San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

Hit Canyon Lake on the 4th of July, 6am to 10:30am with my buddy, Hoppy. As those from the area know, this Lake was recently hit hard by Golden Algae. The extremity ponds are still in fair shape but seem to be affected. We hit the Jump Lagoon first right at sunrise. I hooked and dumped 4 four Bass ...

Plenty are caught up here in Orange County off Balboa Pier/Newport Pier. They are in obvious schools because generally several are caught in a short span of time then no more for days or weeks.

Hit the Newport Coastline this morning with my young friend Jake and his buddy Landon. We were to meet at the spot at 6 am. I got there early and filled a bait bucket with Sand Crabs with quite a few Softies, maybe due to the Full Moon period. I threw my first cast at 6 am and was on a nice Corbina ...

There are two tricks I learned back when I fished for money a long time ago and far away where Alligators chased your Bass. One was to switch out your trebles for Gamakatsu sticky sharp ones, the second was to add an extra split ring to the Hook. They can only rotate so far with a single ring and ...

Heathy looking Basses! They certainly aren’t missing their meals.

YouTube is your friend here. Watch the line of videos about Surf Fishing in Southern California. This will let you know what to expect. I think about how similar Surf Fishing here is to River Fishing for Trout. You fish the backwashes, edges of current, dirty water behind reefs with light line ...

Sand Crab Leo on 6 pound….and yes, we get Butterfly, Round and Batrays as well as Shovelnose on them.

Lots of good stuff here. For Surf fishing I fill 1/2 my spool on a 2500 size spinning reel with 20 lb braid and tie on with your knot of choice, some quality 10 pound Mono.(I use a glued Albright) I fill the reel as much as I can without it spilling off. Then go launch some casts with a 4 ounce ...

The less line in the water, the less weeds you get hanging on the line during the fight.

If you are willing to head North I can prolly put you on some Corbs sight casting, although I’ve had Leo’s and Stripers rush the Crabs and make me wish I was fishing a little heavier. I throw 6 pound mainline and 8 pound flourocarbon leader, from an hour before sunrise until the swimmers push us out ...

Love the Frog Fish!

Just imagine if we could Kayak or Tube that place. Like the old days….

Squidco had Ghost Shrimp, I stopped there on my Bonefish quest, got some good info and 8 dozen Ghost Shrimp. Spendy but I wasn’t going home until I caught one and saved money by sleeping in my Truck. I got several on my 2nd dozen then opened up the Ice Chest to all that wanted to try them. We landed ...

Eating the Sand Crabs kicked up by my feet….

All I can think about after nearly 40 Bass is Thumb Cramps. It’s a “good pain”.

Twin Pigs, way to Friday! I spent the day under a 40 year old Boat trailer stripping and replacing trailer lights…. Not as much fun as I remember.

Late post, been rebuilding my Skiff from the ground up. For the last week I’ve completed 101 tasks no one will ever see, got stuck halfway in, under the forward floor, in between the two fish holds for about 20 thrilling minutes. Panic kills! Eventually but not without a major scratch and some ...

Any chance he got them at Turners Sporting Goods? I worked there for a couple of years way back in the early 80s and remember cherry picking a bunch of deep running plugs from a huge box of lures during a .39 cent sale. The packaging sure looks familiar. I still have some too, I bought 100 of them ...

There is no rule. The fish move in and move out, kind of like the weeds. One thing for sure, if the bite stops completely, you have two choices. Stay and wait for the next group of fish to move in. Leave that spot and try and find a new group of fish. This time of year, the fish seem to hang on the ...

I’ve caught several huge ones. One on live Squid at Catalina, and a couple on Sardines while fishing for Halibut in Dana Point Harbor. All were bigger than 5 pounds, all were released. No I didn’t know the World Record was smaller than that at the time. The Capitan of the Clemente slowed his Boat ...