With the reports coming in from the Channel Islands fishing fleet of White Seabass are bitining and several boats reporting limits, I had a sick feeling come over me and I knew the only cure was to fishing. So I called Mike Thompson aka Flipper at VENTURA SPORTFISHING to see if they had any spots available for the next day and he told me the PACIFIC EAGLE was running a White Seabass special tomorrow with a 4 am departure. I grabbed a spot and proceeded to call in sick for the next day.

Flipper was at the landing office at 3am to begin signing everyone in and the crew arrived shortly after. For todays trip we would have Capt Mike Ming in the wheelhouse and Jeff on deck, and Frenchie in the galley. After we boarded and grabbed a bunk we had a short safety meeting and the crew helped folks get rigged up for the days adventure. Our plans were to head for Santa Cruz Island and join the rest of the fleet looking for seabass, but first we would have to make squid for bait. When we arrived we started jigging for squid, but the crew noticed a seiner nearby pulling in his net. We went over and the Captain on board was more than happy to fill the bait tanks with squid for us. A special thanks to the seiner Emerald Sea for being so generous to us and several other boats.

Capt Mike soon found a spot that looked promising and a few minutes later I felt that awe so good gentle tap, and I was soon yelling FRESH ONE and soon put the first White Seabass on the deck. We made another move shortly there after and I was again hooked up with another nice WSB and he was soon on the deck. Today would end being my day to shine as I ended the day with 4 White Seabass and 1 Halibut. The boats total for the day was 7 White Seabass and 2 Halibut and 10 rockfish.

A special thanks to the landing and crew for making this a very memorable trip for me. If you want to get into the action give Flipper a call at 805-676-3474. If you would like any of these pictures you can email me at [email protected].