Fisher, matvei, choodak, and myself have taken tomorrow off from work and we are heading to the Channel Islands for an overnighter on matveis and choodaks boat. Heading straight for Santa Rosa island. Be back Saturday night with hopefully a good report. Wish us luck
10-27-2013, 03:41 PM (This post was last modified: 10-27-2013, 03:44 PM by redrock55.)
Well here it is. Woke up Friday morning around 4am pick up fisher about 430 and get to choodaks around 5am. Load up and we are off about 530. About a 2 hour drive north and we are at the Ventura launch ramp. Launch and pick up a half scoop of chovies and we are off. After about a 2 1/2 hour wet and snotty boat ride we reach Santa Rosa. Pull into a protected area so we can set up our rods and I start dropping down my mega bait. Right when we are ready to make a move and start searching I hook up and pull up a fish. So everyone drops down and it's game on! Sat in this drift for like an hour pulling up an assortment of rock fish. Tune to make a move and look for more and we pick away all day at lings and quality rock fish. The day is coming to a close and matvei and choodak are tired of captaining so me and fish take over and set us up on a killer drift of all you want lings and rocks. Had 3-4 going at all times. As soon as u hit bottom you were picked up! Do this until its time to go set anchor for the night, find a nice protected cove set it and start filleting some fish for dinner. After dinner it's pitch black because the moon isn't up yet so we plug in some squid lights and shine it at the island and it appears we are closer now. I check the anchor rope and its slack so we think we are drifting into the island. Pull anchor, and reset a little further away but with no wind and no current we are having some troubles. So we decide we have to take shifts to make sure we don't drift into the island. Me and fisher take the first shift and after 2 hours we can see we haven't move so we go to sleep to.
Day 2
Wake up at 730am to a beautifully sunny morning, have a quick breakfast and we are off searching for more fish again. By this time choodak is sick of hearing me and fisher brag about the drift we put us on so he says he will find an even better drift and boy was he right! He found a spot I drop and instantly hook up and pull up a nice ling. game on again and this was a killer spot. Giant reds, lings, and other quality sized rock fish continue to come over the rail. We sit here nearly all day with non stop action! About noon we decide to go drift for halibut so we can fillet the fish. Once done, and with no love from the halibut we call it a trip. With another 2 1/2 very wet and very snotty boat ride home we pull up to the harbor and we are home. What a trip! I would say a rough estimate would be about 160 fish caught with most being safely released. We fished no deeper than 100'!
Having troubles loading all the pics on one post so I have to do one at a time
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