Fishing Report:
Fall fishing at the Northern Channel Islands offers variety this week which included, White Seabass, Bluefin Tuna, Rockfish and other great fish.
Bottom fishing still dominating our counts for the better part of the week. The amount of Lingcod being caught at the local islands on our 3/4 day and 1/2 day trips are getting better each day.
The Rockfish are also biting and the quality is getting better too. This is normal for this time of year but it is happening faster this season it seems. Speaking of bottom fish, we had another rare fish caught on one of our 3/4 day trips aboard the Erna B. If you remember our report from a couple weeks ago, we mentioned a Tan Grouper being caught while fishing the coast. Well, on Friday it happened again on the very same boat! These fish are never seen this far north and in fact hardly ever seen north of the Mexican boarder.
On to the weekend, we had some exotics make an appearance for a hand full of boats. One of our full day boats caught some Yellowtail that we had thought were done for the season. Another full day boat caught a White Seabass on Saturday too. We haven’t seen any Seabass in our counts in a very long time. Also on Saturday we weighed a White Seabass at our official I.G.F.A. weigh station for a private boater. That fish was huge weighing in just shy of 62 pounds.
Lastly, we also had Tuna in our fish counts over the weekend. The Ranger 85 found themselves in the middle of a Bluefin Tuna bite as the sun was setting on day one of a two day trip. Probably because of the extreme light produced by the super moon these fish continued to bite throughout the night. Hooking at least 50 fish they were able to land 21 Bluefin Tuna before the bite shut off. Most impressive was the size of these Tuna. Captain Dustin Tench of the Ranger 85 said they only had 3 Bluefin under 100 pounds. The biggest was caught by Brady Daniels of Camarillo. His fish weighed in at a whopping 125 pounds!
So, all and all, weeks like this show you how unpredictable fishing can be around here. Fall fishing at the Northern Channel Islands is always good but after the summer we had one can only assume the fall bite will be just as epic!
Whoppers:
1) Oscar Muela from Whittier caught a 119lb Bluefin Tuna on a 2-day trip aboard the Ranger 85.
2) Brady Daniels from Camarillo caught a 125lb Bluefin Tuna on a 2-day trip aboard the Ranger 85.
3) Ted Enice from Moorpark caught a 9lb Tan Grouper on a 3/4 day trip aboard the Erna B.
4) Eddie Swayne from Thousand Oaks caught a 21lb Lingcod on an overnight trip aboard the Pacific Islander.
5) Mark Tucker from Apple Valley caught a 22lb Lingcod on an overnight trip aboard the Pacific Islander.
6) Frank Meyer from Oxnard caught a 61.80lb White Seabass using 40lb Fluorocarbon and a “Carolina Rig”.
We have trips departing daily at different times fishing for a variety of fish. Visit our Facebook page at
