San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

Hey all,
I headed out last Sunday to Mission Bay with the hopes to make a video about making lure fishing easier. I wanted to showcase 3 baits that are easy for anyone to catch fish with on the bay. The first was the chatterbait. I used both the traditional bigger bait and a ZMan Mini Flashback. I started with the latter and was immediately rewarded close to shore with both a spotty and a small corvina. There was lot of bait in the water and I really felt like I was onto something with the micro chatter. My hopes were quickly dashed against the rocks as I saw a sea lion pop up with a corvina in it's mouth. The bite was gone and then so was I. This was near the Mission Bay Yacht Club. I then headed out towards the channel and used the bigger model bait. This proved to be another good decision. I used a 1/2oz white/char. bait with great success. Lots of chunky spots.

The next bait was the swim bait, but maybe not the ones people normally use. I used both the Zman Diesel Minnow 5" in the Sexy Mullet color and the Berkley swim shad 3". The bigger bait I used normally with a VMC Spin Jig head and caught a bunch more. I wanted to show something different with the Swim Shad and used that more like a jig, also catching fish with this method.

The final bait was the Gulp Minnow on the tiny Big Eye Underspin. My go to for the bay especially when the bite slows. At this point it slowed for lots of people, but not me. I ended up getting another big bunch of fish on this in the 4" Smelt Color.

All in all I got 30+ spotties, 1 corvina and a Pop Tart sized halibut from 6-10am. A super fun action packed morning. If you are interested in checking out the details you can check out the video! Cheers! See you on the water.

I went out there this morning after watching your video earlier in the week. Was my first time launching the kayak in Mission Bay. Launched from Ventura Cove Park.(Lifeguard told me the beach is swimming only when I came in, so I’ll be looking for a new spot.) FIshed from 6 to 1130 and caught 6. Most came on a chatterbait that I cut the skirt off of and put on a 5in Diesel shad. Worked the area between the junior sailing dock and the boat docks just west. All the fish were quality, which was nice. No dinkers that I seem to attract in the big bay. Was a lot of fun and looking forward to next time. Thanks Chris!