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!

Surf Fishing Malibu 01-12-2013

Decided to hit up the Malibu spots for a couple hours. Got there a little before 2:30 to this lovely shot:

There was a -1.5 tide slated for a little before 4:00 PM, but it was already way down upon arrival.

Few nice shots of the negative tide, during higher tides I am often fishing right in this area:

First fish of the day was a small cabby at around 2:54PM

Second fish was caught around 3:25 PM a 12" grassy I was planning to keep. Put him in the water bucket and back in the water and a few minutes later I get slammed. Pull in a nice fat 17" grassy. Pics below, the 12" one looks so tiny next to the pig. Ended up letting the 12"er go.

Last fish of the day was another small grassy caught at around 4:14 PM.

Couple more shots of the negative tide areas and the parting shot (you can see Catalina on the horizon if you look close):

Pig in sink:

Found this inside when cleaning (about 2-3" long). Never seen anything like it in any previous grassies I have caught. Anyone know what the hell it is?

Surf Fishing Malibu 12-30-2012

Met up with Brian at the Malibu spot, I got there about 10:45 AM and Brian showed up around 11:00 AM. Set up shop in the normal area and fishing was DEAD for the first couple hours or so. First fish was caught by me at 1:30 PM, a huge 15.5" grassy that had a small whole perch in its mouth, and a baby lobster in it's belly. I thought it was huge until Brian started catching pigs. We moved further North to the new spot and Brian proceeded to pull in a 16" grassy at 2:02 PM, a 17" grassy at 2:31 PM and a 15.5" grassy at 3:49 PM. I also caught a little 11" grassy at 2:43 PM.

Final count was
Brian: 3 Pig grass rockfish
me: 1 pig 1 slow day keeper grass rockfish, but let it go today.
All caught on Squid.