This week's full moon phase meant that the surf fishing bite would probably be best in the afternoon and that sure was the case for anglers in the El Segundo area. Fishing some of the stock spots along Dockweiler Beach produced several two to three pound perch. The best bait for the big fish were sidewinder crabs fished on a short carolina rig, close to where rocks meet sand.
A nice spotfin croaker, estimated at around 5 pounds, was caught by an anonymous angler on Santa Monica beach with numerous corbina being seen in the surf from Hermosa Beach to Mailibu. Although unusual for this time of year, sand crabs have been so numerous over the past two seasons that corbina are sticking around and using calm warmer days to forage on crab beds. Up North in Oxnard and Ventura the bite on large female perch continues to be reported from McGrath State Beach south to the Channel Islands Harbor inlet. Best baits have been mussel, clams and sidwinder shore crabs.
Orange county beaches continue to produce large numbers of barred surfperch with some of the best reports coming from Hungtington Beach at both Bolsa Chica and Huntington City beach.
As a reminder, now is the beginning of the surfperch spawn. Catch and release if you can and please be careful when placing pregnant female perch back into the water so as to reduce the shock they might experience. Large females like these produce dozens of perch during their spawn and are an important part in keeping the resource healthy. For a discussion and suggestions on catching and releasing large perch check out www.scsurffishing.com under "surf fishing reports" where Jason provides a frank discussion on keeping these fish healthy and productive.
This upcoming week has some fantastic tides and warmer days. I would suggest using natural baits like sidwinder crabs, mussel and clams. Good artificials now include spoons, hard baits and grubs. Your best fishing will be in established troughs/holes and areas where rocks meet sand.
Thank you to all the folks who wrote and called about my appointment to Western Outdoor News as the Surf Fishing Editor. You may now read my articles in both the Fish Taco Chronicles and WON on a quarterly and weekly basis.
Now, have some fun out there! We'll see you on the beach...
Bill
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