Malibu Grunion June 2012

Well, it was the last night of the grunion run in June so I wanted to see if I could see any locally. Headed to just North of the chart house straight from work and was setting up 15 minutes later at around 5:15. Pretty early for an 11:30 PM - 1:30 AM projected run, but I knew if I went home I would get lazy and not go. Anyways, fished from about 5:15 to 7:15 in one spot trying squid, octopus, perch, mackerel, smelt frozen and live sandcrabs for nothing but salad. I moved down South a bit and there was a lot less kelp, but still no fish. A few bites on perch, but nothing I could set. About 8:15 or so my buddy Steve from work arrived and set up about 100 yards North of my original spot and came down to say what up. He was there with his kids, nephew and a buddy. I set up just South of them and cast out. Tons of kelp there. Had one fish and had em at my feet, but I did not see it at first in what I thought was just a big clump of kelp. By the time I realized there was a fish in there a wave had come up and grabbed it and it swam hard out and broke my line. I think it was a thornback, but I am not certain. 11:30 came and no sign of Grunion so I packed it up around 12:30 AM and headed home resigned to defeat. Steve and his buddies caught several Thornback Rays on mackerel and a small rockfish on muscle. His buddy Jesse brought in a way over legal sized lobster on squid on a dropper loop. After showing us real quick back it went (it was also a female full of eggs). Those suckers are in close right now. I have seen a lot of carcases on the shore while surf fishing. Hope the poachers don't get em.