Took a trip last weekend to San Francisco to see my team handle the Cardinal and had a chance to do some fishing on the way back near Refugio State Beach just West of Santa Barbara. Once safely back home I had a chance to do a bit of fishing back down in Huntington too.

Beautiful conditions greeted us at Refugio and as the tide began to drop we got a good look at what must be a great spot at high tide. We fished the edges of these rocks at medium high tide and had some good luck.

Found a nice bed of sand crabs and had some luck with both crabs and grubs.

Although none of our fish were big today we did have a nice bite on palm sized barred, walleye and black (buttermouth) perch.

Couldn’t wait for the weekend so I made my way down to Huntington on Thursday. Fished using clam, mussel and sidewinder crabs and had a good bite of medium sized perch.

There’s no doubt the perch are spawning now so look to hook some slabs in the coming weeks.

This coming week has some very good tides with the only fly in the ointment being the possibility of rain by mid week. Other than that with a few day off you need to get to the beach!

Artificial lures like grubs, etc. begin to really work well from now through the winter. But if you really want to catch the big perch and croakers between now and February I suggest using the sidewinder crab. You can find these crabs on almost any jetty at low tide. Collect ones that are from a dime to the size of a half dollar. After hooking them through the last leg socket pull the claws off and toss the claws out for chum. Cast near where sand meets rocks, like the edge of a jetty and hold on! The last two state record barred perch were caught on this bait and the new record is out there waiting--for you!!!

Next week I’ll be going back up the coast above Santa Barbara and hope to have some luck—I’ll let you know what we catch next time…

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