San Miguel REDS!

We had our second Los Angeles Rod and Reel Club charter on the Pacific Dawn Monday May 7th. Great group of anglers (including club regulars Jim and Tom Carlisle, Al Scow, Ger Steinberg, and Roland Reesby) were on board when we departed Ventura Sportfishing's docks around 10 p.m, Sunday night. Pat Cavanaugh (the boat's owner and captain) ran the trip with Mandog (Mike Nickerson) as his second. Mike recently got his captain's license and was making the transition from deck to wheelhouse. Glenn was our Galley chef, Mo was on deck assisted by a guest appearance from Bill Cavanaugh.

Pat and the crew spent some time during the night trying to snag squid with no luck. When we got up in the morning we were just leaving Santa Rosa Island on our way to the inside of San Miguel.

Pat set us up in about 300 feet of water for our first drift around 7 a.m. It was a slow drift that started producing beautiful, big REDS (Vermillion Rock Fish). Tom, Jim, Roland and I fished the bow. Tom was fishing a jig, Jim, Roland and I were fishing Kenji flies with a strip of squid. They all worked.

We made a few drifts in the area until our sacks quickly started filling up. Pat decided to let us do some shallow water fishing where we picked up some nice lings. I switched to a 2 ounce leadhead and an old orange, flat-tailed plastic and nailed my last fish of the trip - a nice 12 to 15# ling cod.

Glenn kept us fed with fried rice and eggs for breakfast and fish or club sandwiches for lunch. Mo and Bill filleted our fish while we napped. We arrived back at dock around 8 p.m., unloaded our gear, packed our fish in ice chests and headed home. Another great trip in the books on the Pacific Dawn

Although the trip is over, the pleasure of the trip continues as we have fresh fish for the next few days dinners. Tonight we will have sashimi and steamed RED in our house. Tomorrow we'll have some of that nice ling cod. YUM!