Surf Fishing Report

Surf fishing this last week was nothing less than excellent. Sand crabs are everywhere along the coast and have really ignited the bite. Over the winter we had fantastic (which seems an understatement) surfperch fishing. Some of the biggest perch ever caught seemed everywhere from Ventura to Orange County. Now the yellowfin and spotfin croaker have filled in from Long Beach to Newport and the bite is on!

Smaller surf this week made for some great conditions. I first started by going down to my favorite mud hole and picked up some ghost shrimp. The next morning I put my crab rake in the car and headed down to the beach.

Sand crabs were everywhere and in all sizes and hardness. Tons of bait in two minutes and it’s off to fishing.

First bait, a nice perch

Next a very hard hitting yellowfin. You always know when this fish is biting. There is no fooling around with a yellowfin—it’s bite, not nibble and run, run , run

I had one very soft sand crab left before I had to go. I threw it out and had a few small perch nibbles before it was reeled to shore. I took a quick look at my bait and it was somewhat still intact so I sent it back out. Within a minute my rod loads up, I set the hook and the fight is on.

I can tell this is nice fish--as it take me up and down the beach then slides to shore—a hefty spotfin. I had to sit down and put it on my knee to get far enough away to get a picture. Probably about 6lbs

This next week has some marginal tides but will no doubt produce good fishing. Both beach and bay fishing is red hot now and with several grunion runs coming up in the next two weeks (it's a no take grunion period now), I can only guess that halibut fishing will remain great or even get better—can that be possible? Wow YES, it’s been that good!

Thanks to everyone, and especially Bill and Ken for helping at the Crystal Cove seminar this weekend. What a perfect venue, beautiful day and fantastic fishing. We used sand crabs, ghost shrimp and lug worms to catch surfperch, leopard sharks and corbina. I didn’t have a fish count but I would guess that about 200 perch and a handful of corbina and leopard sharks were caught and all released.