New to shore fishing and skunked for a week

[FishNdive]

This is the bay fishing forum, so I hope I am not stepping out of line with my post, but I have found during summer months that surf fishing from the beach is quite productive. I get more action on the beach than I do in the bay, but I am mainly a surf fisher. From your post, it sounds like you have not been surf fishing much, so I would highly recommend giving it a try. If you go to pretty much any beach from mission beach up to san elijo, dig up some sand crabs and put them on a size 2 hook with a carolina rig and a 1 oz weight, you will get yellowfin croaker, spotfin croaker, black croaker, white croaker, the occasional leopard shark or smoothhound shark, perch, and other things. Some food for thought.

I usually only fish in the bay in an attempt to find the elusive halibut. The only fish I have caught in the bay are bass and halibut, halibut being rarer, and all have been short so far. Fishing in the surf will give you different fish.

Definitely more species in the surf in summertime.

But...same goes for Mission Bay. I've got 36 different species at last count, mostly from soaking ghost shrimp, squid, and Gulp baits in the Bonita Cove/Mariner's Basin area. Probably half of the 36 have also been caught on lures. Looking at Friday's tide chart....Courtesy of Tides4Fishing...

Sample tide chart for 250711.jpg

My best results in that part of the bay usually happen in the steepest part of the curve in the chart...more water movement...and during the last half of the steep part, before the tide slows down closer to the high tide mark. On that day, I'd expect the best bite to be between 9:30 and 11 a.m. on the bay side. Sometimes the bite shuts off as the water movement slows....So I waddle over to the surf side, where sometimes, the bite continues for about an hour or two after the highest tide.

The steep part, on the incoming tide, right?

36 species!? Amazing! Let me see what I've caught in the bay. Calico bass, spotted bass, halibut, stingray, red rockfish, baracudda, a mackeral. I think that's it. Only 7!!