Rock Fish for Beginners

[BestFishes]

Hello all. I'm new to rock fishing from a private boat. Will be out periodically and would love to fish the deeper spots near the 9 mile bank and along the coast like La Jolla to South Mission. I'm hoping someone could hook a brother up with coordinates anywhere from the south 9 to the 178 and inshore from there. Feel free to send a private message if you'd like it keep it DL. Thanks!

If this thread doesn't get much love, I understand. Plan A is to just look for hard bottom areas myself using sonar and the bait stick. I'm happy to share what I learn if anyone's interested. Maybe I'll hop on a 1/2 day and poach their spots

[Roncador]

Your asking allot. Learn to read your depth finder and set it to different depths. I would set it for 600' and head straight for the nine. The structure will be almost a maroon or brick shade and the fish will be bright red blobs. Look for mounds of structure or any spots of fish suspending over hard bottom. The reds will usually be on or right about the bottom while the chillipeppers and green stripe will usually appear as smaller fluff or sometimes in real nice balls but suspending over the bottom a decent amount. Shelf rockfish like cow cod and chillis like to hang out on steep drop offs. And although it may be a fun idea to entertain I would highly advise against hopping on one of the local half days so you can poach their spots later on. Quick way to make some enemies. Those guys are trying to make a living on those fish so it really ain't fair or cool to them. It's not like the imperial beach pipe where you can have five boats on it at a time. These little stones get pressured quick....

[professionull]

If you're a beginner going for rock fish then I wouldn't suggest starting at the 9 unless you want to wind up 400 yds and never touch the bottom. There are the known spots in LJ and directly out of MB jetty that you can hit which are between 210-390ft of water. It's not easy to always catch them especially when the wind is up. Don't be surprised to catch rock fish in in less than 150ft of water either with hard bottom. There are some spots that took me a while to find but I can give you the general known areas where you can start.

Don't forget your descender rig!

[BestFishes]

Thanks brother. I hit La Jolla last weekend and just going off my map I drifted the 32, widow rock, airplane spots. It’s definitely challenging finding the right spot to drift over and reset. Current was ripping pretty good. I’m afraid of having that trouble on the 9 also with 2x or 3x the line out. But I want to try with these new depths. In the meantime until I have some rocky spots, I’ll keep working some areas closer to La Jolla, like you said.

[professionull]

I fished the 9 once since I haven't fished it before, because of not being allowed to, but I basically rolled around on low tide until I found a high spot and dropped down. I normally wouldn't do that but since I bought an electric reel I figured no big deal. I did catch 2 chili peppers but nothing big to brag about as I have caught more than one 5+lb rock fish in 200ft on the same outing on multiple trips. I know people have been able to catch double digits but I don't think it's worth the time and gas to get lucky once. The opportunity isn't always there when you have to get those no current, no wind days lined up (unless you have a spot lock trolling motor of course).

[crawdadguy]

the 270 spot about 3 miles straight off mission bay can be really good..good for vermillion and starrys,,,about 250 ft deep.

[blackcloud9]

Any of the good spots can go from "dead" to "wide open" very quickly (or vice versa) as the current changes. I use circle hooks 5/0 and above to help avoid killing the babies. Descending device or similar setup to help rescue little ones.

One more tip - good map (zoom out):
https://usa.fishermap.org/depth-map/mis ... go-ca/#map

[old_rookie]

And don't forget about the new regulations this year. Still don't fully understand them.

[BestFishes]

Any of the good spots can go from "dead" to "wide open" very quickly (or vice versa) as the current changes. I use circle hooks 5/0 and above to help avoid killing the babies. Descending device or similar setup to help rescue little ones.

One more tip - good map (zoom out):
https://usa.fishermap.org/depth-map/mis ... go-ca/#map

Thank you for this cool site. Very detailed topography for a free site. Probably about 10X more detailed than my paper map of La Jolla - Point Loma.