Endeavor Rocked the Rockcod!

I received the precious gift of an invite from Fumio to join his charter on the Endeavor fishing for rockcod.  I feel honored to have been included on one of Fumio’s trips as his trips are known for having polite, kind and experienced anglers.  Jim, Jeff and Steve had also received an invite.

We watched the weather forecasts leading up to the trips’ departure date of December 15^th because we had all had several trips cancelled due to rough weather this year.  My last 3 trips were cancelled due to weather.  The predictions were changing daily until our original departure date looked unfavorable.  Tucker, Captain and owner of the Endeavor, made the decision to move the departure date to the 16^th so we would have better weather.

I hitched a ride with Jim Carlisle to Ventura Sportfishing, home to the Endeavor.  The drive up wasn’t great.  In addition to heavy traffic, we had low lying clouds and light rain the entire trip.  Not the best weather to jump on a boat and go fishing.  Oh Well!  Once we got to Ventura, we opted for a leisurely dinner at Lure Restaurant in town and forgot all about the weather for a while.

When we got to the landing, most of the anglers on the trip were already lined up there.  We unloaded our gear and lined up too. Then I heard my name called and I turned around to see Jimmy Lew.  I hadn’t seen him in years.  What a great surprise.  Jimmy is a legend!  He’s known as an expert angler and has caught several 300-pound yellowfin tuna on single speed reels – definitely old school.

Tucker arrived around 8 pm greeting us all and said we would be boarding in a few minutes.  Once we boarded, Tucker asked us to meet on the back deck and he gave us the safety speech.  Then he said our plan is to fish reds first so set up gear with two hooks and 16 ounces of lead.  Once my gear was ready, I hit the bunk.  The ride wasn’t too bumpy but I didn’t sleep well anyway.  It was cold in the bunk room.

I got up around 5:00 am the next morning.  Jimmy Lew and a couple other anglers were already up.  I grabbed a cup of coffee and ate my banana nut bread for breakfast.  The cookies I brought on the trip served as breakfast or pre-breakfast for others. 

Dawn revealed calm seas and clear skies.  Such a pleasant surprise.  Around 6:15 am, Tucker advised that the weather was so good, we were going to fish for lingcod first then Reds so put on your jigs, leadheads and plastics with at least 12 ounces of lead.  Fortunately, I had packed one 12-ounce leadhead with a brown plastic frog attached.  I only packed it because it’s been in my garage so long, I was tired of looking at it and wouldn’t care if it got stuck in the rocks and stayed there.  I really didn’t think it would work.

Tucker took us to his lingcod spot and told us we were going to fish the Port side of the boat in 380 feet of water.  I headed to the bow and found Jimmy Lew there too.  Tucker lined the boat up over the lingcod spot and said “let them go.”  It took a while to get to the bottom but as soon as my frog hit the bottom, it was bit.  It was heavy and took a while to bring the fish to the surface.  When it surfaced, I could see why it took so long.  It was a big lingcod that turned out to weigh 32 pounds..  My second drop produced a ling over 20 pounds.  I had my limits so I gave my rod to Sheepie to use.  He caught a nice lingcod too.

We had full limits of lingcod before 9 am (2 fish per person).   Tucker moved the boat and said we are fishing for reds now and we proceeded to get limits of Reds before 10 am.  Tucker drove away from biting Reds to fish for chili peppers in deeper water.  Unfortunately, we kept catching Reds so Tucker moved the boat to fish for sheepshead and white fish.  I caught one whitefish, 5 boscos, 4 floridas and decided to stop as I already had more fish than I could keep.

The boat had full limits of Lingcod, Reds and rockfish for 11 passengers and almost limits for crew.  We were heading back to dock in calm seas and sunny skies.  Crew pulled all the fish out of the hold for pictures then began the filleting process.

Crew had finished about half the fillet process when Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens boarded the boat to check the operation.  They opened every bag of fillets, checked all around the boat, inside and out, and reviewed all Tucker’s paperwork.  They found everything in order and left.  After that, Alex finished making lunch, hamburgers for most the passengers, a piece of rockfish for me, then he cleaned up the galley.

We were early back at dock arriving by 6 pm which meant we were going to hit traffic.  We offloaded gear and I bought 4 bags of ice for our ice chests.  Crew brought up our fish and called out our numbers.  We grabbed our fish, said out goodbyes and wished everyone a happy holiday season,  We were on the road towards home by 6:30 pm.  Google maps said it was going to take 2 hours fifteen minutes to reach Jim’s house.  Google maps was correct.  It took me another 30 minutes to get home. 

I told Mike it had been a great trip from start to finish - Anglers were fun and great to fish with; Crew had been outstanding plus the weather and fish cooperated.  Couldn’t ask for anything more!

My thanks goes to Fumio for including me.  It was a wonderful trip.