A boat trip reported by me that is. My Dad suprised my little brother and I by purchasing us tickets to go aboard the Island Spirit out of Ventura. Obviously it was not the off the chain action that you guys down south are experiencing, but it would prove to be a fish filled day that brought back very good memories of years past. Had probably been around 10 years or more since I have gone out on a party boat, but immediately I could tell this crew was top notch. Very friendly, very prompt, and very courteous, even though it was hard for me to watch my rig be created for me, but hey took him 30 seconds to do what would take me easily 1 1/2 minutes to 2 so the first one I gave in. Rockfish was on the menu today and I was hoping to score a ling.
Bad moon a'setting, turns to a beautiful sunrise.
Seas were a bit choppy on the way out but not too terrible. Got to our first spot at 7:45am. Perchin really helped in knowing the bites of the 300ft deep rockfish, limited by 11:30am. Nice mix of moderate sized reds, starrys, and chuckleheads. My dad brought up a few sandabs that he didn't want so I thought "Great, got my ling bait!" Fished the rest of the day with two sandabs for many hours trying to nail a ling. Both my dad and brother limited pretty quickly after me and continued hammering them filling a few more bags of those less lucky. The guy behind me then gets a good hook up, something actually fighting him, and up comes a decent ling. Ok dabs, time to get me something good. We make a move to another spot, drop down, and right as I'm tightening off the the bottom WHAM, headshakes, start gaining line, then ROCKED. Immediately after he stopped coming up I tried a steady pull to hopefully roust him from his hole, and snap. Right after that another gentleman behind me with a sandab jig nails one, DAMMIT, now I know it was the right kind. Ended the day with nothing spectacular fish wise, but a good assortment of delicious tacos, and a great family outing. The first ling took the jackpot, here are the pics of the biggest fish of the day.
Me doing my best Ray face.
My brothers, he was stoked.
My dad, pretty much as stoked as my brother.
And the jackpotter.
On the way back we went right by my sharkin spot, man it looks different from this angle.
Also on the way back was talking to some of the old salts and younger members about fishing sevengills from shore, I could see a slight amount of disbelief in some of the older guys, but my pics didn't lie. Found myself almost playing deckhand as I was swarmed by people asking how to rig and what bait to use. Brought out my sputniks and wire and showed them my typical rig, also informed many of them of this site and encouraged them if they went out and got one to post it here, or to just post here anyway. It was a great day out on the water, and everyone on board, customers and crew, were some top notch folks. So until the next decade, hopefully we go after pelagics then
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