Night Surf Fishing Malibu 03-14-2014

Having not fished in almost a month, I was more than ready to hit the salt. So my main fishing buddy Brian and I headed to Malibu, CA to do some afternoon / evening fishing to see what we could catch. We arrived at 5:30 PM, low tide was a -0.05' @ 2:17 PM and high tide was a +4.17' @ 8:25 PM, sunset was at 6:03 PM and bait was squid.

I started off the catching for the day with a small 7-8" grass rockfish at 5:45 PM. Fishing was pretty slow after that until I got the next catch of the night at 7:33 PM, which was a nice 35+" leopard shark. In re-looking at my pictures below and how my measuring tape was not laid out properly it may have actually been big enough to keep (36"+) but if it is close I typically will release it just to be safe...those tickets are expensive (I hear) and the regulations are all their to ensure sustainability in the ocean fisheries. My next and final fish for the night was a fantastic, fat 19+" calico (kelp) bass which I caught at 7:54 PM. What a fish! Into the water bucket to keep it alive until I bleed it just before leaving and back to fishing, but no more fish for me tonight.

Brian got in on the catching at 9:00 PM, getting an 11" or so grass rockfish (see motion pic below). He followed that up with another grass rockfish at 9:10 PM which was about 8-9 inches. That closed out the catching for the night and we packed up and headed home at 9:30 PM, both happy fishermen. All fish were released except for the calico bass. Another great day / night of fishing in Southern California, gotta love it!

 Brian above

 Me Being Me

Surf Fishing Malibu 02-07-2014

Being bored and not feeling like doing much I decided to take a quick trip to Malibu, CA to do some surf fishing. I arrived at 11:43 AM, low tide was a +0.7' @ 11:08 AM and high tide was a +2.73' @ 6:36 PM. Bait was squid as always.

Fishing was pretty slow, but I did manage to catch one fish at 1:16 PM which was a 27" Leopard Shark, which was of course released since the minimum size to keep a Leopard Shark is 36" to keep. No action other than that. I packed it in and headed home at 2:40 PM, happy I had at least caught something during my short outing and, as always, refreshed from being at the beach.

Surf Fishing Malibu 10-18-2013 with Flannery

Talked my main fishing partner in crime the Flan man into fishing the Full Moon. I / we usually do pretty well on full moon nights with incoming tides, and this day / night was no exception. Low tide was a -0.18 @ 2:49 PM and high was a 4.47 @ 8:54 PM. We fished from about 2:45 PM till about 8:45 PM. Bait was frozen squid as usual.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the fishing started out hot right away....for Brian at least, lol. He started out the catching by pulling in a fatty 17" calico bass at 3:12 PM. Damn, nice start!

He then proceeded to catch three grass rockfish between 3:30 PM and 5:00 PM which were approximately 8", 12" and 11" (all released to get just a bit bigger). Wow, he has a four to zero lead on me....guess it is just his day :).

Still not catching jack, I took a moment to take this nice picture around sunset at 5:11 PM (moonrise was at 5:13 PM) while standing on a rock in the middle of the ocean with a fishing pole in one hand and an expensive smartphone in the other...

Wouldn't ya know it. A second after taking this picture, I get hit and it sticks....crap, phone to pocket quickly and reel baby reel, lol. Brought in my first fish of the night, a nice 13" or 14" yellow Fin Croaker (released because I do not care for YFC personally). Yeaaaaa, no skunk for me :).

Fishing was a little slow for an hour until I caught an around 11.5" grass rockfish at 6:19 PM, which was released to get bigger. Hmmm, now his lead is only 4-2 :).

Next fish came at 7:03 PM and it was a big fat piggy 19" Calico Bass! Woo hoo! What a fish and what a fight to get em in through the rocks and eel grass. Calico bass are one of my favorite fish to catch because even the small ones give you a good fight and the large ones fight like hell.

Nice! Two pig calico's in the bucket (and Brian was happy I got a fish I kept so he could shlep off his fish on me to clean, lol) and the lead is down to 4-3 :). I caught the final fish at 7:41 PM which was an approximately 18-20" leopard shark (released of course).

We fished for about an hour after that then resigned ourselves to a nice 4-4 tie for the night, lol. Great night of fishing and catching. We both also had large sharks on but both were broken off even with our semi-heavy gear (I use 40 LB mono Brian uses 60 LB braid with a 40 LB mono leader). We will get one of those beasts in one of these days :).

Surf Fishing Malibu With B 10-03-2013

Brian and I decided to hit up one of the Malibu spots for some afternoon fishing. Arrived at the spot at around 3:15 PM and stayed till around 7:15 PM. Bait was squid as usual. The first fish caught was a small grass rockfish by me at 4:47 PM. I then caught a decent sized calico perch at 5:07 PM and another small grass rockfish at 5:20 PM. Nothing for either of us after that until about 6:20 PM my line gets slammed. After a nice fight trough the kelp and rocks I pull in my biggest leopard shark caught to date at 35"+. Sooooo close to being in my belly, it even might have been 36" but it was too close to keep and risk a fine. Brian didn't catch anything unfortunately on this trip. He will get em the next time :). All fish caught were released.

Surf Fishing Malibu 08-25-2013

Running a little behind on my posts since Google decided to change the photo editor in Picassa...grrr.

Anyways, I got to Malibu around 5:55 AM and Brian arrived a little after 7:00 AM and we left around Noon. We fished the incoming tide most of the day with a low tide of -.037 at 4:44 AM and high tide of 5.11 at 10:53 AM. Bait was squid all day.

I caught my first fish at 6:10 AM which was a 22" leopard shark. I didn't catch anything else until 8:27 AM, which was a decent sized black aka buttermouth perch. Brian got his only fish of the day at 10:28 AM which was a huge 20" Johnny Bass aka Olive Rockfish, best fish of the day by a long shot. I closed out the catching with a small cabazon at 11:29 AM. Kind of a slow day of fishing, but at least we caught some fish :). Everything but the bass were released.