Tom and Valerie Handzus were chartermasters for the FIB’ers Amigo trip #2 out of Ventura on Saturday, August 19th. The FIB’ers has chartered the Amigo in the past for over 25 years with Capt. Mike Thompson when they were running fishing trips out of Newport Landing. There were two other club members who joined Tom and Valerie (Rob Whittaker and Mike Kaneen) and 10 guest anglers, eight of which were from the Valley Christian Church in Chino.
Everyone boarded the Amigo Friday night anxiously awaiting to fish the spectacular Channel Islands for whatever species was biting well. We left the dock around 9:30 p.m. after Tom welcomed everyone and Valerie blessed the trip with an opening prayer. We bounced past Santa Cruz Island and got to the fishing grounds at Santa Rosa Island just before daybreak. There was a possibility of making some squid on our way but it appeared that the squid season at Channel Islands has dried up and the white seabass fishing is mostly done.

With three tanks of sardines and lots of frozen squid, everyone began fishing in deep water around 330 feet for rockcod and lingcod. The fish were plentiful and our gunny sacks began to fill quickly. It was here that a jackpot lingcod weighing 15.9 lbs. was caught by guest Shane Rails. Many larger lings were hooked and some managed to chew through heavy mono dropper loops rigs with their impressive mouth full of big teeth!! We moved several more times as we traveled East toward Ventura Harbor and caught more rockfish and over 100 Ocean Whitefish with some approaching 10 pounds!
Around 2:00 p.m. we started the long ride home. All the fish were pulled out of the brine tank and Valerie weighed the jackpot fish and took pictures. Colin the deckhand solo’d all the fish cleaning while Ginny in the galley made great sandwiches and cheeseburgers for us all. There was lots of time to take a nap, eat and chat with our new friends and tell a ton of fishing stories! Our ride home on the water was flat calm (we were told the best conditions of the summer).
We arrived back at the dock around 7:30 p.m. and Valerie thanked everyone and closed the trip with a prayer. All the bags of fish were handed out and everyone headed home.
An end to a great trip on the Amigo with good fishing, great weather and good times. Thanks again to Captain Ricky, second captain Steve, Ginny for the awesome food and assisting on deck along with Colin who did a great job taking care of everyone and their fish. We wish them great fishing days ahead for the rest of the season.

JACKPOT WINNER SHANE RAILS WITH A 15.9 LB LINGCOD

LANCE FERGUSON WITH A NICE ROCKFISH

BARRY CHEW WITH ANOTHER NICE LINGCOD

JAMES VIGNEAULT WITH A HUGE OCEAN WHITEFISH

YOUTH PASTOR TREVOR SCHULTE AND FIB’ER ROB WHITTAKER

FATHER AND SON, BILLY AND LANCE FERGUSON

FIB’ERS MIKE KANEEN AND TOM HANDZUS

JACKPOT WEIGH IN

AMIGO CAPTAIN RICKY

AMIGO 2ND CAPTAIN, STEVE

GINNY IN THE GALLEY

AMIGO DECKHAND – COLIN

FIB’ER CHARTERMASTERS VALERIE & TOM HANDZUS

BREAKTIME IN THE GALLEY

Report by Neil Nichey
Aww man! Were we stoked for this trip or what? Dead Of Summer, wide open fishing up and down the whole coast. 18 FIB’ers boarded Todd Meyer’s Voyager out of Seaforth Landing for an overnight fishing trip. After baiting up and getting a tank of 4-6” nicely cured sardines we were off, and headed South past the Coronado’s down about 60 miles just south of Ensenada.

After an always anxious night sleep we had trollers out at grey light, and we were paddy hopping. On our first rotation we found a pod of dolphin; as we breezed through all the trollers went off, and we landed a bunch of 15# Yellowfin Tuna. Try as we may we couldn’t keep them at the boat with our bait offerings. We were able to catch back up with the pod, and get a couple more jig strikes throughout the day on the same grade of Tuna.
Most of our day was paddy hopping, the paddies were really few and far between, but when we found them all of them would be loaded with 10-15# Yellowtail and Dorado. These were great fighting, sporting fish. All the Dodo’s had great color and were very acrobatic. We would slide onto a paddy, and the fish would charge the boat, and they were chewing everything!!! Fish were landed on bait, surface iron, flatfalls, jerkbaits, and coltsnipers. The melee was so fun to watch. We sure do have a great club. We work well together. I’ve never seen an open party trip where we had 10+ fish on at one time and everyone actually worked together to land fish.
As the sun started to fade, so did the bite, and we headed back to the barn, everyone smiling and laughing as we shared stories of the day and our anticipations for the rest of the season. Todd runs a tight ship, and with Casey as his Second, Chuck running the deck and RJ running the galley, we were well taken care of.