just wanted to let everyone learn from my mistakes. as you go fishing for albies this year, don't even think about fishing virg's! unless that is, unless you don't mind being treated like a second class citizen. i have gone out on virg's for the last two years and gone away unhappy. not the fishing, but the service and hospitality of the crew. last year, i lost several fish at the boat because nobody was at the gaff to land the fish. they decided they wanted to fish too and to hell with everyone. there also happened to be an atractive woman on the boat with her husband. one of the deck hands on the boat, for some reason, thought i wanted to hear how much he wanted to !uck his wife. well, stupid is as stupid does, so i just ignored the guy. i landed five fish that day. one guy, who's reel crapped out on him, didn't have any fish. the part that pissed me off was that he asked one of the deck hand if they would give him a fish to take home, you know, as most boats do. the response was "hell no!, but i'll sell you one." i gave the guy a fish. he offered to pay me for it and i told him," no just return the courtesy to the someone else some day." to finish my story, if you want to fish for albies near morro bay, goto patriot sport fishing in avila. they value their customers and the ticket fee is a little cheaper.

Went out on the Admiral 2 years ago and the deck hands and the Capt. got into a fight in which he reduced their shares....the deck hands whined about it the whole trip asking for tips so they could buy rice and beans for there families....I stick a huge albacore and got it to the gaff 3 times and they finally swiped staight though my line and broke off my 55+ fish.....I said o'well bass fisherman like to catch and release their fish and leave the big ones in the gene pool later I told the deck hands O well tuff sh*tski you guys blew the jackpot which I always give back to the crew......first time I've ever stiffed a crew.....wait for the 100 mile trip like last year so you can fish for peanutsfor 4 hours and let em' charge you $5.00 a piece to clean.... You could have squezeed the fish out like a tube of toothpaste.My advice is to go south young man and fish with the pros in San Diego..Even the passengers are in the know..you'll never go back "until Oct.for the big fish."

I agree with KellDawg. Go to San Diego or only go to Morro Bay when the hogs show up and don't talk to the crew! Disturbing to hear that a crew member was trying to sell fish.

I didn't even get there last year. On two occasions when the big fish were around, I placed reservations with a credit card. Knowing the bite was hot, I called back each time to confirm my reservations and guess what - no record of my name or cc#

Anyway, I've ridden out of Avila and they treat the passenger pretty good and had a good boat and crew.

as i said, virg's sucks. their captains are ass!$%@s and their deckhands are more like dic#$eads. i will only go to patriot sportfishing since my mishaps with virg's. they know how to keep their customers happy. as far as why i go as far north as morro bay to fish albies, i like to fish the late season for the 50+.

I have a story which is kind of related. Went out on the New El Dorado a few months ago out of Berkeley for a salmon fishing trip. I hook up after a couple of hours into a nice salmon, and while I am battling the salmon, the captain proceeds to yell at me from the top of his lungs, telling me that I'm not reeling fast enough and a whole bunch of other stuff. WTF??? I could not concentrate on fighting the fish and ended up losing it. A little while later another guy lands a salmon, but the captain yells at him for being sloppy in fighting the fish. The guy yells back and after that the captain backs off a bit. All I have to say is, what kind of a business operates by yelling at their customers??? They're definitely not getting my business again!

Few months later, I went out on a boat out of Emeryville, the captain and deck hands were all very helpful. I ended up landing my limit of salmon (totaling 50 pounds).

I hear ya. I've been on more than one albie trip where I have seen a skipper yell at customers when losing a fish telling them that they are hurting the fishcount of the boat. Uggghhh. Then there are those good boats that teach and nurture!

So here's my Salmon Story.....Fishing the Seahawk out of Santa Barbara I hook up on a nice fish and the Capt. "Merit" reaches over my arm and loosens my drag.....I fish with these rods every week so I think I know what I'm doing!....Well this particular reel is really touchy and I clamped my thumb down on the mono while the fish screamed up the stearn and I cannot print the stream of obsenities that I hurled over my shoulder only to hear him tell the deck hands not to help me out ever as I'M A Pro and wait for color before they go near me and yada yada yada......Long story short out of 14 salmon mooched that day I had 11 and was passing them to everbody .....The deckhands all wanted my Loomis by the end of the trip and I hope I helped to bury that Bast**d as I see he sold the boat and got out of the business. Of course now we only have 1 boat in Santa Barbara and all Jason appears to be doing is ferrying chuckleheads to the 1 mile 3 times a day so he can knock out a buck...Don't get me wrong I love Jason...Great guy who will help you out bigtime he's just doing what he has to so that he can scratch out a living doing what he loves....I'm just not into it!

What day? Details? I've never fished out of Virg's before but haven't heard much good about them. I'll be fishing the Pacific Queen up there later in the year. I'm told they run a San Diego class operation.

Fishslayer the spoiled rotten San Diego based angler :D

Doesn't seem to matter! The only time the deck hands use a gaff other than 6 weeks on Albacore is on some bloated bottom fish that fell off a gannion! Bring a lot of clothes as I've seen more than a few soCal popsicles on board in shorts and a tee shirt...I always tell them to go look at the pictures of the people with good fish hanging in the galley...What do you see.....Lots of clothes and little skin Ha!