San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

You were not kidding about the stingrays, Butch. I was at Del Mar again, and there were a lot of them, about the size of a dinner plate.
Not a ton of other fish. I farmed a keeper halibut, which just came unbuttoned in the last little wave, and got a 15-16 inch Calico. And just one perch and one ...

True confession, I did have trouble with the leader to braid knots in some reels. I have not been having that; I've gotten past it with extensive freshwater fishing. It had to do with the wet and sloppy conditions of fishing in the surf, as well as my poor line-spooling technique. I will be ...

Wow, nice hook up, Butch! Bummed the spotfin sawed you off, but glad to hear your balance held out and you didn't tumble into the surf!

I fished the surf south of Crystal pier this morning from about 8-9:15. Still a good bit of wave action. Grass and junk are the same, lots of it but manageable. Sand crabs everywhere.

Took 1 minute to catch a BSP. After another 20 minutes I caught a 19 inch SFC. The SFC was enough motivation to ...

Got out yesterday (5/29) at 05:30 AM for the -1.5 low tide to do a little hali hunting. Nice conditions, minimal grass/kelp if any at all. Worked a really good hole & surrounding area, tossing LC's and swimbaits for a good hour for nada, not even a bump. All the hand size perch you could want on ...

Very new to surf fishing (and this forum, for that matter). Overcast skies but I’ve been looking forward to fishing all week. Headed out after work, was there 5:30-7:30.

Little bit of kelp but I’ve seen worse in my short surf fishing career. Caught one perch, better than catching no perch.

Crab sandwich for the win! Nice action, Butch

Got out for a late afternoon/sunset session last Thursday. Plenty of sand crabs but unless softshell or with roe, not getting hit. Half dozen or so of the usual hand size perchies, nothing bigger than 8". Had 2 good non perch hits and fish were on momentarily then unbuttoned. Suspect large corbina ...

Midnightpass wrote: Sun Jun 08, 2025 11:41 am Glad you finally got him or her. Nice fish.. I’ve yet to get one this year… Looking forward to many more for the both of us…
Butch

Thanks Butch. You're due, hang in there bud.
Bill

Went out first thing this morning with no luck whatsoever, but the water was clean, the sun was shining (in eastern San Diego, anyway), so I headed back out this evening.

Skunk avoided! One small perch, followed by a second, slightly larger perch. Had a third on the line but it broke free as it ...

Everydog , Calcutta reels are very nice reels , I could make a list of all the attributes but they are in their own class. There are an amazing number of very high quality reels that can match the performance . Daiwa , Shimano , Okuma , and others all will fit the purpose . Guess the first question ...

Midday trip to Solana Beach/Fletcher Cove for some fishing and family time. Sand crabs were a little tough to come by but caught 6 perch (personal record for a session!) on both blood and camo Gulp sand worms. Surf was on the heavier side, little bit of kelp, but all in all a fun day on the shore ...

Blood worms great bait but expensive & not cost effective for catching just perch IMHO. Corbina & croaker love them as well if only they could get to the bait before the perch do !

Thanks for the report and hints guys . I do most of my perch fishing Jan to the end of May . If you want the bigger models , Green or Red shore crabs about the size of a quarter are top notch . One thing I will say if you have the gumption to DIY and the time . Ghost Shrimp = fish crack in the surf ...

...and crabs were a little tough to come by but caught 6 perch (personal record for a session!) on both blood and camo Gulp sand worms. Surf was on the heavier side, little bit of kelp, but all in all a fun day on the shore...


Sounds like a fun session :)

As for sand crabs, I use a homemade ...

To Mike M: I had 2 comments to your post that for whatever reason did not post yesterday . . . kept getting messages that the site was experiencing issues. Anyway, (1) I said you're fortunate not having to deal with the bait stealing perch at your beaches, lucky you ! and (2) about the red/orange ...

Yes Butch. For me, hook crab from top down to digger & egg on hook tip where roe would be. Looks like Mike hooks from bottom up so egg at end of hook near digger. Either way works.

Good stuff right now. clear water moderate surge, big school of bait (white seaperch? walleye?) in view. 4 lobsters chillin on the piling...another one walking up and down the piling in the background.

250618 Scripps pier live cam.JPG

wait...

250618 Scripps pier live cam 2 perch.JPG

This is ...

Today’s lesson learned is that I should probably keep at least a little bit of an eye on surf conditions before heading out. South Mission Bay at the peak of morning high tide was brutal. Heavy surf, lots of grass.

A small 3” bait fish of some sort washed up at my feet at some point so I’m not ...

https://surffishingsocalsd.com/surf-fishing-report-socal/page/2/ . This is a link to a very good surf fishing site . Nick is a local , well written . There are very good articles about gear in particular that may help with the decision . The fishing articles are very good as far as info goes . He is ...