Central Ca Rockfish Opener Apr 1st

First post on this page. Hello all. Question: Has anyone been up to Patriot Sportfishing in Avila Beach in recent years? Looking to go up for the rockfish opener and I am trying to get an idea what the vibe is like on their boats. I have been primarily a Southern California/Baja guy all my life and am completely at home on the boats from Santa Barbara to Cabo. Is there anything different that I should plan for? I plan on taking simple shallow water rockfish stuff (a couple #30 +/- outfits and some iron, swim baits, hooks and sinkers 8oz-160z) and confident anticipation of good rockfish and lings.

Hope this info is relevant. I fished on the fiesta out of virg's landing at Morro Bay a few years ago which is near Avalia. We fished in waters less than 120' and light set-ups were the way to go. I often found myself fishing with my avert sx with 50lb spectra and 25lb mono or my lexa 300 with 50lb spectra and 20lb mono. Fished the double dropper loop with a shrimp fly on 6oz and t-rig creature baits on the lexa. The fish up there aren't as finicky as the rockfish we have down here so the shiner and bulkier the better! Looking back I wish I had thrown plastics more since the fish were slamming the crap out of all my offerings.

Oh and Lings are quite plentiful up there. You can easily catch your limit on just about everything you throw at them. Got mine on squid heads and jigs. Common catches up there are kelp rockfish, gophers, reds, darker colored rockfish (got my first extremely tasty China rockfish up there), Johnny bass, blue rockfish, black rockfish, and of course lingcod. There are some big sheephead up there too, but they don't seem to be a common target. Who knows? Bring some shrimps and you may surprise a few guys.

Anyways, hope this helps. I'd give the office a ring to be safe, but it's stupid easy fishing up there to be blunt. A few jigs and swimbaits are all you really need.

Been away for a little while. Thanks for the reply. Yeah, good info. Kind of confirms what I expected. I actually will bring some shrimp just to see what it gets (both fish wise and weird looks from the other passengers); should be fun. When I was a kid, I worked the deck on City of Seal Beach and the old GW. The mainstay for us way back then (Late 70's) was rockfish. I don't know if it was the variety, the colors, the tastiness or what, but I could never shake the bug to fish em. Even now, if I'm on a long range, I get all fired up when we mark and stop on a high spot or pinnacle and drop down for some rockfish for din-din. It's funny because there are always a few hard core tuna guys that get the same excitement and drop down too. It's even funnier when it gets out of control and someone purposely brings out some insane getup to make everyone laugh and then proceeds to drop it and stick a slug on it. Hilarious. So rockfishing has a long history with me. I'm going to go on the Patriot out of Avila on the opener. My uncle has a place just down the highway a little, so I will head that way hopefully early enough to miss LA traffic and the Santa Barbara traffic that piles up too. Thanks again for the info. Much appreciated.