San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

Sounds like some fun outings! Those guitarfish pull hard too.

And... you got a reply from Bill Varney too!

My buddy uses circle hooks and 4oz weights while his rods are spiked. The sinker provides constant resistance. When the fish bites, the circle hooks grabs as they swim away. No need for braid on the main line to prevent stretch. The weight sets the circle hook.

He uses crabs like me. Nothing exotic, yellowfin croaker can be way out at our beaches. He also uses the same setup to cast closer for corbina.

Very cool looking fish!

I made a few long casts with hard shells and found a couple of croaker. Then I found some soft shells and it was fun times catching corbina in close.

Nice catching!

I've only caught croaker on gulp sand crabs and even then, only in the peak summer months.

I'd recommend using a device that allows you to sift a lot of sand and find something else besides a normal hard shell... soft shell, crab with egg, "crispy" crab, or a crab about to molt and ...

I found a medium/large sand crab that looked like a soft shell, but was hard when I touched it. I thought, "If I was fooled, maybe a corbina would be fooled too." Sure enough, a short cast into less than 12" of water found this corbina.

Very cool to catch perch on a metal jig. I also like your description of the conditions. I hope you catch the iron-trifecta next time... halibut/croaker/perch.

This late season corbina ate a crab right at the edge of the sandy brown water. Good news is they are still around.

A local beach friend of mine said he saw a corbina right in front of him. I pinned on a fresh crab and just a few minutes later I felt the familiar tap-tap, tap-tap-tap and then bam! Another late season corbina.

After several coming unhooked and losing a few at the net, I finally landed my first carp today. They are surprisingly good fighters! 4lb main line to a 3/4 egg sinker, bait spring with dough and 2 hooks with corn kernels.

I fished with Curado 100Ds for many years and got pretty good at servicing them. The outside edge of the spool was something that I couldn't prevent from corroding even with a light freshwater rinse after each outing and eventually led to their retirement. I now fish Tranx 200s and although they ...

Gotfish generated a very good list. I would add,

1. Have the schematic handy and study it before opening the reel.
2. Gotfish already mentioned this, but YouTube has a surprising large number of videos. Watch and study them first.
3. As I disassemble the handle, I thread each of the part in ...

I made it to the beach for an hour. Found 5 sand crabs and converted 2 of them to on back-to-back casts.

A couple of nice ones Mike for off season. You've had good success with that sand crab rake. Still finding them close to the surface or digging deep ?


I use a right-handed baitcaster so I hold the rod in my left hand and rake in my right. Each time a wave recedes, I kick sand into the rake with ...

Friends for 65 years... wow, that's a lot of good memories, Butch.

Hi all, I’m going to be visiting Carlsbad area this weekend and hoping to sneak away to the beach to get in a short session. Any recommendations you guys have for beaches would be appreciated, DM me.


Looks pretty fishy right now on this web cam
https://hdontap.com/stream/155380/carlsbad-beach ...