Well after losing my crew Friday morning I was able to gather a new consisting of my friends John Yokoyama and the infamous John Turner, we decided to do some thing a little different than what I normally do this time of year, straying from fishing the coast we instead launched out of Ventura harbor and fish the boiler calicos on the front side of Santa Cruz Island, area wise we worked from prisoners up the Island some 7-8miles till the seas told us to start working back the other way ! Some oddities from the day Turner got a mantis shrimp, I caught a big opal eye, and a hybrid bass a half calico half sandbass (yes they do exist) all on the hammers. Anyways seas were sloppy, 15mph plus wind and washing machine conditions from the large swells coming in and bouncing off the Island, but the fishing was good! The odd thing was that a lot of the times the more fishier areas didn’t bite and less fishy areas did so decided just to fish everything! Bass wise no monsters but decent overall quality with big bass going 41/2lbs as per the bogga with another 4 or 5 fish in the 4lb range that I think Turner caught all of! He was definitely schooling us in the quality department! Although I got jackpot with a 15lb sheepshead that I got on a clear/redflake hammer after getting worked about an hour earlier on the same heavy rig (calcutta 720xfa/300te combo with 20lb p-line) never slowed down! DOH! Anyways water was a chilly 57.3 degrees, and the ride out was ok but the ride in flat sucked! An old Kman kind of day, left the harbor in the dark and came in the dark!
Totals for the day: 60 legal calico bass to 41/2lbs with a good dozen 3lbs plus, 1 hybrid bass and a 15lb sheepshead and very minimal bycatch! With most fish being caught on 5in big hammers with anything red or brown in it ….Larry