Surf Fishing Malibu 07-15-2013

Brian and I decided to give the night fishing another shot. We fished from 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM. This time we started off at another spot I thought might be more productive for what we were targeting, which was sharks. Started out at the new spot and only lasted about an hour there. There was just too much salad (seaweed and eel grass) in the water and our hooks were getting covered with it instantly making actually catching anything there impossible. So we moved on to spot #2, which had much less salad but also did not produce any fish, or even many bites at all. We tried squid, smelt, shad, sardine and perch for bait. Two skunks in a row :(.

Surf Fishing Malibu 06-07-2013

Decided to hit up the Malibu Spot today. Low tide was at a little before 3:00 PM, so that is when I arrived. In the water right away and first cast I catch a nice 17" Calico Bass. Sweet start! Fifteen minutes later I catch fish #2 which I am unsure of the species. It looked and was shaped like a BSP, but it had spots on each fin. It was about 13.5" long and fat as hell. Back in the water and I get snagged a while later...while walking up the beach to work the snag out a sea gull stole all my bait....grrrr. It is only 4:20 now and if I leave now I will just sit in traffic, so...quick trip to Ralphs for squid and back to the spot. No more fish after that of course, packed it in around 7:00 PM. Both fish caught on squid. Any suggestions on the species ID are welcome.

Surf Fishing Dana Point Area 05-26-2012

My buddy Hammer and his buddy Polo showed up to my house a little behind schedule, but pretty close to the scheduled time of 5:30 AM and we were on our way by 5:50 AM. After stopping somewhere off the 5 freeway to pick up Polo's uncle we were on our way to the Dana Point Area. After stopping in at the gas station for snacks and to drop off our gear we started what ended up being a hell of a long walk to the spot. I am pretty sure it was over a mile, not so far, but it was rough walking, lol. After passing by several fishy looking areas that I will be back to fish soon, we arrived at our spot at the point at around 8:25 AM. I started out with a double dropper loop with squid and octopus on them and knew I would be switching out to a single as soon as I lost this setup which was not very long, lol. After switching to a single I moved to the tip of the point and cast out with octopus. After a few casts flinging my shore crabs off the hook before they hit the water, I switched to muscles and cast where Polo's uncle suggested I cast. I got constant hits when casting to this spot, but time after time they just striped the bait off without setting the circle hook. Hammer hooked into something large, but it took him into the kelp and got off after about 10 minutes. After moving North of the point where polo said there were lots of small perch I switched to a sabiki tipped with muscle and within seconds I had my first fish of the day, a decent sized walleye perch. Caught a ton of the small fries while eyeballing the cove that I will be back to fish hard (video below). I did not feel like losing a bunch of rigs today, but there are rockfish, cabazon and possibly lings in there for sure. Kept a bunch of the decent sized walleyes and a senorita fish (what I knew as soon as I saw that they were around were the culprits stealing my bait) and a few small black perch. After sharing a great burrito that uncle made for lunch Polo and Hammer were both catching small perch and his uncle kept on catching Garibaldi. Every time we were excited at a large fish being on, then disappointed as soon as we saw the orange. We called it a day at around 3:30 PM. The swell was large all day, which is suspect had something to do with the bigger perch hiding. After packing up while his Uncle cleaned the catch he felt like taking and releasing all of the small perch in the holding pool we were on our way back on the long trek to the car. We saw a dead sea slug and a large dead female sheep-head (fish) on the shore. I also took a nice tumble at the end of the rocks where a bunch of dead dried kelp attracted millions of bugs as I tried to hurry by.

It was a great day of fishing, scouting a few new locations along the way and seeing some nice ladies along the way as usual, lol. Hammer also purchased his year license, so we will hopefully be doing this more often.

Lot of pics and a video of a cove I will be back to fish below:

Crabbing and Fishing Ventura Pier 05-25-2012

Met up with Brian at about 7:15 AM and headed for the pier. Started fishing and crabbing at around 8:00 A.M. There were a few other anglers around most catching queenfish / herring on sabikis. We set up shop at the end and I placed the crab net in my usual spot. Fishing was fairly constant on the sabiki lines we used catching what they call tiny 7-11 perch, decent sized walleye perch and queenfish / herring. Buddy and I both tried shark rigs (him the whole time, me only when I got tired of using the sabiki rod) with live bait but no takers on those either. Gave some of our perch to the locals to try for sharks, no love for them either. Crabbing was spectacular as usual. I ended up getting 23 keeper red, yellow and rock crabs. I gave five away to these two younger fellows (I think they were around 17) who were camping with their family somewhere close and wanted some to boil up. They were pretty nice kids and I had plenty so I spread the wealth a little. We left at around 2:00 PM as the wind and swell was getting progressively worse (the crabbing also slowed as the swell got bigger). Good day on the pier hanging with my buddy and checking out the local scenery (love them hot days!).

Jetty Fishing Pierpont Bay (Ventura, CA) 02/25/2012

Met up with my fishing buddy Brian at 8:00 AM in Woodland Hills. After a quick pit stop at 7-11 for muchies and drinks we proceeded to the jetty. We started fishing around 10:00 A.M.. Brian hooked up on a wall eye perch pretty quickly using muscle. I went quite a while without anything. At some point, I noticed an about two foot wide hole between three rocks that had water down below, so I dropped my bait (frozen squid) in there and just a few minutes later...tap, tap bam fish on. Pulled up a 10" rock fish, sweet! After that I moved around casting to rocks and holes I could see and caught four more rockfish from 10 to a little over 12". They were all the same species of rockfish (not sure what kind, anyone know? We were thinking grass or brown rockfish). Brian also joined in the rockfish party and landed 3 or 4 of them as well. He also hooked into a nice 5" or so rock crab which we promptly returned since it was caught on hook and line. We packed it in at around 3 PM. Another great day of fishing in Ventura, CA. All fish except the biggest rockfish were promptly released to get bigger.

Fishing area and fish pics below (in no particular order):

Redondo Break Wall 02/19/2012

Fished the long break wall at Redondo from about 11:30 A.M. till about 4:30 P.M.. Started out about half way down it for about 45 minutes without any bites on sand crabs and squid so I moved down to almost the end of the break wall. At some point I switched bait to pieces of market shrimp and the was the trick. I landed five black perch and lost two on the way up between about 2:00 P.M. and when I left. I kept three (big one is a little over 12" the other two were about 11") and put the other two back because they were on the small side. One angler who was leaving said he had caught two bonito at the end, which is not surprising as the birds were diving everywhere. I tossed a bubble a little, but I think I was too far from the harbor mouth. Fish pics and fishing area below:

Hobson Beach 02/12/2012

Brian and I hit up the rocks just North of Hobson Beach fishing from about 11:00 A.M. to about 6:00 P.M. We were using mainly sand crabs as bait but I did also try live peppermint shrimp, squid and mackerel chunks as well. I caught one dink BSP and Brian caught four medium to small BSP and one 11" calico surf perch (returned, because it looked to be pregnant). The main reason for going there was to harvest muscles, but the swell did not cooperate so that will have to wait. Pics of our fishing area and the calico Brian caught below.

Jetty Fishing Pierpont Bay (Ventura, CA) 01/28/2012

Fished the first Jetty North of Ventura Harbor from about 8:00 A.M. till 12:30 P.M. with my fishing buddy Brian. We were using squid, cut mackerel and peppermint shrimp for bait at first. I caught a 10" rockfish on cut mack fairly quickly (returned to get bigger) and Brian wasn't getting anything until he harvested some muscles from the rocks for bait. After he started using the muscles he landed three perch in pretty short order. I also at some point between losing setups caught a nice 13" rockfish on cut mack which I kept for dinner. First time fishing this jetty, so I was pretty happy that we both caught fish. Weather was perfect (even a little hot) and the swell was kind of big.

Here are a few pics of our fishing area:

Surf Fishing South of Santa Monica 01/22/2012

Met up with thresher_one at Santa Monica Pier at around 7:00 A.M. and he already had our bait for the day, sand crabs, collected. So he hopped in my car and we proceeded South to the target area. It started out pretty good with us both hooking up on small BSP almost immediately, but after that it was pretty slow. I ended up catching four BSP and a 5" cabbie (I didn't know they would go for sand crabs) and thresher_one ended up catching four or five BSP. We fished from around 7:30AM till 12:30PM.

One thing of note was I got checked for license and catch for the first time EVER here in Southern California! The warden was very nice and cordial and I was happy to see him. I forgot to get his contact info so I can report poaching when I see it (I have tried Cal-Tip to no avail a few times), so hopefully I will see him out there again soon.

Overall, a slow day of fishing, but it is always nice to get out on the water.

Ventura Pier 01/15/2012

Seems like Skunks were the norm up and down the coast yesterday, lol. Fished / crabbed Ventura pier from about 10:30 AM till 3:00 PM. Not one single fish of any sort landed by me or my fishing buddy. We were using squid, shrimp, cut mackerel and perch pieces. I did catch three keeper rock crabs, but even that was super slow. Only fish I saw caught were a small croaker, a sand dab and a shiner perch caught using a sabiki in the middle hole at the end by a lovely fisherwoman who was great company (If they all looked like her I would be out there every day, lol). We did try the surf line first for some perch, but nothin there either. Stopped by Andria's Seafood Restaurant in Oxnard on the way home for a heaping helping of Halibut and Chips (best fish and chips in the area).

Redondo Jetty 12/09/2011 - 12/10/2011

Started out Friday night at around 11:00 P.M. making bait for fishing in the morning on the big jetty. Our night of making bait resulted in this lovely live bait (don't ask me how we did it, it is a secret reserved for a few who I will only show in person):




















I also caught two small sculpin on Squid while we were making bait. (One shown below)












About 5:30 A.M. we proceeded to the long jetty to utilize the bait. I fished a little till about 6:00 A.M. when I had to leave for a few hours to take the wife to work. I returned at around 9:00 A.M. to continue fishing and managed two decent sized perch (butter mouth?) while fishing till around 11:30 A.M.. Robert and his other buddy caught eight and five assorted perch and opal eyes (no pics yet).





















All in all, a great outing with great company. I can hardly wait for the next round.