I sure enjoy fishing with Captain Steve Santucci and especially with a great boat partner like Dan.  It was a refreshing day especially after yesterdays blow out.   I thought I might get that 20 lbr today but ended up with an 8 lbr and a couple of 5s. Dan also got a couple of nice ones and together we landed about 30.   We launched out of Orwood Resort Boat Launch at 6:30 amongst a flotilla of bass boats getting ready for the start of a tournament.  The launch was hoppin’.   We snuck out before the opening gun and at the first stop of the day,  I hooked and landed a nice 28 inch 8 lb Striper.   We traveled over 50 miles in Steve’s 350hp Yellowfin  and it was a cold fast ride.   Wind chill at 70 mph is more sever than wind chill from my measly 30 mph.  I’m glad I dressed warm.  Dan had more layers but I could see his hands and face getting blue.

We warmed up as soon as we started catching fish.   It was pretty tough to find eating fish ,  but Steve found some.  We fished the east west and north Delta looking for fish and put over 50 miles of water under us.

I brought out the Mavic Drone and successfully hand caught it in the boat.   The Mavic is the new standard for fishing boat drones.  Its so small and yet it has all the features of the next gen DJI drones.   I practiced catching the Mavic and it is best to just turn off all the downward facing sensors when landing in a boat.   All other techniques were risky and scary because when the downward sensors are on and you grab the drone,  it will try to fly away from your hand.  You end up in a tug of war with the drone while trying to turn the engines off.   Its a knuckle buster if you lose.

Also,  I had all sorts of problems with the new GOPRO Hero 5  trying to loop 4K with an external battery.   For some reason, the camera doesn’t run for long times off my external battery once the internal battery starts getting low.   The camera battery drains when they are both full and when the internal battery  gets to a certain low point,  the camera turns off despite a fully charged external battery.  I think the solution is to not loop in 4k.   I dont have half the problems when looping 1080P and I dont really benefit that much from 4k for digital zooming.  Plus 4k eats twice the  battery  with 4 times more data recording than 1080P which is not  a good trade off if you need to loop all day off of external batteries.   I missed the video shot of my biggest fish today when the camera quit looping without my knowledge.

The area around Orwood resort  and Discovery Bay hold lots of big stripers according to Steve.  When I told Steve about looking for houses on the Delta,  his suggested I look off the water and keep the boat at Orwood  which has indoor locked storage.   He likes the idea of a drive through garage where you can keep a truck and boat totally enclosed and locked.  Steve keeps his boat at Orwood.    When he wants to fish  Big Break,  he trailers there or it takes about 20 minutes to get there in the Yellowfin.