Sunrise Surf Fishing Malibu 05-30-2014

Being 11 days since I last fished and wanting to get back into my old routine of going at least twice a week, plus perfect conditions (on paper, lol) equaled me and Alisa getting up very early, 3:45 AM, and heading to Malibu, CA. After gassing up and heading out we arrived at my target location for the day at 5:10 AM (Alisa lagged or I would have been there earlier, lol).

The ideal conditions mentioned above were:
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#1 - A nearly New Moon (only 6% visible) would in a fisherman's eyes be perfect because theoretically the fish feed less when there is less light at night and are hungry for breakfast if you will as soon as their is some light (why I like to be there at first light vs. sunrise which is about 35-40 minutes apart right now).

#2 - For this particular area I love the low negative tides because I can walk around and garner intelligence on what the bottom looks like in the areas I am frequently fishing in at high or when the tide gets to about +2' or so. Low tide was a -0.62' @ 5:23 A.M. and high tide was a +3.47' @ 11:52 A.M., I also prefer to fish the incoming tides...always ;).

So after getting up at that ungodly hour to hit the perfect first light conditions....fishing was super slow almost all day. So slow I even tried bait other than squid eventually, lol. I used a sandwich of squid, shrimp and muscles all tied nicely together with Magic Thread. Which eventually did the trick on my last cast about five minutes before leaving at 9:00 A.M....and was it ever a fish, a 17" 2 pound, 2.94 ounce pig grass rockfish! Now that was worth the wait...and I could have slept in, lol.

Alisa also found something I had never seen before, Keyhole Limpets the orange bottomed things in the pics below. There are also a few pics at the end of the other various cool sea life we saw around. Another great day in sunny Southern California! I friggin love it!

Night Fishing Malibu 05-19-2014

Trying somewhat to make up for the almost two months I went without fishing I headed back to Malibu, CA to do some more sunset / night fishing since the moon was still fairly large. I arrived at 7:56 PM, just before sunset. Low tide was a +2.25' @ 7:50 PM, high tide was a +4.48' @ 1:39 AM and bait was squid. Weather was great, ocean was nice and calm, bait was nice and fresh but the fish were just not around (or I did not find them) or just weren't interested in eating. I fished up and down coast, all the holes I know of and a plenty of other spots, but it just was not meant to be this night. I packed it in at 12:45 AM and headed home resigned that I was gonna have to take a skunk this time...grrr, lol. Still great to be out on the beach soaking in the ocean air. I will get em the next time ;).

Full Moon Fishing Malibu 05-14-2014

Wanting to take advantage of the full moon and good rising time (rose 12 minutes after sun set / 15 minutes or so before last light) I headed to my favorite local fishing city Malibu, CA My regular fishing buddy Brian was busy, so Alisa, my wife, joined me so I would not have to fish alone. We arrived a little before 8:00 PM, low tide was a +1.31' @ 3:21 PM, high tide was a +5.72 @ 9:30 PM and bait was squid.

Fishing was very very slow all night despite the seemingly great fishing conditions. I moved up and down the coast trying spot after spot looking for a hungry fish or two, but didn't have any luck landing anything most of the night. I had three lost hook ups, one of them was a big ole cabazon that got off about 10' from shore (I could tell by how it bit and came in)...grrr. The last lost hook up came at the farthest North spot I had tried all night, so right before leaving, thinking I had found where they had been hiding, I made one final cast into the same general area and...what do ya know, a few minutes later I was reeling in my first and only fish for the night, a nice 11" or so grass rockfish, which was promptly released to get bigger after a pic or two. Ahh, nice to catch a fish on the last cast although I always wish it was the first cast because that usually bodes well for fishing the rest of the trip; but sometimes you just gotta take what ya can get and be happy with it :). Headed home without a skunk on my back at around 1:00 AM. Slow night of fishing, but still better than sitting at home wasting time on something less fulfilling.

Oh and the last pic is a motion shot of one of the nice boo boo's I got from falling +/- 4' while moving around on wet, sandy rocks in the dark while wearing vans which were also wet and sandy and really do not have the best grip to begin with since they are a bit dated, lol. Time to invest in some better fishing shoes :).