Meet up with Keiferfish at Channel Island Harbor at 7:30a. Plan was to hit up Anacapa Island for some rockfish. Weather was calm with a small chop in the morning. the ride out was about 30 minutes. fished 160ft and fast current which produced a few copperheads and a sheephead. we moved towards the west end and caught the majority of the fish there. weather became calmer as the day goes on and eventually became glassy calm. this is the first time i hooked an Eel fish and it's a big one! actually, it felt like a snag until it started to swim.. then my second rod goes major bendo! i think i've hit another Eel but this one took me right into the rocks. cut the line, retie, and kept fishing. fished the day here and headed back to the oil rigs near home. without knowing how deep we were, i dropped a line while Keifer was tying up. it turns out to be 700+ft.. while feeding line out, a seal decided to swim around me. next thing you know, HE JUMPED 2FT NEXT TO MY SHOULDER!!!! it was probably trying to jump onboard to the footwell but it was definitely a scary sight! we ditched the area and headed back home on glassy waters.


thanks for sharing your spots with me, Keifer!

Looks like a nice day on the water..you can keep the eel! NASTY!

Nice catch! When I see the picture of the rockfish, they look kind of big but when I see closely I see one sanddab next to each other so I can imagine how big it is.

The sanddab was big too!

HawaiianShorts wrote:The sanddab was big too!

No wonder Kiefer got confused of thinking that was a baby Halibut.

What kind of bait were you using when you hook the eel fish? Never seen one before. I hooked a moray eel off of newport before, but didn't know it was edible and threw it back. I heard they are very good but hard to clean.

I was using shrimp and squid. One eel took the squid and the other took the shrimp. While we were washing up, another boater just pulled in and had a 32lb white seabass! He said it was caught on anchoive.. Same boat also had a nice halibut as well.

Hey Everyone!

It's good to have a moment away from work to read of the fun I've been missing via this site.- lol.....It was great fishin' with ya HS! I don't think we could have imagined for a calmer day at sea than Sunday. It's exhilarating to be able to open up the Doo's engine to a steady 70m.p.h., 20+ miles out at sea! Gotta love those glassy conditions.

I gotta admit, I was laughing on the car ride home at HS's seal incident. I had my back to HS, while I was untying knots and tangles in my line and I heard loud splashing coming from behind me....My 1st thought was, " That son of a gun must have hooked a monster!" - As I turn around, there's HS being harassed by a juvenile seal that's breaching the water around him within just a couple of feet of his Doo! I gotta admit, I'd be startled too by the unusual rambunctious behavior. - lol....Thinking about it, perhaps the seal was aware of danger from below and was scrambling???? We were in awfully deep waters (700 ft.)

Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day out there and we covered a lot of good areas! Still can't believe the beautiful WSB and huge Halibut those clowns hooked right next to the arch where HS and I were fishing!

I bought off of Amazon another fishing reel (Okuma) that's left-handed for me w/ a built in depth counter in Feet! - I think I may head-out Weds of next week to Anacapa, if work permits....It's supposed to be another perfect day and I need to "test" this new reel.

p.s. HS, I was staring at that pic you took of me for 5 minutes wondering what the heck is that? Is that my ski? Why am I not on it? Hahahahaha....I was deep into the hull checking to make sure the transducer was still affixed. - lol

Fishing Anacapa 10/30/11 HS & Keiferfish

What's going on, No fish on the video.