Last weekend we packed up the car and headed south to camp, fish and surf at San Elijo State Beach in beautiful San Diego County. Camping reservations are hard to get here. You’re allowed to pick a spot seven months in advance. Seven months ago every site was sold out in 20 minutes!

When we arrived the weather was overcast with a small southwest swell. We set up camp and went down to the beach to find some bait. It was medium tide and as the waves washed up over the beach you could see a bed of crabs every hundred feet or so. After a few minutes of collecting we had a great selection of soft crabs.

We wandered down the beach until we found the inlet and walked up to its rocks to collect a few sidewinder crabs for bait.

Over the next couple of days we had a great bite on perch in the 8-12” range. Nothing too big but steady business…


A shark or two.

And even a sand bass. What the heck! Where did this guy come from.

What a beautiful beach and great place for the family. I even saw a nice corbina in the shallows that had way too many sand crabs to choose from. All in all, a great time except for the campers next door who broke out into a drunken frenzy at 3am.

Oh well, so much for the serenity of nature!

I've been down to the beach in North OC this week looking for bait and fishing. On both Thursday and Friday the wind came up and turned over the water. The good news is the water is still warm but it's awfully green.

This weekend predicts cooler weather and the possiblity of showers. Hopefully, once we get past the predicted wind from this upcoming storm we will finally be on our way to summer.

Even with the cooler weather still getting great reports of the occasional corbina, spotfin and halibut being caught.

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The conditions settled down nicely this week and I had a chance to do some fishing before Saturday's seminar.

I've seen small sand crab beds on the beach for a couple of weeks so I know it's time for the fish to start keying in on that bait. I started looking at high tide and in no time I found a great bed of crabs and had plenty for the weekend.

The surf has been small this week but was coming from the Southwest and doing a good job of pushing warm water up the line. Two weeks ago the water had dropped to 54 and now has recovered to 61.

I found some small rips that were forming just off the beach and cast the crabs into them. The trough beneath the waves had a side current and would pull my bait down the beach. As I followed it would suddenly stop--and wham--game on!

Many 10-12" perch and bites every cast.

With the exception of the "one that got away" they were all perch.

Saturday's seminar was a great success with many perch, yellowfin croaker and a couple corbina being caught. Thank you everyone who came, we really had a great time. Don't forget to keep you eye out for the next on-the-beach seminar--it's sure to fill fast!

Congratulation to Jacki on catching her first Corbina!! WOW, what a fish, great job and keep catching'em!

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Home of the All-in-One Surf Tackle Kit