Mariner review by Todd Groessl
	After a short paddle and a quick stop to pick up a couple of Spanish mackerel, we were trolling and looking for fish in the early morning light. It didn’t take ten minutes before Matt’s clicker was screaming and he was getting towed to the kelp line. Just at the point that I hear Matt yell, “It’s a good one!” the fish swan him into the kelp and broke him off… bummer. As I turned to paddle away I noticed some funny ripples on the surface of the water, and quickly turned the Mariner and paddled in their direction. As I arrived next to the spot a saw a swirl on the surface, quickly I fired of my lucky A-1 and after three cranks the line started ripping off my reel. Luckily I had hooked this one away from the kelp, but the fish turned toward the cover and began to tow me to shallower water. I worked on him for a few minutes before he finally pulled me to the kelp line and got himself tangled. I pulled hard to free him, but at first he would not budge. It just felt like a solid snag. I put my thumb on the spool and lifted my rod hard. Then I started to get some line. It still felt like dead weight, but I was making progress! A few more pumps of the rod and a couple cranks of the reel and I could see a big ball of kelp coming from the depths. As I got it to the side of the kayak I could see the lips of a nice yellowtail sticking out of the kelp ball. I reached my hand into the clump and found the edge of the fish’s gills and pulled him out of the weeds. Mariner yellowtail number 3 was aboard and it was a nice 20+ pounder. Having already caught two yellows this week I decided I would let this one go, but just as I was about to release it a Dante, a fellow fisherman paddled up and asked if he could have it. In exchange for a couple of pictures, it was his to have. Just as the photos were taken and the fish handed over, I heard Matt yelling that one had just inhaled his Salas 7x and I could see him getting towed out to sea. Matt worked this fish hard and didn’t give it the opportunity to make it back to the kelp. With in a few minutes he had a nice 17 pounder on the gaff. I looked at my watch after all the excitement and realized it was only 6:40am, we had only been on the water for 40 minutes and both of our days were made! We both paddled in grinning from ear to ear, ready for great day at work. Rigging part II Having some time before the weekend, I decided to make some use of the rear 10” round hatch. It seemed that the hatch would make a perfect battery box to run a bait tank off. I ran down to West Marine and picked up 6 feet of 16 awg marine duplex anchor wire, a pack of rubber grommets, and some male and female quick disconnects (16-14 awg). To finish the install I needed a pair of wire crimper, a drill, and an Exacto knife. First I found the location that I wanted the wire to exit the kayak so that it would easily attached to my bait tank. Next I found the height above the battery that I needed the wire to pass through the bucket in the round hatch. Since the duplex cable is oblong shaped, I drilled two holes side be side and connected the holes with the Exacto knife. This was done both in the bucket and through the top of the kayak. The holes that I drilled were a bit too small to fit a rubber grommet in, so I used the Exacto to widen the hole. After fitting the rubber grommet into the hole, I pushed all but the very end of wire through the top of the kayak until I could reach it from the rear hatch. After adding a grommet to the hole in the bucket and pushing the wire through, I cut the white coating off the duplex wire and stripped both the positive and negative individual wire. After adding two female disconnects in the bucket to attach to the battery, and two male disconnects to the bait tank ends, it was ready to go. I decided to cut a couple pieces of pool noodle to fit in the bucket to hold the battery in place. It was a very easy install that took about a half an hour and produced and easy access and space saving battery box. Third trip, Sunday 9/11 After an uneventfully launch with Randy through small surf we paddled past the ecological reserve and started our search for bait. The breeze was already blowing and the surface of the ocean was starting to stack with small wind waves. Bait was scarce and hard to find, but we both managed a couple of spanish macs. We pinned them on and began to troll them along the kelp line. Randy decided he wanted to stay inside, but I wanted to take to Mariner all the way out to the North West corner for the first time. The corner is almost a 4-mile paddle from the launch, but the Mariner made quick easy work of the distance. The further I made it out the fishier is became. It was nothing like the weekend before, no birds, no boils, but there were large schools of pacific mackerel cruising the surface. I only had to drop the sabiki down a couple of feet before the mackerel attacked the little jigs. After putting a couple of 8 inch green backs in the tank and pinning a fresh one on my hook, I continued to troll the kelp line. At the NW corner most of the kelp is bull kelp and not the giant kelp that is found closer to the launch. Bull kelp is tuff stuff and getting a tangled fish out of it is almost always a losing situation, much less likely than in giant (aka soft) kelp. I did my best to troll outside of the kelp even though most of the life was well inside the kelp line. The wind continued to build as I trolled around, but the Mariner was very comfortable in the chop. Even with the steep wind waves the hull had very little slap as I paddled into them, again the waves were accelerated out the sides of the hull with a whoosh. When sideways to the chop, only the largest of the wave were able to make it over the tall sides of the Mariner. Besides seeing a lot of mackerel, the morning was very quite and I hadn’t seen any fish caught. I trolled around the area for a couple hours before I heard the exciting sound of my clicker screaming as something picked up my bait. I pulled the rod out of the rod holder, disengaged the clicker and thumbed the spool as the fish ripped line from my reel. One, two, three … I engaged the drag and the rod started to load up…..YES! The fish stripped line off my reel as I used its power to turn the Mariner and follow it away from the kelp. It was a feisty fish that screamed line off my 30 pound rig. I gained and lost line as he towed me. As I got him closer he spun me around and headed back toward the kelp. He almost made it back to the cover of the kelp, but no quite, he was already tired. A beautifully colored 15 pound yellow came out of the blue green water. Mariner yellowtail number 4 was on board at 9am. After securing the fish, retying my hook, and putting on another bait, I began to slowly work my way back to the launch.
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