Anyone camped / fished Santa Barbara Island / Channel Islands?

This May I am planning to haul my kayak to Santa Barbara and hitch a ride to Santa Barbara Island to fish and spear. Seems to be good fishing there for yellowtail and WSB if the water temp is right.

Does anyone have experience camping and fishing there?

Seems like most of the island is fishable except the rookeries, and being that is is around 2km top to bottom it should be doable.

I would stay for a few nights max.

Thanks!

john

Hi John,
My only experience was fishing & camping on Santa Cruz island a few years ago. My wife & I had a great time although I can't say the fishing was red hot. We took the Island Packers boat from Ventura. I'll mention that the experience taught me a few things, namely to pay attention to the weather since the shores of the islands are pretty exposed and the water conditions can change quickly. I've always though SB Island would be a fantastic trip to make.
-Sean

Hi John,
My only experience was fishing & camping on Santa Cruz island a few years ago. My wife & I had a great time although I can't say the fishing was red hot. We took the Island Packers boat from Ventura. I'll mention that the experience taught me a few things, namely to pay attention to the weather since the shores of the islands are pretty exposed and the water conditions can change quickly. I've always though SB Island would be a fantastic trip to make.
-Sean

hi sean,

can you tell me what month you went to sc island on? we are planning weekend of may 11 - 13 since yt and wsb are a possibility there in the kelp beds. im planning to fish on my kayak as well as spearfish if the waters look good. i see a lot of people posting pics of big calicos as well from sc island.

we have already booked trips with IP for the ride from ventura and cant book requests for campsites til march 1st since they will be remodeling the camp areas.

what part of the island did you fish? the mpa's now extend all of scorpion anchorage so the area we can fish will be a longer paddle but still accessible. we'll bring gps in case of fog: )

as for supplies, did you pack very basic or did you go to the extent of bringing water as well? since we have gear + kayaks i will need to compromise on certain things.

any tips would be helpful!

john

My Wife & I did the SC Island trip in September I believe. We both grew up in Santa Barbara, and the early fall seems to have the best weather.
We brought the standard car camping type of supplies(we went for 4 days), since at Scorpion they have little carts to help shlepp your stuff to the campgrounds. We did bring all our own water, last I knew there wasn't any water available at the island campground, IP should know though. Bring something like action packer boxes or big tupperware type of containers for food and anything you don't want the mice to get into since they are thick on SC island.
I'd just take a guess & say that your main concern will be fog in May, but just watch the wind too.
On the fishing side of things, I've got a WSB trip booked on the Apollo for the end of April. Last year we fished the inside of SB island at the end of April, just at the edge of the closure, and slayed them. Schoolies were 12-15 pounds and the largest fish out of 35 was 30.2 pounds.
Lastly, if you want to check out the sea caves most guides recommend helmets. Paddlesports in santa barbara is the local outfiiter down there and should have some good info too!

thanks piscean! that is a lot of good info.

i hope that wsb trip you take in april will be full of fish!

i emailed skip hellen and he said that the islands are reporting lots of squid and wsb as well as yt. but , as he said, wsb can be anywhere at anytime and you just look for healthy kelp. also check water temps on tempbreak before going to kind of gauge what to expect.

he also gave me tips on where to get flatties there, supposed to be real good for halibut out there.

please take lots of pics when you do the apollo trip!

thanks for the good info!

john