Surf Fishing Malibu CA 06-04-2014

Hmm, no fishing in June yet....time to fix that by heading down to my favorite local city, Malibu, CA :). No early morning this day since low tide was a +0.71 @ 8:52 AM and high tide was a +3.59 @ 4:10 PM, bait was squid as usual. We (my wife Alisa and I) arrived at 9:47 AM to a tide still pretty far out. I moved up and down the coast for a while as the tide slowly came in before settling on my final "rock" a little before 11:00 AM (meaning, after that I would be casting from shore as the tide would be too far in for me to feel safe walking out on slippery rocks to a large rock to stand and fish from).

Fish #1 came at 11:16 AM, which was a medium sized Calico Perch which was promptly released after a long distance photo of it, lol.

Fish #2 came at 12:05 PM, which was a small, 11" or so, Grass Rockfish. Grass Rockfish are my second favorite fish to eat, only California Halibut tops it if you ask me (and the Malibu Cafe has it on it's menu, pricey but yummy), but too small for my personal size limit and not meaty enough to keep even if it was an inch bigger, so back it went as well.

No more action after that but it was a gorgeous day out and I caught fish, so I was a happy fisherman :). We packed up and headed home at 2:00 PM. Another great day of fishing at the beach in Sunny Southern California! You can really see how different this particular spot looks at low and high tides if you compare the panorama pics below BTW.

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 :).

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