Went on a full-day excursion with a friend to the island over Thanksgiving break. I, as usual, took the 6 am boat. I started off at the GPP, and immediately caught a 13" and a 16" sheephead on shrimp on a sliding sinker rig. Afterwards, the fishing slowed considerably, with lots of small ocean whitefish. There was a lot of perfect bait-sized smelt in the water, but nothing was around to eat it. At 11, we moved to Pebbly beach, and fished dropper loops with squid. I caught a small whitefish and my third triggerfish from the island, while my friend got skunked. The wind prevented us from making the long casts to the dropoff, while the current ripped our sinkers off the bottom. We moved back to the GPP. After some more very slow fishing, my friend moved to the casino jetty, where he reported good action on short calico. There were no opaleye or short calico around at the GPP, but there were many short sheephead, rock wrasse, and garibaldi. At sundown, the whitefish bite picked up again, and the short calico began to make a showing. We fished slabs of mackerel on wire, and had a couple runs and managed one horn shark, but otherwise it was slow. We took the 7:30 pm boat home.
