Channel Islands Overnight Charter - 6/15/19

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.

Sounds like a fun experience. Your video was fun and brings back memories of the time I did a charter down in San Diego for sand bass, ended up hooking into a 33 lb yellowtail that took me for a spin around the boat a few times. Would you do the Channel Islands charter again?

Cool! Thanks for the report. My younger kid is looking at colleges in SoCal, so I might get a chance for something like that in the future...

Which boat were you on?
I used to do an annual seabass trip out of SB but that was a few years back.
It was hit and miss on if we got into actual seabass. The area you were fishing looks to be off of Santa Rosa? Those big flats have historically been good for seabass and halibut when the squid are around.

Sounds like a fun experience. Your video was fun and brings back memories of the time I did a charter down in San Diego for sand bass, ended up hooking into a 33 lb yellowtail that took me for a spin around the boat a few times. Would you do the Channel Islands charter again?

That sounds amazing. How long did it take to land it?

I would definitely do it again, but further into the season. I was told June is called break through month where the bite for game fish starts to heat up. I'm also considering driving down a little further to the landings around LA next time for a better bite from yellowtail.

Cool! Thanks for the report. My younger kid is looking at colleges in SoCal, so I might get a chance for something like that in the future...

Definitely worth a thought! We may go again when we drop him off in September to move in.

Which boat were you on?
I used to do an annual seabass trip out of SB but that was a few years back.
It was hit and miss on if we got into actual seabass. The area you were fishing looks to be off of Santa Rosa? Those big flats have historically been good for seabass and halibut when the squid are around.

Oops forgot to mention. It was the Seabiscuit. There was a boat that limited on WSB, but they focused on them for the entire day. I think it was Santa Rosa, but I'm not 100% sure.