Dinner tonight: fresh lingcod panfried in olive oil with a little salt and pepper! Yum. Today we had a great group out for the first "below Pigeon Point" rockfishing trip of the year. Some of "firsts" for the season include: The day started off with Bernie Lucero landing the first fish of the season, a tasty gopher. The first ling (some of which I believe is my dinner tonight), a feisty eight pounder, was caught by Capt. Randy Bankord who joined in on the fun on his day off. First cabezon honors goes to Bernie again for his five pound grinner. Tony Nanay had the lingcod touch, enticing five of the toothy critters from their caves, two of which were shakers, and went home with his two ling limit, the biggest weighing in at a solid 12 pounds. The biggest fish of the day was a hefty 17 pound lingcod which was caught on a four ounce jighead and large white curlytail plastic by Russell Mayne of Fremont. Pretty fish award goes to none other than Harry The Jigman Boos for the first vermillion of the year. Harry was beat out for the biggest vermillion of the day, though, by Hector Cortez of Fremont who landed a fat six pounder. Overall the day went pretty much exactly as we expected. Not everyone went home with limits but we really didn't expect to with the cold springtime water temperature that doesn't encourage the rockfish to be very active. It sure is nice, though, to be able to end the day sending everyone home with fish for dinner and a smile on their face after the tough past month of fishing we've all had to endure. Even though the territory below Pigeon Point is open out to 240 feet, Capt. Bob fished in areas averaging in the 60 foot range outside New Years. Most of the casters used four to six ounce bars, with some of the flies needing 12 ounces or more to hold the bottom when the wind picked up. One of the hot lures of the day was the new plastic squid jigs we sell at the shop filled with a squirt or two of ProCure bait gel. Rockcod convert Cindy Tripp landed four keepers in a row after finally giving in to Capt. Bob's advice. Our next rockcod trip will be this Sunday, May 6. If you're ready to come out and join in the fun, the forecast looks pretty decent for Sunday last I checked and we still have space available. We've added several rockfish trips to our schedule for the month of May, so check out our "Schedule" webpage to see if we have a open day that works for you.