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 During Sunrise In Malibu 02-05-2014

Having not fished in about a week, I had the itch so I headed to my favorite local fishing area, Malibu, CA. I arrived at 6:28 AM which was about 20 minutes before the scheduled sunrise at 6:49 AM. The time just before and during sunrise (and sunset) are typically great times for pictures and I was treated to yet another spectacular sunrise on this day. To the fishing and details. Bait was squid, low tide was a +1.09' @ 8:01 AM and high tide was a +2.99 @ 1:43 PM. First fish of the day was a small 6" grass rockfish at 6:36 AM, that I did not even bother taking a picture of (well, I really just forgot to be honest, lol). Next fish up was an 11.5" buttermouth perch at 6:42 AM. Hot doggy, fishing is starting out hot! After releasing the perch (PDF link) since I do not like the texture of them fishing slowed considerably. That is fishing, one minute it is hot, the next it is not, lol. My next and final fish for the day was another grass rockfish, which was about 11" and caught at 9:40 AM. I did catch another grassy at some point, because I made note of it, but I forget the time and size. I moved around a bit and kept fishing even though it was slow for another hour and a half not catching anything else. All fish released this day, I will get the bigger models another day. Another great day of fishing in sunny Southern California. Some pretty cool pics below if I do say so myself, lol. Enjoy!