Looking at the weather forecast on Thanksgiving evening, I decided that I should go fishing during the weekend and work off some of that turkey dinner. So Friday morning I called Mike Thompson at VENTURA SPORTFISHING to see if he had any cancellations on the PACIFIC DAWN for Friday night departure, as luck would have he told me he just had a cancellation and I was able to get the spot. A meal of leftovers that evening and I was off to Ventura, I arrived early and saw the crew on the boat getting everything ready for the trip. For this trip we had Capt Pat and Paul in the wheelhouse, with Mike aka. Man Dog and Moses on the deck and Whitney in the galley.

We departed on time with anxious anglers on board, we pulled out and headed south to where Capt Pat had a report of squid. After clearing the breakwall Capt Pat came down and gave us our safety briefing and what our plans for tomorrow would be. We would be heading to San Miguel and doing some shallow water rockfishing. After arriving in the squid grounds the lights came on and we soon had some squid starting to show. The crew worked like a well oiled machine jamming the bait tanks full of squid, and we we now headed north for San Miguel. I awoke to the smell of bacon in the galley, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed out on the deck and we were at San Miguel headed to the west end. Capt Pat looked around in the shallows and did not like what he saw, so he decided to head out a little deeper and soon found what he was looking for.

We were soon picking away at some really nice quality rockfish from Bluebass to Reds, there was not to much current so we were able to spread out and fish both sides of the boat while drifting. The quality of the fish we were catching soon filled the gunny sack to overflow status. We also had a nice little flurry with some whitefish of the large variety and a call for gaff on quite a few of them. Our final count for the day was 220 Rockfish, 58 Whitefish, 27 Lingcod and 5 Sheephead. San Miguel again lived up to expectations and produced some great quality fish that kept the crew busy most of the day.

Now is a great time to get out and fill your freezers with some rockfish before the season shuts down and you have to wait until Marxh 2012. Give the landing a call at 805-676-3474 to reserve your spots and get in on the action.

We have posted some of our 2012 charters on the website, now\'s a great time to tell Santa which trip you want and get it booked. If you would like any of the pictures you can email me at [email protected] and I will gladly forward them to you. HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE HOLIDAY.