Pacific Dawn–May 6, 2013

Los Angeles Rod and Reel club chartered a trip on the Pacific Dawn May 6th. Fifteen club members departed Ventura Sportfishing about 10 pm with Captain Dustin and second captain "Mandog" running the trip. They were assisted on deck by Chris and Fernando and Jeremy ran the galley.

Weather was predicted to be windy with thundershowers. Instead, we found ourselves under sunny skies with a light breeze. However, we also had a 2 knot current which required us to fish with 16 ounce weights even while fishing shallow water (80 feet).   We fished the Northeast end of Santa Rosa Island.

Fishing was slow as well as difficult. Once Dustin put us on a spot, we had to get to the bottom as quickly as possible and hook a fish immediately or we would drift off the spot in less than a minute. In spite of the conditions, we finished the day with near limits for everyone.

Our catch included a nice variety of rockfish, whitefish, vermillion rockfish, sheepshead. cabazon and lingcod. Jackpot went to Stan for his big sheepshead. My bag included two reds, four chucklehead, one lingcod and several whitefish. I used two Kenji flies on a dropper loop on 40 pound Berkley mono.

It was a nice day on the water and my first day back fishing after having my right knee replaced. We fished from 6:30 am until 3 pm and it was an exhausting day for me. The crew were great as always and loads of fun to fish with. Thanks to all the crew.

A special thanks from me to Jim Carlisle for letting me carpool with him and for being a great Chartermaster.