I recently bought my first boat. It is a 15' Bayrunner with all the extras... bait tank, fish finder, radio etc. I have been fishing the one mile just about every weekend lately for a pretty good pick at the bass 20/80 Calico to Sandies. Every weekend for the past three has been about the same. When the current starts moving, the fish start biting. Each day has been good for about 10 bass in a couple hours of fishing, with the occasional sculpin or rockfish in the mix. All the fish are coming on 4" and 5" plastics in asst. colors, with the brown and orange being the most effective for me. Most of the fish are biting on the sink, but quite a few have come on the slow retrieve as well, with a few (all calicos) coming on a quick retrieve in the upper portion of the water collum. Thats about as specific as I can be. The entire reef as been productive with fish biting as shallow as 68' and as deep as 95'.

I have also been doing a fair amount of surf perching lately. I have fished Evans beach (summerland)the past three days for a near wide-open bite on the smaller variety of fish with the occassional 1lber thrown in. All fish have come on the 11/2" motoroil grub and 6lb test. I have been fishing in the afternoons and evenings when the tide was just starting to climb. It might be even better closer to high tide.

Now the question. I sure do want to fill up the freezer with some rockfish as of March 1. I am looking for some advice on where to find some decent rockfishing in the SB area. I am more than happy to invite one person along (it is a small boat) for the day in return for some expertise. The boat has a decent range, but for now as I am a novice, I don't want to find myself more than 7or8 miles offshore. That is not to say that we can't travel 15 or 20 miles up or down the coast.

Anyways, I grew up down south fishing the SM Bay, and I would like to learn more about this area. If anybody is interested in going fishing one of these weekends, leave me a note on the board.

Thanks

I have been surf fishing in the past week a couple of times in SB and it has been wide open perch here too. So much fun, at first you want to change over to a halibut rig but if you just keep perching it will get interesting. I even took my mom down for a great fish on last friday night, we caught and released 47 total in two hours. 40 barred, 6 walleye, and a big old jack smelt. Every thing was on the carolina grub rig 1.5 motor oil too w/ the red flake. Most of our fish were good size...6-10"

About the rock fish thing, there are some easy places to go that I know of like the oil rigs, but I do not know how close you can get. I have heard of some very good spots in about 80-100 feet around some local sewage pipes but thats not exactly table fare.
Maybe someone else has some gps way points, but if you need another crew member, I have my own gear and will share expences and cleaning.

Congratulations, Cory, on the new purchase! Like Jizames, I do not know of any local GPS points for rockfish. But, there are lots of little rockpiles in the SB area. It's just a matter of finding them. I know that the Stardust regularly fishes several areas off of Carp for rockfish. They also go out near the oil rigs. I think it's called the "4-mile".

Let me know if you need a buddy to go exploring sometime. I'd be happy to pitch in with $$ and cleanup. Send me an email at chrisrlogan@hotmail.com

Be cautious in a 15' boat. Check the marine weather report before and during your trip, and have all of your safety gear.

What looks calm in the morning can become dangerous in the early afternoon, especially in the spring and well into the summer (I am not talking about Santa Ana winds). One day last June I needed two hours to motor back to the harbor from the One Mile in heavy seas that threatened my 17" skiff. At about the same time kayakers and their instructor had to be rescued off Refugio Beach. I have also heard of a 23' boat being swamped not far from the One Mile a few years ago.

Tight lines and tight safety.

I have lotz of experience fishing (too)small craft, I used to fish salmon in a 8 foot 'whaler' with a 6 hp motor. I would regularly go out 3+ miles offshore, from carp up to well past Hendreys beach.

One saturday, the birds were working BIGTIME, about a mile and a half off Hendreys, it was 3pm, and the Tyson fight was on at 7, so I wanted to zip out there, fish a little and zip back. It was dead calm, and as I got to within a half mile of the 2 acre birdpile, something went wrong with the throttle.

I could not get the motor to do anything more than idle. I was right there, almost withing distance of the fish, and I could not get the boat to move faster than about 1.5 knots.

Luckily, the wind did not come up, and I ended up catching one barrie, then turning towards the harbor, and idling back.

At one point, a boat passed me, about a half hour before the sun went down, and I really should have waved them down for a tow, but my pride got in the way, and I just putted along, watching old people walk along shoreline drive faster than I was going, I would sit on the bow and paddle with the one paddle i had.

Long story short, I made a few mistakes that could have had serious consequences.

1) No radio, cell phone, flare or other signaling device
2) No secondary means of propulsion, ie Oars (2) kicker motor....
3) Not signaling the boater for a tow

Action I did take that may have mitigated any complications that came up:

1) Stopped fishing immediatly when something came up.
2) Headed straight towards the beach, then turned towards the harbor. Should the offshore winds have come up, I would have been in serious trouble.

When I go out on a little boat now, I throw my wetsuit in the boat. Most the time I have it anyway, as I dive a lot now, but having a wetsuit as a piece of safety equiptment is so easy to have, but most don't think about it. More than a few commercial fishermen and divers have survived a night at sea, or sitting on their overturned hull by wearing wetsuits. When conditions worsen, dont wait to grab your suit and don it, by the time you wish you had, it may be too hectic for you to stop navigating and put on the suit.

Let people know where you are headed, a general game plan so that someone can know where to start looking.

Meet some other boaters in the area. I have a half dozen friends that I can call who can come out and drag me home, or start looking for me. Get their cellphone numbers, have them handy.

LEARN ABOUT MOTORS, many times, you can fix a problem at sea, at least enough to limp in safely. Get to know a marine mechanic, get his cell phone and get to know him well enough so you can call him when you are at sea for a quick fix. If you need to meet a Marine Mechanic in SB, my new roomate is one. Email me and I can introduce you to him.

All for now, I hope you think about these things when fishing out further than you are able to swim in, and that means past the bouys should wind or current pick up.

MoonDoggie,
Marco Farrell
Santa Barbara
have2fish@yahoo.com
PS. It ended up that I sheared a pin in the throttle, but I could have controled the throttle manually on the motor.

Now that is some good advice Marco. Thanks for sharing it with us. The ocean is nothing to be taken for granted. It can turn from beautiful to dangerous in the flick of an eye.

I had the misfortune of being onboard a friend's 17 foot whaler down off Carp one evening in the winter time when we sheared the drive shaft in half when he fired up the motor. With no backup source of propulstion we were S.O.L. A little quick thinking by me while we were still on the horseshoe rock high spot really saved our butts that evening. I took every rope in the boat and tied them together and threw the anchor out. We had just enough scope to hold us in 50 feet. We sat there for 2.5 hous waiting for Vessel Assit from Channel Islands to get up to Carp because Vessel Assist SB was already out at the islands. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that the very MOMENT that they clipped us in to be towed back a sundowner wind kicked up that was blowing a steady 30 and probably gusting to 40mph. The tow back to SB took another 2 hours in the dark of getting absolutely slammed by the wind waves. So don't forget an anchor when you're out there and don't forget plenty of rope.

I never went on that guy's boat again but he told me that a few months later when he got it fixed up they again lost power off Summerland and wound up drifting ashore and beaching the boat. Luckily for them there was no surf to speak of, but man you just can't be horsing around out there and thinking everythings a-ok as long as you have a motor on the back of your boat.

The anchor.

Another WONDERFUL, under/never used/considered piece of safety equiptment. Often searched for at the last moment, when it is too late.

Whenever something comes up when I am on a boat, the anchor either goes out, or at the least, is prepared for deployment.

MoonDog

Thanks to all of you for your insight and valuable information. I appreciate your concern for a fellow boater and fisherman and would welcome any of you on my boat. I will post the next time I am going out and have room for one more.

Thanks again,

Cory

I have two questions about "sundowners" because I am only in my second year in SB. First, are they misnamed? I ask this because I have experienced and heard of such winds beginning many hours before sundown, even early afternoons; or are these a different kind of early afternoon wind? I know that when I fished in norcal the spring- summer winds usually seemed to pickup at about 1:00 PM and seemed to taper off at sundown.

Second, what months are the most likely to produce sundowners? I know the frequency of Santa Ana winds from month to month, but not for sundowners, which I presume are a different kind of wind.

Thanks.

Bob

I'm not sure which months are prone to sundowner winds. I think it's in the winter mostly on warm days. They come usually right at sunset and are pretty rare in SB really. But when they come they blow straight offshore and are very warm and very gusty. I don't know if there is a distinct difference between sundowner winds and Santa Ana winds. You can tell when a mild Santa Ana is in effect because the smog from LA will blow out to sea and you'll see a narrow yellow band of smog out by the islands.

One bit of advice I can give you from going out on my dad's boat is to purchase a little hand-held marine radio and an air-horn. The marine radio will always have the weather up to the minute, as well as the emergency channel so that you can call for help. You can go to Coast Chandlery in the harbor and ask them what channels you should tune into. Also, you can ask them or other boaters how to understand what it means when the wind is blowing hard at the "East Channel bouy" versus at the "West Channel bouy".

Another bit of advice, you can always stop at the harbor patrol office in the harbor before you go out, and ask them what to expect. They'd be more than happy to help you be prepared rather than have to motor out and pick you up a few hours later.

Another suggestion, check out the Santa Barbara Sportfishing Club, as there are a lot of small boaters in the club that fish locally and can give you the best advice. The website is: http://www.west.net/nonprof/sbfish/ , or you can call my dad, Tom, at 967-3503 and tell him that Daniel referred you to the club and you'd like more info.