick...even working at Shimano I would like to maintain maybe 4 Avets in my arsenal for the small/medium lever drags. Other than that I will switch the big boys to Tiagras.

Looks like a great trip to clear the mind. Cool to see a Sacramento Perch! Great fishing. Thanks for the report.

Can't stand anything about duffies. I don't like their design, I don't like their drivers, I don't like the space they take up, and I despise their names. Whenever I fish the back of Huntington Harbor I get worked up thinking about the boat owners' audacity to come up with such horrible puns and proceed to stick them on the back of their little booze cruiser.

Here's about a third of the harbor. Enjoy. Or, get worked up like me.



















































If you came this far, here's some help to even your mood back out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkse4PPxkk4

Basically complete replication of yesterday. 0700 launch, less people out though. Bass and bonito weren't boiling along the wall as much as yesterday although I saw a few scattered ones. Didn't pay any mind. Just went looking for mackerel, hoping to find some real shoals of bait to drift near. Eventually found some on a drifting weed line. Basically wide open mackerel for no more than 20 minutes. Put out a float rig with a live mackerel that never got bit. At one point I watched a short WSB follow the macks on the sabiki up to the surface, cool sight. Had a few other boats join me, way too close for my sense of peace, but tried to preserve my spot until the mackerel stopped biting. Moved on but never found anything else. 9 jackmackerel, 5 chub mackerel, 2 bonito, 1 lizardfish 6 jacksmelt (released). Should be good on butterflied baits for a bit with all that.

Drove back down the wall and spied around inside LA harbor a bit. No sign of threshers anywhere. I should probably put a pin in that for a little bit...

Felt like the same amount of time as the day before, but I was done by 0930. Puddled around the harbor for another 20 minutes, just taking pictures of horrible electricity puns on the backs of duffies.

My first instincts are Shoebill Stork and...it's on the tip of my tongue for the mammal. I'll get it in a bit...

You're crazy if that's a Shoebill Stork though.

[edit]

Capybara!?

I'm sure Koga could find use for one of those big zucchinis.

For some reason we couldn't grow corn for sh!t in Thousand Oaks.

Home grown veggies with some home caught marlin sounds pretty good right now...

Summer is coming to an end and my chest freezer is empty!!! Given I'm not keeping bass this year and the new regs shut down my deep bottom spots til October, I've wanted to have a couple big game fish stock the freezer and let the rest of 'em go. Well, that's been tough this summer. Decided I should probably reign it in a bit with the low percentage offshore stuff and see if I can find a thresher in local that could make for a few dozen dinners.

A few stupid delays had me leaving the launch around 0700. Took my time feeling out my unpacking/organizing process with the new-to-me SUV.

Needed to make bait. I only had a 2 year old bonito in the bait freezer that I was planning fish fillet strips with, but obviously would prefer fresh mackerel. Rolled up on the break wall and the Victory cattle boat was fishing it! Lots of birds around and 4 other private boats surrounding it. I scooted up just to see if I could pick off a mackerel but I wanted nothing to do with this ridiculous zoo. Pulled off a jack mackerel and didn't mark anything else so kept moving.

About a quarter mile away, I was passing a little Livingston 14 and admiring it when the skipper waved me over. I was curious and open to talk with him so rolled up and he insisted I fish the area. One of the best bites he's seen on surface bass and bonito! I had thresher on the brain but I appreciated the kind gesture, so I tied on the only small iron I had for the day. Looking at the meter I saw a huge school pass under me, so I dropped it straight down. Hit bottom and I was immediately doubled over on a really nice bass, but it came unbuttoned. The livvie skipper and I kept talking from about 40' away and I got slammed a few more times but couldn't hook them, then it quieted down and neither of us got bit for a few minutes. He said, you killed the bite! Just then I finally got one to go on the surface as I casted to intermittent boils.



After maybe 15-20 minutes we split up after introducing ourselves.

I didn't want the smaller gamefish to chew up my only mackerel if I put it under a float, so I left the area and made a loop to see if there was any other sign of life around. Nope! Came back around and put the float rig out, and jigged for more bait simultaneously.

Two of these down low. Haven't caught one in a very long time. Just as annoying as I remember.



Had a couple bigger bites on the sabiki that would come off. I did catch a pretty solid mackerel, but then I finally brought one of the heavier scrappers to the boat. Bonita indeed!



Looked like the smaller gamefish did take a few pokes at my first float bait, but no action on it otherwise. Wind still hadn't come up by 1130 but the writing was on the wall for my thresher action so I packed it in.

Still have the boat set up for tomorrow. Contemplating between replicating the game plan and hoping the slight shift in tide and other conditions falls in my favor, or hit some new water. We'll see.

Been looking forward to what you do with that marlin. That looks like great meat. Is it comparable to any other species? I've heard all kinds of opinions on it, and I have to believe a lot of the negative opinions out there are to make people CnR.

Well, sounds like marlin fishing. You've been seeing some pretty remarkable numbers of them, though. I'm surprised you've been getting more than a couple shots each outing, let alone 7-10 it seems. Cool that you finally met Spencer in person.

Quote from: vdisney on September 14, 2024, 05:08:14 AMNice ride Jeremy, you made a wise choice.  Good luck this morning

Thanks Verne. It's got a small laundry list of things to do on it but I got a toyota in part so I could do some things myself. Gonna do front brakes with a friend this week, o2 sensor solo today, and get some front tires soon. Maybe a battery in the near future but it's not an immediate issue.

Sick! Way to show those fish something new. Congrats on the PB.

I have a covered parking spot at my apartment. Replacing my volvo sedan with an SUV, and I realized one of my potential challenges might be the boat not fitting on top of the SUV inside of the covered spot. Did a measurement a bit ago and it seemed like it was gonna be about 1.5" too big, and I would probably end up jamming the boat in the ceiling if I wasn't careful. Finally tried today, didn't fully inflate, and I got about 1.5" to spare. Thank god. Saves me some time and energy in the morning before launch.



Off to f@ck up some threshers in the morning.

Absolutely no useful info will come from me on it but hope you do your research and come up big on cool fish.

I really love watching Ultimate Fishing on youtube which is a Kiwi dude who's a REALLY great stick. He's more private boat oriented so I don't think it will translate much to your plans if you're planning to hit the shore as much as possible, which is what I would probably do naturally.

Looking forward to the report...

Tom and I are up in the skies within two points of each other. Koga is still down on the carrier, pants around his ankles, crying out, BEGGING for his imodium.

Congrats Tom!!! You earned that one. Solid one too. Must have been incredibly exciting having so many going off at once. Jackpot for SoCal big game to hook triples. That small probability of a blind strike is what's kept me motivated on those long lifeless scout trips.

Can't wait to see the things you cook up with it. Curious how it tastes. People seem to love it or hate it but I imagine I would like it. Only one way to find out.

That's some hot water too. 76! Today from DP to the 14 it might have hit 69.9, to my surprise. Terrafin surface temps were reading 75 everywhere yesterday and 78 down by you. Today says 72 up here and 77 by you. I think my FF reads a little cold.