Stardate 05082019, Capt. Merit on the Coral Sea 3/4-day open party trip.

Today the west wind was up in the outer Channel -- 24 knots on top of Santa Rosa Island with higher gusts and in the high teens to low 20s elsewhere. With the winds forecast for less and diminishing we put off bending westward up coast as long as possible, but by 5 miles off the beach, it was clear the coast was the better choice. 

We bombed up the line all the way to Augies with a full complement of eager anglers on board, mostly regulars. The first stop was full speed, mostly big reds. after 40 minutes we left the hot bite anyway, looking to deck more lings. After a half hour on the second spot deckhand Jon comes up breathless and says, "We're real close (to limits)."  A few minutes later he declared we had to pull off, fish were all over the deck and we likely had al we could take. 

From there we went into the shallows looking for whitefish, but found lings and sheephead  instead. Fortunately Jon had erred on the side of caution and we still had room for 20-some rockfish, because there were some nice browns and cabezon that came up too. Being shallow we were able to easily release all blues and stuff that last spot.

For our 24 anglers and two crew on busman's holiday we ended up with 260 rockfish including 160 reds, 35 ocean whitefish, 21 ling cod including a couple of whoppers, 6 sheephead, a couple of fat cabezon and... wait for it... a calico bass. 

We'll be rolling in about 1730, it was a long way's up there...

The Stardust is a go 3/4 day fishing Thursday. We are 1/2 day fishing Friday and Sunday while the Stardust is 3/4 day fishing. Please book now from our website or call 805-963-3564