Ambassadorhawg
05-18-2009, 01:38 PM
Our yearly Spring 2 day outer channel islands trip went on this weekend. I met up with 6 of my buddies and it turns out that 3 other Crescenta Valley locals were on the boat also! We owned that thing!
26 guys on the trip. The wind had been howling for what seemed like weeks according to all the reports. That had the water stirred up with a big rolling, sloppy swell to boot. But we made the best of it anyway.
San Nicolas was closed all weekend, so we opted for San Miguel. Hadn't been there in some time so I was excited. The ride out was a little bumpy but not too bad. The wind was all but gone for the whole weekend. Saturday was bumpy but no wind at least.
We started on Point Bennet and worked our way outside as the day went on. It was a scratchy bite. Tonnage of krill in the water. The fish were puking up handfulls of it! The lings were absent for most of this trip. We managed limits or close to it of quality Chuckleheads, Reds, JB's, and other stuff. I had 5 lings for the day. 2 were just legal and the others were short but I put all of them back anyway. The reds were on the chew pretty good on this trip, though. I had a total of 9 for the day.
We ended the day on the front side and tried a few flattie drifts for nada. Then we moved out to under 100' and sat on the anchor for the rest of the day. REALLY good swimbait bite for those who tried. I got 4 reds, 3 chuckles, a few more short lings and 500,000 gophers for my efforts. My buddy Matt soaked up the JP with the only good Ling of the day.
On Sunday, the water was all flattened out. We shot back up to Bennet but found the same slow scratchy bite so we opted for Southwestern Sants Rosa in the boilers. This is where it gets really fun. The captain carefully held us up close to a few boilers where we had more fun on the swimbaits. The guys using squids strips got some nice Sheepheads up to around 15 pounds. I got numerous Chuckleheads, 2 better Lings but one shook off at the surface, and a whole bunch of Blues and JB's mostly on plastic. SO MUCH FUN!!!
After that, we worked our way down the backside for not much. My buddy Scott soaked up the JP with his 15+ pound Goat.
We stopped on a family of Humpbacks on the way down Santa Cruz after calling it a trip. The whales came up right next to the boat. Really neat to see!
Captain Frank and his crew were awesome as usual. I very much so recommend them!!!!
Enjoy the pics...
26 guys on the trip. The wind had been howling for what seemed like weeks according to all the reports. That had the water stirred up with a big rolling, sloppy swell to boot. But we made the best of it anyway.
San Nicolas was closed all weekend, so we opted for San Miguel. Hadn't been there in some time so I was excited. The ride out was a little bumpy but not too bad. The wind was all but gone for the whole weekend. Saturday was bumpy but no wind at least.
We started on Point Bennet and worked our way outside as the day went on. It was a scratchy bite. Tonnage of krill in the water. The fish were puking up handfulls of it! The lings were absent for most of this trip. We managed limits or close to it of quality Chuckleheads, Reds, JB's, and other stuff. I had 5 lings for the day. 2 were just legal and the others were short but I put all of them back anyway. The reds were on the chew pretty good on this trip, though. I had a total of 9 for the day.
We ended the day on the front side and tried a few flattie drifts for nada. Then we moved out to under 100' and sat on the anchor for the rest of the day. REALLY good swimbait bite for those who tried. I got 4 reds, 3 chuckles, a few more short lings and 500,000 gophers for my efforts. My buddy Matt soaked up the JP with the only good Ling of the day.
On Sunday, the water was all flattened out. We shot back up to Bennet but found the same slow scratchy bite so we opted for Southwestern Sants Rosa in the boilers. This is where it gets really fun. The captain carefully held us up close to a few boilers where we had more fun on the swimbaits. The guys using squids strips got some nice Sheepheads up to around 15 pounds. I got numerous Chuckleheads, 2 better Lings but one shook off at the surface, and a whole bunch of Blues and JB's mostly on plastic. SO MUCH FUN!!!
After that, we worked our way down the backside for not much. My buddy Scott soaked up the JP with his 15+ pound Goat.
We stopped on a family of Humpbacks on the way down Santa Cruz after calling it a trip. The whales came up right next to the boat. Really neat to see!
Captain Frank and his crew were awesome as usual. I very much so recommend them!!!!
Enjoy the pics...