Sorry for the late report. I caught the 3/4 day on Friday on the Stardust with Jamon and we fished up at St. Augustine, or Pt. Augustine, can't remember which, basically off the Hollister Ranch.

Jamon got the party started with a nice ronkie at the bait dock. Stud that he is...

We arrived at the fishing grounds about 3 hours later, it was a hell of a long ways. The current was ripping up there, captain Luke said it was running about 2 knots. He live boated it all day, basically popping the boat in out of gear to slowly drift across the spots. I think drifting would have been impossible with the conditions so that was cool. We fished in 160-170 feet for rockfish.

My first two drops produced a johnny bass and a small red on a 6oz jax jig. I thought we were in for a wide open deal but it was more of a pick for the rest of the day. There were plenty of nice rockfish brought in with reds to 5 or 6lbs and a half dozen legal lings to probably 12lbs or so.

Jamon and I dominated some whopper blue bass (6 inches long) from the bow and basically stunk at fishing. We were trying to avoid the keychain sized rockfish but it was amazing how tiny rockfish would latch onto swimbaits and 6oz jigs. After a while Jamon caught a buzz and wound up taking a nap on the sundeck in the afternoon lol.

At the end of the day I gave up on jigs and swimbaits and went to bait. I was using 50lb Triple Fish Bully Braid with a 30lb Triple Fish flourocarbon leader. I rigged a dropper loop with a 5/0 hook and a live anchovy with a 6oz weight on the bottom, dropped it down and caught 5 fish on my last 5 drops including a short ling, three decent reds and a nice legal ling. Should have bait fished all day I guess.

I usually abhor spectra line but it was perfect for this type of fishing. You could feel the fish hit the bait sharply even in 170' of water. With a CTE300 and a 7'11" Okuma XH swimbait rod it made the fishing pretty fun inspite of the heavy weights and strong current.

I talked with captain Jason Diamond this afternoon and he said they went back up to Augustine today (Sunday). He said there was less current, excellent fishing, and they came across a few foamers of HUGE bonita, landing two with one of them right at 15lbs. So there's some action to be had out there. I think our trip finished with ~200 cod for 28 fishermen, 6 lings, some ocean whitefish and a few misc treefish and whatnot

Jamon has most of the pics on his camera so I'll update later with those... Here's the ones I took

Sunrise
http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/11_24_06_sunrise.jpg

http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/11_24_06_sunrise2.jpg

Jamon dominates a trophy ronkie
http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/11_24_06_jamon_ronkie.jpg

Sal weighs in the jackpot
http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/11_24_06_jackpot_weigh.jpg

Jackpot ling - didn't catch the guy's name but a nice fish
http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/11_24_06_jackpot.jpg