Well, it's April.  My last blue water trip was with the PacPro trip on the Badger in November where I caught 2 late season Blues.  One stretched my freckles for over an hour, she pulled like a frieght train.  What a fun fish to end the 2009 season.  2009 was a nuts year, still dealing with my wonderful decision to get into the boat business in mid 2007.  Although the industry has been crushed, I continue to be committed to Crow's Nest and made some substantial changes and enjoyed some wonderful success with the Viking BCE's.  These boats are the absolute best available on the market for our style of fishing.  The first 3 all became tournament champions within it's first year, that has never been done before with any other manufactures.  Badger is now for sale, she has done a fantastic job for the team but I like to do something different now, we are leaning towards doing a BCE50 plus buying a 80 to 90 foot pilot house to double up as a mother ship.  BCE50 will stay south all year, the Pilot house will come up to California during summer, back south for winter.  Imagine the BCE50 tied up next to the pilot house at Socorro or mag bay.  Dreams-dreams-dreams..

Also in 2009, around the middle of the year.  I decided to pursue my third online financial services company and started a business plan and assembled a world class management team.  The previous 2 companies were E*trade Mortgage and LendingTree Loans, after several months of development--we are pleased to announce the grand opening of loanDepot.com on January 4th.  It's been 90 days since our opening (although it feels like one long day with a few naps in between), the company is now approaching 300 employees, 60 thousand sq ft of office space in Irvine, and originating over 200m of new loans per month...and growing very rapidly.  Fun stuff!  Juice that I needed to be engaged in business again under extreme challenges and pressure that's missing from my life for 2.5 years since I left LendingTree.  Love business like I love fishing, it's what I need to function.  We created 300 full time jobs in less than 90 days, growing to 600 by end of this year and 1000 next year.  Feeling great about creating jobs.

Now that some of the primary infrastructure is set up at loanDepot.com, I'm taking my first week off to Kona with the family.  I'll be fishing most of the week with Steve, OB is actually visiting here in California over the Easter week so I'll only see him for a few days.  Since OB won't be fishing with Steve and I for the entire week, he is taking the gaffs off the boat in case we get the right one.  Funny stuff.  I can't wait to get back out on the water and seeing the Rybo, the boys had her in dry dock for a few weeks looking pristine.  We also moved and now have a new slip with a great bbq area and hutch behind the boat, our slip is now right next to Carlton on the Five Star.  I'll take some pics and post after I return this week.

Life is good, man do I miss fishing.  Particularly fishing for Blue Marlin.  Hopefully I'll have something to report, we are on the wrong side of the moon, but kids school schedule is driving the timing of this trip.  Hope everyone is doing well, summer and fishing season is coming...

Tight lines to all.

Anthony