Hey Gang!
Launched out of Channel Islands harbor yesterday, along with me this time were my buddies John Yokayama, and Mike Blackwell.
Our destination was the North side of Santa Cruz Island for a little boiler bassing. The ride across was very nice with some widely spaced swell, that would later provide us with the necessary surge to really get the calicos going! We arrived at about 6:45ish to my starting spot, which pretty much set the pace for what was going to happen for the day! For whenever the fish bite well first thing on that spot its going to be a great day.
And it was one of those such days! We had 10-12 fish the first drift,
and from there it just got better as we worked our way up the island, by 8:00 we had already caught and released limits (30) and by 9:00 we had released (50!) And by 10:30 (70!) At noon I decided I wanted some dinner fish, so I thought I try some of the hard bottom area off the West end for some reds, but not before we caught and released (81) legal calicos, with most in the 2-4lb range (can you say bass thumb :-)). The ticket for the calicos was to find boilers with the green water with the foam on it, and running an gunning! Slide into a fishy looking area and if you didn’t get bit in three casts keep moving! When we found the pockets of fish they were very aggressive, with lots of followers. We had 4-5 occasions where we were able to catch the followers if you were position to throw on them.
The reds also cooperated as well, in the 2 hrs or so we fished them we caught a dozen or so of the 2-4lbrs and a few misc rockfish/ sheepshead/ whitefish, in water from 105-125ft deep.
The ride home wasn’t too bad either, we made it back to Channel islands harbor from the West end of Santa Cruz (35nm) in exactly 90minutes! Counts: 81legal calicos to 4lbs (only one short all day) and 20 mixed rock fish. Interestingly we only caught 6-8 short lings all day!
All the bass were caught on 5in Big Hammers, with Reef Critter and Stawberry colors being the hotter colors, although anything with red/ brown/ or orange was working. Reds wise the 5in Silver Sardine color Hammer was hot! But we did get a number of the rockies on squid tipped grubs. Captain Larry