All three people in our group have never fished on the west coast and 2/3rds of us don’t fish artificial normally. Justin was incredibly helpful with helping those two catch fish in a fishing with which they weren’t familiar.

We also fished with some dead baits just off the bottom and caught some larger fish that way.

It was forecast to start getting windy throughout the morning. Instead of canceling the trip like we’ve experienced back home before, Justin helped us find the best window of time to get out on the water safely and have the best fishing experience possible.

There was also an incident where another boat was coming straight at us as we were finishing a drift - Justin’s great situational awareness and quick response to the situation was crucial and insanely impressive.

If you’re looking for a captain that knows his grounds & can get you on the fish, respects the weather and is ready for anything that could go wrong on the water, this is the charter you want.

We had a great time. I took my 3 teenage boys and a couple of friends. We stopped just outside the harbor and caught a bunch of anchovies for bait. That was exciting and pretty easy. Then we went over a reef further out and easily caught a bunch rock cod. I’d taken Dramamine and was really happy I did, but it was kind of choppy and some of my group was heaving over the side. So we went where the waves were a little calmer and caught some more rock cod and a couple bigger lingcod. Then we went south off Capitola and trolled for a while trying to get halibut. We saw some other boats getting halibut, but we didn’t get any. The waves were really calm there, though so it was a good time for people to recover. In the way back to Santa Cruz harbor we stopped a few times and got a bunch more anchovies. We went to Portugal last year, and wanted to try making boquerones. We were on the water for over 8 hours, which was longer than the time advertised. Altogether the six of us got 40 rock cod, two lingcod, a scarlet cod, and about 50 anchovies. The captain was really flexible about where we went, and constantly setting up our bait and tackle, and when we got back to the dock he spent an hour cleaning all our fish. This was a great experience.

Took grandsons and son-in-law out for a day in the water. What a great day ! Plenty of sun, laughs and fish. Justin was a great captain .

Went fishing with 2 grandkids aged 11 and 15. It was a good trip enjoyed by all. Capt Justin was very patient with us. The 11-year-old caught the most and the biggest. Made for a great lasting memory. Justin expertly cleaned and filleted the rockfish for us, and we are having them for dinner tonight!