Surf Fishing Malibu 04-29-2012

After getting a few hours of sleep after getting back from Catalina I met up with Flannery at 6:00 A.M. at his place. We were at our fishing location by about 7 A.M. and it was an outgoing tide until 10:45 A.M.. Fishing was pretty slow most of the morning but I landed a small 10" rockfish (it was gut hooked so I kept it since it was going to die anyways) and Brian hooked up with a nice 15" Calico Bass. I hooked up with something fairly large twice, but one time it took me into the kelp and got off the hook and another time it rocked itself and would not budge (ended up breaking my line). Great weather and views and no other fishermen in my fishing area except for us! Three trips, three fish even during a slow bite at that! Followed up with a fish fry with Flannery at my pad, we cooked up two whitefish, two calico bass and rockfish coated with bread crumbs & panko and thin sliced potatoes...good stuff.

A short video and some pictures:

PFIC Catalina GTG 04/28/2012

This was the first year I attended the annual PFIC Catalina Get Together, and it was great fun. Day started super early Saturday morning with me leaving the house at 3:00 A.M. to drive and pick up my friend John in Whittier and get to the landing in time. After the wife dropped us off we waited for the boat and watched a huge school of sardines moving around inside the harbor. After a smooth boat ride over we arrived on the island at around 7:30 A.M. and set up shop in the SE corner of the Mole. Fishing started out pretty good with John catching a nice sculpin and whitefish and I caught a whitefish. Once the other PFIC people stared showing up around 10:00 A.M. we mingled a little meeting everyone and then the fishing derby started at 10:30 A.M.. Caught a 14" calico bass and a small rock fish (I think it was Boccaccio, but I am not sure) during the derby (I could have slaughtered the derby by catching my limit of pacific and spanish mackerel and blacksmiths and other assorted small fish, but being my first derby I did not want to show off, lol.). John caught a short calico during the derby. After lunch provided by a PFIC member (Gudude is the families PFIC handle I believe) and raffle trophies were given out  to the winners in each division (I got an "Awesome Angler trophy) and back to fishing we went. Caught a ton of small fish the rest of the day while watching schools of sardines, mackerels and other bait fish swim by, there was even a small school of juvenile squid cruising around.

All and all a GREAT day spent with AWESOME people on the best Island around for fishing.

Some fish and other pics below (I will add more when others post them on PFIC):

Unnecessary Censorship -- White House Correspondents' Dinner Edition

Okay, I will not post non-fishing things on here often, but this was so freaking funny.

Round 2 North of Malibu Pier 04-22-2012

After finishing up at Redondo I felt like fishing more and had a few hours of daylight left so I headed over to my new favorite spot in Malibu. Started fishing around 5:00 P.M. using a single rod with a double dropper loop with cut sardine and grunion as bait. After losing two sinkers and four hooks this way I switched over to a single reverse dropper loop with cut sardine. First cast as soon as it hit bottom this 13" grass rockfish hammered my bait. Reeled him in after a short battle, bled em and headed home after about 15 more minutes. Two trips two fish so far at this spot, so I am really digging this spot.

Clean-up and Fishing Redondo Breakwall 04-22-2012

Met up with Mahigeer at the foot of the jetty around 11:45 and he had already picked up two bags of trash. Shortly thereafter we proceeded to about 1/4 of the way up the jetty and I fished the outside for a while using market shrimp and cut sardine as bait. Got a few taps, but nothing stuck. Mahigeer poke poled the inside of the jetty for a while for the same results. I then moved over to the inside and dropped my bait in between rocks and kelp (tried squid, crab, mackerel and sardine. Crab seemed to work the best). First drop I got an almost immediate hit and I saw it happen! It looked like a small bass. After moving around dropping the bait here and there I finally got a small sculpin (8-9" or so) on a crab knuckle. Mahigeer was casting lures at this point but did not get anything. We picked up another bag of trash on the way out at around 3:00 P.M. and I picked up some weights Mahigeer made for me.

Surf Fishing Malibu 04-21-2012

I just got back from a short trip to a new spot near where I live (only a 30 minute drive). It was a little North of Malibu Pier. I started out with two poles set up high-low one with cut sardine and mackerel and the other with market shrimp and squid. Got quite a few solid hits on the sardine only so eventually I switched all of my hooks to sardine and one I left on mack. Ended up catching one 13" smurf cabazon, which I was stoked about since it was the biggest one I have caught to date. Anyways, only fished about 2 1/2 hours so I was happy to catch something in a new spot so close to home. I will hit it up again soon at daybreak and the bite should be much better.

Fish pics and a couple of the fishing area:

Ventura Pier 04-19-2012

Fished and crabbed from about 8:00 P.M. till 2:00 A.M.. with my fishing buddy Brian. I did not catch any fish at all, Brian caught one 10" or so croaker and one small smelt. Croaker released, smelt became live bait. Crabbing was great as usual. Ended up keeping 18 rock, red, brown and yellow crabs and tossed back a ton of close ones or just legal and some of the females. One interesting thing happened right about when we arrived. There was a UFO! It looked like a flying campfire kept climbing for a while until it just disappeared. It was pretty trippy and everyone else on the pier was staring at it. Pier and Crab Pics below:

UFO Video (poor quality):

Redondo Sportsfishing Pier 04-15-2012

Day started out by meeting Redkorn at the Sportsfishing (Short) pier in the harbor at about 7:00 A.M.. We started out both using sabikis on one pole and bigger bait on the other (live sardines or mackerels when we had them). Fishing was pretty good all day on Mackerels and a late day heavy run of sardines. We saw some bonito in the water so we let Mahigeer know and he came to the pier around noon. After a while I got tired of using two poles so I switched to one sabiki pole and started crabbing with my net. I ended up catching three (3) male yellow rock crabs and one medium sized female spider crab. I kept the yellow crabs and put back the spider to make more babies. John stayed until around 6:00 P.M. and Mahigeer and I stayed till about 7:00 P.M... I ended up bringing home the yellow rock crabs and a couple dozen mackerel and over 150 sardines. The mackerel and 1/3 of the sardines are salt curing as I type and the other 2/3’s of the sardines I brought in for my co-workers to share. Great day of fishing! Pics of the copters looking for a body and the take below:

Redondo Muni Pier 04-14-2012

Day started out with me arriving around 8:30 A.M. I quickly scouted out the Sportsfishing (short) pier and the end was already full, so I proceeded to the small finger jetty North of the pier and fished for about an hour and a half until Mahigeer was done having breakfast with his Wife at Polly’s. We arrived at the Municipal Pier across the harbor around 11 and scouted out a few places before we settled on the South facing side because the wind was terrible and the restaurants provided a much needed wind break. We fished the pier till about 3:30 P.M. or so for Mahigeer when his wife came to collect him. I stayed until about 4:30 P.M. at which point it was time to go pick up the wife from LAX. Pretty slow day of fishing with the only fish caught being about five (5) sardines when they made a short run close to the pier. It was impossible to cast out from the pier because there were too many novices and / or inconsiderate people who were letting their lines drift 100 feet one way or the other in front of everyone else. I was pretty annoyed with it, but I was there to relax so I did not say anything.

Some pics of the harbor and pier below: