We had a great time with an ultra limited load of 14 anglers aboard the RANGER 85 this 4th of July week for a two day trip. I arrived at Channel Islands Sportfishing a couple hours before it was time to depart, it was great seeing some old friends and some friends for the trip. We boarded around 9 pm and got our gear stowed and found our bunks, there was plenty of room to store your gear on an empty bunk and take full advantage and strech out on the spacious bunks. We were called to the bow for our safety briefing and plans for the next couple days of fishing, our plan was to target White Seabass, Halibut and possibly Yellowtail in the morning, then head out and get some rockfish and the back in close in the afternoon for another shot at the White Seabass and Halibut. We started day 1 at Santa Rosa Island and started to soak some bait at around 4:30 am, it took until 6 am before the first yell of Fresh One was heard and a White Seabass was soon on the deck. We fished hard all morning and managed a couple more White Seabass and a couple very nice Halibut. Around lunch time we headed out to do some rockfishing, which proved to be scratchy at best but we managed to average 9 around for everyone and the headed back to the exotic grounds. We made a couple of drifts and were rewarded with 3 more Halibut for the day. Day one ended with a fantastic Tri Tip dinner with all the trimming.

Day two had everyone up around 4 am and soaking baits, again it wasn\'t until around 6 am before the first call of fresh one was heard and we soon had the first one onboard for the day. We managed 1 more seabass and 1 halibut for the morning. Rockfishing on day two was stellar to say the least, it didn\'t take long for us to soon start filling our bags with some great quality rockfish, lingcod and some Sheephead. Several of the sheephead were in the 15 pound class and most of the other going around 10 lbs, the lingcod were from legal size to around 12 pounds. We then decided to go back and try some more drifts for seabass and halibut, for which we were rewarded with a couple more seabass for our efforts before heading back to the dock.

Everyone of the anglers had nothing but great hings to say about the crew and I have to echo their accolades. If your interested in fishing on the RANGER 85 give them a call at 805-382-1612, they do have a couple more 2 day trips scheduled before they head south to San Diego. If you would like any of these pictures please email me at john@sportfishingreport.com.