Thoughts?

I drove down to Santa Barbara to pick up my brother from UCSB, so we decided to take a charter out to experience fishing the Channel Islands. It was my first time doing an overnight charter and that was an experience for sure.

The morning started off with targeting white sea bass. The only action, however, was a nice yellowtail about 40" caught when the guy was retrieving his bait to use the restroom. Our last attempt for wsb moved us behind the island where one guy got a nice one to the surface but broke off right before the gaff.

Around 10am we switched to bottom fishing to fill up the bags before we were to head back. I tried to fish lures for about 45min-1hr before giving up and tipping my lures with cut squid. While I was wasting time being stubborn, people were landing nice ocean whitefish and sheephead.

After adding the squid I landed my first whitey.



I had no idea how hard they fought until I landed the first one. Definitely my favorite bottom fish to catch now. Here's a short clip of the first one ripping line (by no means a good size either). Those tail kicks! 



After a few more whiteys and rockfish mixed in, something big took me on a run on the light setup (20lb mono to 10lb braid). Halfway through the fight my handle started loosening up and I chose the wrong direction to tighten it down and it completely came off. Oops. Clip below (will need to increase the volume a bit).



Ended the day with some more whiteys and rockfish. Missed what I think was a nice sheephead because the hook came back with a big dent in it. All in all I had a great time despite the lack of game fish.

Cooked the whitefish in a basic lemon butter sauce and it surprisingly taste very similar to rockfish despite feeling different when raw.

Figured I'd say hi if I see anyone there. 

Tagged along with my buddy on the Sea Wolf for a Farallons trip. Conditions weren't so great at the islands so we fished the Marin coast instead. My hope was to catch my first lingcod ever and some species of rockfish I haven't before.

Seems like my first wish was granted because I landed twice the amount of lings as I did rockfish. 8 lings to 4 rockfish. All of the lings hit a 5" swimbait on a 2oz head in 20-90 ft. Biggest ling was ~10lbs. Rockfish were split between slow pitch jigs and the same swimbait. Didn't catch any new species of rockfish, but got some quality ones much larger than I've caught at MBK.

Crew and captain were friendly and helpful. Enjoyed the beautiful coastal views and my first time passing under the Golden Gate Bridge!









 

Looking to take a trip and check out some spots around San Pablo Bay through the delta to target stripers. I'm looking to fish lures off the bank. Anyone know the area? Thanks!