San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

I was at south Carlsbad yesterday in the morning. Only small areas of sand among the rocks, but the perch were biting.

Nice going. did the pile of kelp/grass come in with the bean ? LOL

A variety this morning; started off at 05:30 with a dinner plate size ray followed by a small leo. Perch bite was slow at first but turned on around 6. Got 10 overall plus a mid size corbina, about 14", over next 1.5 hours, mostly on sand crabs but a few on some left over ghost shrimp. Perch mostly ...

Congrats Joe on getting that spot fin. They're fun to catch and a good tussle just like corbina. Well done.

Perch is perch…. No skunk…
Butch

Been there, done that Joe. First you have to get lucky to find parking & the SMB lot gives you the best chance. I've had fairly good luck with swimmers, boarders & day trippers being respectful when I find an open area. What I've noticed is a lot of these folks/tourists leave about 4-5 pm. Then the ...

Fished Del Mar for a few hours late afternoon. Crowds weren’t too bad. Water was dirty but not too much salad to snag on. Started off with landing two small YFC right away. Nothing for the next hour or so until this Corvina took a liking to the Gulp Sandworms of all things. Fought much harder and ...

Be careful… Those guys are pretty agile, and can nail you really quick… And it hurts!…
Butch

Sight-fishing between Blacks and Del Mar has been "excellent" this season, except for the whole catching part. This year is the first time I've seen spotfin tailing in the surf, but almost like a first-cast-curse, I've only been able to catch the first one I spotted (pun intended) in late May, using ...

Way to do, dude! That's awesome that you and the family got to work together to land that beast. As a dad who fishes with kids all the time, the chaos you described of the tangled line and not having all of your gear totally hit home for me. Fishing with kids is super stressful and awesome at the ...

Nicely done. An easy way I've found to deal with unhooking rays is to use two pairs of pliers. I grab the tail with a pair of heavy duty needle-nose pliers to keep it from slashing away at me. Then I use my curved-tip hemostats to remove the hook from the front end. Pulling back with my pliers on ...

Eating the Sand Crabs kicked up by my feet….

I found a few croakers, rays and this above average Corbina yesterday in close with soft shell crabs. Then this special guest star bit surprisingly hard.

Nice corbina and a tough little bone... Very interesting fishing excursion Mike... WTG!...
Butch

Thanks for the report… Don’t feel bad, I’m on a roll with Mr. Skunk…
Butch

That's too bad. Kelp was nearly completely gone from much of Del Mar yesterday through high tide swing, even around the reefs. What a pleasure to fish without that. Fishing seemed down, but not out by any means.

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 ...

The surf definitely has gotten tough this past week. Tons of weeds at Blacks too. If I let my line sit for more than 10 seconds I was pulling in a weed ball. I nearly skunked too. But ended up with 2 in the final hour. Hope the weeds get pushed out soon and the bite turns back on.

jwacky wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 10:22 am ... vibe seems to be a factor for sure. Get tense and frustrated and no fish is gonna bite on that negative energy!!

I agree with this 100%! Attitude and intent matter.