It looks like a chilli but definitely could be a Bocaccio. It's hard finding good reference material on these juvies.

Holy smokes Tim!  Keep us posted boss.  Happy Red White and Blue to you too!

Please do Tim.  My buddy is pretty stoked to have them in his box.

Well, the last day to make it happen.... Day 3.

Waking up at Graylight means it's starting to get light at 5:00am.  I was up first since I didn't really sleep for 3 days.  Between anchoring up and rocking all night in the swell and wind had me keeping from falling off the small bench.

I put two rods out while the guys slept, but they knew I was up to something so quickly awoke and set their rods out.

It didn't take long before Scott got the first bite of the morning!



Third legal butt of the trip which was a great sign!

Then my rod went off!  I grabbed it and it felt really heavy and made some blistering runs.  I thought for sure I had my 65# WSB!  It got to a point in the fight that we weren't sure what I hooked.  Matt yells gaff, but as we looked over, we realized it was a 90-100 BSB... UGH



We didn't catch it deep, so a push to the head with the butt of the gaff and off it swam down.
Scott was next with a big bite and the fight looked awfully familiar.  Scott finally got it up and another BSB, around 80#.  I couldn't get a good pic since Scott wanted it gone so we could catch some WSB.



Then Matts rod went off on the bow and his long fight happened!  It was spot on to the last 2 fights, but he was cautious anyway.



These things pooped us all out.  Back-to Back-to Back BSB..





The release...  It was cool, but not what we wanted.





There gotta be more fish here!



We got a radio call from Matt's bud to move since the BSB scares all of the other fish off.  All three of us looked at each other and laughed...  This dude's friend on the other boat really didn't know quite a bit.

We stayed and Scott's rod got slammed again!  We could tell this was a biggun!  His PB was only 26# over a span of fishing for 60 years... before this.

We got a gaff in it, and it was 45" long and 36.9#!  Now that's a butt!





As Scott was admiring his catch, my rod goes off and I lose it.  Then Matt's 20# mackerel rod goes off and he on another big flatty!   



His PB was less than 20#... Well, he beat it by 5#!!!



Scott and Matt showing off their back-to-back beauties!



No WSB yet... but the flatty's kept coming.

Then Scott's on again and my rod goes off right away.  Double Flatty's on!  I knew mine was a big one and actually got it to the surface before Scott.  Matt sunk a perfect gaff shot and ran to get Scotts!
Well, a 36# to add to the kill bag.



Scotts was another fantastic one and we got some double shots here.



Well, it was time to go.  We had a long run back to the dock and then another long run back to SD from VC on a Sunday Afternoon.  We got a shot of us and our legals.



I filleted Matt's fish for him, but Scott and I kept ours whole to really tighten up in the ice.



Soon as we get back to the ramp, DFW rolls down and checks all of our coolers, kill bags and licenses.  Thankfully we had our 3-day permit otherwise it would have been a mess, but they were satisfied with our catch and sent us on our way.  The funny thing was they said that was more fish than they'd seen in a few days put together.  Hahaha, that felt good to hear.

Well, it was one hell of a "Second" trip to the Channel Islands, and I hope to do it again soon.  That is one special place up there.

Thanks for reading and until the next tide!

My buddy got some bluefin the size of Volkswagens the past few days, so got out and trolled.  No live bait, just trolling.

We went straight to the numbers my buddy got them the last few days and the day began.



Lifeless.  Hardly any bait in the water.  No birds, no signs of life.  We trolled over several high points and back again hoping to find a dumb one.

Found one.  lol



Water was ugly down at the 371 but looking good north.  For sh!ts and giggles, I put out a madmac to troll at spreader bar speeds and I get slammed!  A couple of jumps later by a mako and my lure goes flying out of the mouth.  At least I got the mac back!

In any case, we had to get back so my buddy could pick up his wife at the airport.  Oh well... Next time I guess.

I'm getting really tired of Bluefin fishing....

I forgot to add this to the start of the adventure, so I'll just start a new post.

While we were driving up to Ventura, I saw this... and said, "what are you planning to do with that?"



He laughed and said that's his secret good luck charm on the boat fishing!  He wants to rub it in to all of his buddies who believe in the banana curse, but I guess didn't figure I was one of "Those Guys"...

I was hoping he would eat it in the car on the way up, but nope.  We got to the ramp and he made mention of the banana again. 

As we were unloading stuff on the dock and waiting for our ride, I slipped the banana under the car seat and said nothing.  He went up to park the car and we were off.  On the way, he asked where either of us put his banana and my response was "Last time I saw it was in the car...".  He was like, "I didn't see it... damn... well my car is going to smell like banana when we get back."

Fast forward to us returning to the docks.  He drove the car down to the ramp so we could load up the car.  I took this moment to place the banana right where it was before I hid it in the first place.  We get the car packed and he goes "Damn... it's right where I left it.  I must have really wanted to get out there fishing..."

I am never telling him this as I will continue to hide that vile fruit if I ever see it.  If I say something, I'm sure those guys would bring bushels of bananas the next time we go.

To HELL with those vile musa fruits!

... We were going to throw the light out tonight but didn't want to deal with it all so we decided to get a good night sleep.

The next morning, I woke up first before graylight and saw some great marks on the sonar!  Definitely game fish! The guys bounced out of the bow and we put rods out right away.

While fishing, I noticed something popping off the bottom to check our baits showing up on the sonar.  Then I get hit but it never stuck.  Then Scott gets hit and fish on!  We pretty much knew it was a halibut from the way it fought and voila!  Their biggest Hali from this particular island spot they have ever caught!



It wasn't huge, but the biggest one in their 40+ years of fishing this famously named spot.



Nothing else came to investigate and we decided to hit that mighty Bottom Fish spot for some deep-water denizens.  We made the long run to the grounds and found really difficult conditions with big swell and surge with wind against the tide.  Even with 28oz weights, you only had a few minutes to hook up before having to reel in and reset.

The fish were definitely big, but nowhere near the size of the ones we got the last time.



Also the last time we never lost a fish and we lost at least 6 good ones on this trip.  Not exactly sure why, but we caught a bunch of them, including some pests.  Lol







We got some huge starry rockfish, and Matt was stoked when I said this one would have been the IGFA World Record  (just to find out the record was crushed last year).  Lol



We got some tugboat lings also!



I had a double header and I swore it was going to rip my arm out of the socket.



Then I thought I had a Cowcod when I realized, nope... It's a Yelloweye!  New species for me and one of the least expected for some reason.



We descended it with the 6# ball sinker I brought and the electric reel which was a wonder to use for descent purposes!

The big reds started to make a showing...



We had a note pad to mark every fish we caught as not to go over any limits (and to remember what we caught as they started coming up fast and furious!

Them my next 3 fish were all beauties in their own right before losing an absolute beast!





Another Yelloweye...  Ended up releasing 3 of them this day... Thank goodness for that huge ball of lead I brought as well as the automatic descender that opens up at whatever depth you set it to.  Lol



I hooked into something that even with my Penn Fathom 2 speed in low, I could barely bring it up.  I bought this rod/reel for cow tuna and whatever bottom fish this was, I was in awe.... 30 feet from the surface and poof... gone.....  We watched something huge on the sonar swim all the way down back to the bottom.  I was deflated

Next one was Scott's beast.  Same thing... He got his about 20" from the surface when *poof* gone!

We reset a few more times for the usual suspects... as well as another HUGE ling.



Beast of a Lingosaurus!



Then I get bit by something big.  It didn't fight like a ling or Red... It felt just different, but heavy.  A little like the one I lost but different.  I get it to the top and WTF!  Holy Cowcod!





This thing wasn't even inflated and mean as hell!  We went to attach the descending device when it bit my thumb, and I dropped it in the water.  I went to grab it again to get it on the device, but it shot down like a rocket!  We went to look at the sonar ands we saw that son of a bitch swim all the way down to the bottom!  Absolutely amazing!

Well, we got our 3-day limits of reds as well as a bunch of other denizens and decided to head back to the islands to see what we could see.  After all, the goal was to get Halibut, or WSB.

We cruised around a few of the islands when my buddy said "Let's take a look at the front side.  Apparently, people don't anchor overnight on this side because the weather is always hitting them, but it was nice as hell so we decided to stay.  That and they saw a few boats they know are fish killers, so we scoped out a spot of squid to jig up and dropped the hook for the night.

We made a few drifts to see if we could find any halibut and on my first drop I nail one!  I could tell it was small, but since every halibut we caught was over 32", it was hard to distinguish what a 27" halibut looked like.  I was going to flip it in the boat since Matt wouldn't gaff it so Scott hand grabbed it for the second legal halibut of the day!  Albeit a little 27" model.  LOL



We set out a late afternoon snack and prepared for the evening bite... or at least to set up for the morning.



We were only supposed to stay for 2 days, but we opted for a third night.  Hopefully this would elevate our trip.

The fog settled in and before you knew it, it was getting dark.



We set out the night gear, but if you got too close to the bottom, the squid or crabs would eat your bait.



We reeled up for the evening and set out the squid lights instead to try and scoop a bunch for fresh frozen when we leave.  We couldn't get a bunch to float, but a lot came up in the lights and we scooped about 30.



The mist would come in and out and those squid lights made for one eerie glow!



Well, that was it for this day.  One halibut, but a ton of bottom critters to make things right again!  Hopefully tomorrow brings more luck!

Well, I was off again to the Channel Islands hoping to break my White Sea Bass PB.  Fishing was hot 2 days prior but of course dropped to almost nothing on the night before we were leaving.
Get to his house and take off at 3:00 am...  a fairly easy ride (except for LA) all the way up to Ventura.  We did the usual and unloaded at the ramp.



People up there do not know how to launch a boat...  I was in shock how they all launched it like they were on a freshwater lake somewhere.  In any case, Matt arrived, we packed the boat and were on our way...



We get past Anacapa and see swarms of diving birds!  Hole sh!t!  We run over to them and start casting.  I know I saw some WSB in there, but we couldn't get through all of the snot logs!  I haven't seen this many cuda in years!!!  We caught about a half dozen each trying to get the WSB to commit, but called it after they destroyed much of our plastics.





Well, we kept pushing forward to the intel where to make some squid.  As we were approaching the grounds, we thought we saw a sub in the water....  Nope...
Turns out it was a capsized catamaran!  WTF!



We had eyes on it but someone else must have called it in since 15 minutes later a tow boat arrived.



Well, it happened to be at the squid grounds, so we loaded up with squid as we watched the boats try to tow the capsized cat into shallower water.  In any case, mission accomplished!



This trip was going to be tougher than we thought.  Our intel was limited and the fleet was spread out all around all of the islands.  Capt Matt bought some sweet new electronics so we scoured the data and try to glass out what was going on through the gyros.



Basically, we scoured the usual spots with no luck, so we went to where we went the last time.  Instead of schools of squid, there were only schools of baby rockfish!  I need to find what these were, but there were billions of them just in this area alone!
Possibly a new species of rockfish if I could ever identify it at this stage...



Well, Scott and Matt went back and forth on where to set up as swarms of baby rockfish apparently are not good for a WSB bite. I'm not sure how true it is, but they both were set on trying a new spot.
We made the move to an area Scott really wanted to check out and set up for the night.  There were no squid or bait there, but we decided to give it a fresh start in the morning.

Time to hit the sack.



Part II coming soon.

My buddy put up an Owl box and a couple of Barn Owls came in to lay eggs.  They had 3 eggs hatch and they grew up fast.  He should have had a better camera on the box, but he didn't so no great pics.
When I was over a few weeks ago for the first Channel Island trip, I could hear them screaming in the back yard and I was out front in the street!  They are the noisiest things!

Anyway, they are ready to fly the coup, so I showed up this trip armed with a spotlight and my good camera.  It was pretty neat, but they were even louder because the parents are over from feeding them!  I used to want an owl box in my yard until this...

I finally got all of the pictures uploaded into Imgur.  I'll have some time to get a post up tomorrow.  I might have to break it down again as a hell of a lot happened.

Well, I should have taken a picture, but we forgot to.  In any case, Billy "Dagodfaja" called me and said he was in town with his wife for 2 days and would just like to stop by and say hello.  I was in-between meetings for the new short time gig I'm currently on and told him to stop in.  His wife was super nice, and I'm really mad I didn't get a picture the more I think about it.  He's doing well and has definitely chilled out from 15 years ago when I saw him last.  lol

Funny how SCSF still has a bond of friends even if it's no longer up and running.  There were two mods that I personally didn't like, and one took the entire site down, but it was still a great community.

I'm still recovering from this trip and had to pass on a Bluefin trip tomorrow.  I don't know how I've been doing it lately.  lol

Great to see the boat out in the salt again!  BTW, the Bluefin are well within range of your boat right now..... 
Just say'in...   

Damn, you're getting pretty good with that bow!

Nice kitty and grass carp, huh?  That would be a new species I would fathom to guess?  I know I haven't caught one before.