Everyone showed up plenty early at the Mirage in Port Hueneme for another overnight sportfishingreport.com charter. Many repeat customers were onboard, including John Knoble, who's been on SFR charters for over 6 years ??? this time, he brought his son, also named John Knoble. We cast off promptly at 2200 (10pm) Saturday night and arrived off San Nicolas island (about 60nm from port) for the first drift just before first light. After being greeted by dozens of juvenile seals, Fran Gleckman caught a ray but it was Chen Wei Xing who landed the first keeper (a rockfish) and a Fishworks beanie for his efforts. 2nd Captain Fred, and crew Tucker and Scott did a great job helping everyone get the right gear together, untangling lines, re-rigging, and getting all of the fish into the right sacks. Meanwhile, Tim kept the galley hot, turning out countless breakfast burritos and burgers for the hungry folks onboard. Fat Pacific whitefish and rockfish were the norm ??? by 0830, dozens of fish were onboard, and by 1030, some sacks were already overflowing. And then?Ķ the lingcod hit along with everything else. Doubles were plentiful as nice reds, blue bass, chuckleheads, sheephead, and lingcod landed on deck. Captain Joe pitched in carrying fish to the sacks in between keeping us over different reefs throughout the day.

With a ~5 hour trip to port ahead of us, we called it a day just after 1300 (1pm) with hundreds of fish. As Tucker and Scott put hours into cleaning the day's fish, as well as the boat, Dave Sparhawk's (Glendale Sportsman Club) 10-pound lingcod won the battle for the $190 jackpot, with competition from at least one sheephead and other lingcod.

T-shirt, hat, and frisbee winners from the sportfishingreport.com raffle included Randall Smith (Bakersfield), Alex Robledo (City of Commerce), and "the sleeping guy" (one guy slept through the raffle).

Conditions for this trip were perfect ??? what a pleasant surprise first to be at San Nicolas in the spring, and then to have essentially flat seas (glassy at times) and warm (t-shirt/shorts) weather with none of the fog seen nearer to shore all day long. Definitely consider a sportfishingreport.com charter trip on the Mirage out of Port Hueneme this season ??? she's a good-looking boat with a solid captain and crew that worked their tails off to make a great trip even better.

Summary:
Anglers: 21
Fish count:
Lingcod: 21
Sheephead: 23
Whitefish: 166
Rockfish*: 210 (limits)
* including limits of Bocaccio

Captain & Crew:
Captain: Joe
2nd Capn: Fred
Crew: Tucker, Scott, and Tim the cook

Jackpot winner:
10# Lingcod
Dave Sparhawk
Glendale Sportsman Club
Winner of sportfishingreport.com hooded sweatshirt, XL