Clear water and overcast skies greeted me this week as I searched the shoreline for fish.

This week started off with a small west swell that lowered the water temp for a day or two and consequently slowed down fishing. But a replacement south swell began to fill in by Wednesday and the water temp and surf fishing rebounded.

The west swell broke down some of the holes and troughs where fish had been feeding so we moved around a bit to find the new areas that held fish. It wasn't a tough search as within no time we found the fish and were back in the action.

Another subtle change at the beach was in the number of sand crabs we are seeing and catching. There seems to be about half the crabs we saw just two weeks ago and now is the time they begin moving out and go into hibernation for winter. We've also noticed that crabs for bait have been much less productive as most fish, with the exception of perch, have moved on to other baits. So I moved on too!

I borrowed a page from a friend's book and went down to my favorite mud hole to collect some ghost shrimp for this week's fishing expeditions. I had heard that shrimp had been working great for corbina and wanted to see for myself.

I struggled at first slurping up baits with my Alvey yabbie tool. But I managed 6 great ghost shrimp before complete exhaustion set in.

The next morning I arrived at the beach in central OC just before sunrise and cast out my bait. Wham! fish on instantly. It fought like a leopard shark and was.

I hoped for a chance to catch a prize corbina as I had heard they were eating the shrimp so I put on new bait and cast it offshore. Seconds later, fish on.

No corbina. But wait--two spotfin croaker to 6lbs and a variety of fish that would stock an ocean aquarium!

Later in the week, I moved down to where rocks meet sand and found a great bite on 12-14" perch.

As the week drew to a close the fishing seemed to get better. This upcoming holiday weekend and all next week promise to have more good fishing as we have some great tides. The morning low tide going to a high tide will give us some great chances to fish for corbina and spotfin. The evening high tide will make catching crabs easier and is always a great time to fish for perch. It may be only a couple of weeks until all the sand crabs are gone but after the last two weeks that seems easier to accept knowing that other baits like mussel, clam, ghost shrimp and worms are working so well.

I hope you get some time to go down to the beach and do some surf fishing. It's been quite a while since I've seen it this good!

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