Ventura Pier 03/09/2012 - 03/10/2012

Hit up Ventura Pier since my buddy was late and we missed the grunion run time. Arrived at the pier around 11:45 and proceeded to the end of the pier after checking the surf line for any signs of life. Dropped in my crab net and started getting the rods ready. set up one pole with a whole small BSP from a previous trip on a circle with a stinger and let it sit while I set up the other pole. No hits that I noticed on the whole BSP. Set up the other pole with a high low and put shrimp on the high and squid on the low. Pulled the other pole up while I went to check the crab net. 1st pull and there is a keeper! Nice way to start. Dropped the net back down and went back and tossed out the high-low pole. After a while I see some movement so I pick up the pole and feel it...seems kinda like crabs, but why not set the hook anyways...hmm, that is not a crab! Brought the little guy to the pier and left him just below the water line while I went to grab the crab net to get it up. My buddy held it in place while I got my net making sure it didn't wrap around a piling. Brought it up and it was my first every bat ray. A small little bugger (maybe 18" across or so) that just found the squid too tempting. After a quick unhook I lowered em back to the water in the crab net. Forgot to take a pic. After that I only really had one other solid hit, which I missed. Brought in the bait and it had a huge mouth mark taken out of its belly....grrr, that's what I get for not using a stinger. On the crab front I ended up with five keeper rock crabs and one decent sized spider crab. Caught a ton of shorts. Left a little after 3:00 A.M.. All and all a great trip even though it was a bit slow.

I got crabs at the pier....

Grunion Scout Trip 03/08/2012

Hit up the beaches North and South of the Chart House on PCH with my buddy Doug last night to see if any grunion were in. Only stayed about an hour walking up and down the beach. Did not see a single grunion. Heading back out tonight to hunt them and hopefully a nice fat Halibut or Leo. Couple beach shots below.

Surf Fishing North of Santa Monica 03/04/2012

Hit up the surf for a couple hours with Brian from about Noon till 2:30 P.M. We used sand crabs, live shore crabs, shrimp, muscle and limpets for bait for a big ole skunk. Beach was packed with people since the weather was nice. The only thing we caught all day were nice views such as the one below (my camera sucks from far away, but it was phenomenal).

Malibu Pier 03/02/2012

Hit up Malibu Pier with my fishing buddy Brian Friday afternoon from about 2 P.M. till about 8 P.M.. Fishing and Crabbing was SUPER slow. All day I caught one large smelt (shown below) and a bullhead. On the crabbing front, I only got a couple tiny rock crabs and a bunch of medium sized spider crabs. This trip reminded me why I am not a huge fan of this pier...

Redondo Break Wall 02/26/2012

So after taking a couple hour nap after the Ventura trip I got up and headed to Culver City to pick up Thresher_One / Robert at about 10:30 P.M. on 02/25/2012. We arrived at the secret location to make bait for the morning. We worked all night getting live peppermint shrimp as bait for the morning fishing at the jetty. I also caught five huge (all 14+ ") pacific mackerels while making bait (I could have caught all I wanted, but five was enough). At around 5:30 A.M. we moved to the main jetty / break wall at Redondo. We walked about half way out and fished from about 6 A.M. till about 10:45 A.M.. Robert was killing it and I was picking off a fish every so often. Robert released about 6 big pregnant black / butter mouth perch and about 5 small sargo. He kept one large sargo (15+") and two Split Tails (new species to me). I landed about 7 butter mouth perch (kept two, the others were either to small or were pregnant) a tiny opal eye and one decent sized sargo. I hooked into something that felt pretty massive, but either it or a seal broke my 30 pound test :(. Robert lost one 16+" opal eye one the rocks on the way up (it was a dang nice looking fish). All and all another great outing with Robert at Redondo and our secret shrimping location.

Fish pics and a pic of the kelp in the harbor below:

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: