San Diego Surf Fishing

Andy Lippert · Post by **Andy Lippert** » Mon May 17, 2010 11:17 am

Just wondering if any of you guys out there have an experience with Surf Fishing in San Diego. I've always fished for bass, but have about a month off, and wanted to try the surf fishing deal since I live so close to the Ocean. My only experience is in Northern California (Pacifica area) surf fishing for Stripers. Any help would be much appreciated...I really don't even know where to start. Thank you!

Andy

B Becker · Post by **B Becker** » Mon May 17, 2010 11:24 am

My brother-in-law lives in SD and we surf fish every once in awhile when I go down. I take my bass stuff and fish for surf perch, corbina, or anything that will bite. Blood worms are awesome, grass shrimp too. Artificial lures I drop shotted power bait stuff and did ok. We found the best thing was sand crabs we dug up in the surf. The small ones or the ones with eggs always caught fish.

Pacifica, huh? my grandparents lived up there, that is where I used to fish all the time from the pier. They lived right on that golf course up there....man that was a long time ago!! Good luck...surf fishing is a blast. I saw some guys catching halibut too. I don't know what time of year is good for what though.

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Mon May 17, 2010 11:26 am

hit up bloody decks.com

I use to live in la jolla and would walk the bluffs and pearl street reef with a fish trap when i was a grom.

LIght line..8lbish.. long spinning rod.. braid to flouro would be better for casting distance and a tiny like 1/16th - 1/4oz darter head of some sort and grub.

Tons of species right there from light line perches, small wsb, calicos, spotties, sandies, halibut, tons of leopard sharks..

Andy Lippert · Post by **Andy Lippert** » Mon May 17, 2010 11:50 am

Thanks for the info fellas, I think I'm gonna give it a try this afternoon. How does weather/tide/swell affect the bite? I know you look for breaks/rips/pools and any sort of irregularity in the beach, but is there anything you look for specifically or do you just pound sand until you get into 'em? I'll give La Jolla a try John...sounds like a good time.

B Becker, yeah, I've only been to Pacifica a few times, but have gotten into the stripers pretty damn good up there. A buddy of mine grew up in Redwood City and he used to fish that coastline a few days a week when it was on. I've seen stripers crashing on bait as far as the eye can see up there, it's amazing.

Anyway, thanks again for the help.

Andy

Topwater Terry · Post by **Topwater Terry** » Mon May 17, 2010 1:49 pm

check out this website too: http://www.scsurffishing.com/forums/

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Mon May 17, 2010 3:25 pm

Any of the sandy beaches, look for rips and fish the horns of the rip as they come together, sand crab on 6# fluoro and #2 or 4 mosquito hook, carolina rig with 1/2 oz egg sinker on 7' rod and inexpensive spinning reel. Barred surfperch, corbina to 5 lb or so, sargo, spotfin croaker to 6+, and an occasional guitarfish to 4 feet long. Absolutely addicting. Shuffle your feet so you don't get stung by a stingray. Stay shallow; if you're standing over your ankles/calves you're usually too deep. Corbina can be caught by sight fishing, but it ain't easy; they spook easily. Some areas around La Jolla Shores are closed to fishing, so stay north of the steps by Scripps Pier. Mission Beach works too, near Tower 16. I like tide going out but you can catch them anytime.

allcoast.com has a surf fishing forum, you should look at that too.

Good luck!

Andy Lippert · Post by **Andy Lippert** » Mon May 17, 2010 5:20 pm

Thanks guys, I think it's gonna take me a while to get a handle on this stuff, haha. I went out today and got NOTHIN'. I hit the beach halfway through the incomming tide, and only fished a couple of places I thought might hold fish. Cardiff bts, and a couple areas in Del Mar for nada. I'm gonna try and hit tomorrow morning's low tide. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks again for the info, I'm going to put it to use the best I can.

Andy

B Becker · Post by **B Becker** » Mon May 17, 2010 6:54 pm

I know you said surf fishing, but I forgot to mention how well I have done on the jetties, more specifically the Oceanside one, as my sister lives in Carlsbad. Anyway, I throw the crap out of gitzits and did well, we caught the barbed bay bass and sculpin. The bluegill and motoroil silver flake was the best two. It was a blast. If I knew how to attach a picture, I would.

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Sinjin Kim · Post by **Sinjin Kim** » Mon May 17, 2010 11:59 pm

I haven't fished the San Diego surf much, but the SoCal surf scene is pretty much the same if you know what you are looking for. Here are some articles I wrote for my site. If you want to catch halibut from the surf on bass gear, definitely check it out.

http://www.surffishinginsider.com/category/articles

Good luck!

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Tue May 18, 2010 3:13 am

This thread is making me miss SoCal! Just out of curiosity, has anyone used the larger flutter spoons in surf?

Andy Lippert · Post by **Andy Lippert** » Tue May 18, 2010 4:40 am

Sinjim, that article is very informational...I'm gonna give the drop shotting a try. Thanks for all the help everyone, this definitely points me in the right direction, hopefully I can catch some fish...

Andy

Tin Can · Post by **Tin Can** » Tue May 18, 2010 6:06 am

Take some Kalins 1.5" or 2" Grubs and Carololina rig them with an egg sinker and a 2' leader. Just cast and reel back slowly. You'll get perch this way but also other species, everything will eat a grub. Also bring some 5" big hammers, chuck it out let it sink and slow roll it back just off the bottom. I'm not from SD, I'm up in Santa Cruz but do a ton of beach fishing in the summer.

Andy Lippert · Post by **Andy Lippert** » Wed May 19, 2010 4:53 pm

Went out today for a few hours before during and after high tide and caught between 20-25 BSP. Pretty good stuff. I found a good spot, and saw what I think were spotfin croaker. All together I probably saw about a dozen of them maybe more all day, pretty good size too. How do you guys target these? I threw a swimbait at 'em, grub, dropshot, and they just seemed too spooky. Was I too deep? The area I was fishing had a trough that fills at high tide with an accessible sand bar out deeper on the other side that I was casting from deep and shallow.

Anyway, thanks for all the help gents. It was fun, and I'll be headed out again soon.
Andy

Sinjin Kim · Post by **Sinjin Kim** » Wed May 19, 2010 5:07 pm

Spotfin croakers prefer bait over artificials. Mussel, clams, ghost shrimp would be ideal baits although some have been known to be caught on sand crabs. Lugworms should work well too.

Like other croaker species, they tend to hang out in the deeper end of the surf zone although they sometime will move shallow to feed.

CN · Post by CN » Thu May 20, 2010 11:23 am

If you do dig up your own Sand Crab's,which I highly recomend,sort threw them and you will find some with a soft shell they will out fish the hard shell one's 10-1.

You may have to sort thru a whole lot but it's worth it. I Surf fish all the time up here in Monterey and Moss Landing and the Striper's are in big time. Fun as hell but your dog tired by the end of the day.

Spookin'Em43 · Post by **Spookin'Em43** » Thu May 20, 2010 12:50 pm

i fish the surf up in Humboldt a lot, for surfperch and what not. Berkley's Saltwater line of baits is really good. For surfperch, the sandcrabs work the best. I wear waders and walk about waist deep into the surf. I use a dropshot like set up with a 2oz pyramid weight so I can cast far out. You can also carolina rig the sand crabs and use a smaller weight with that. I usually use the heavier weighted rig for when the water is really moving around, and the lighter carolina when the water is a bit more calm. If you are fishing a jetty out there, if its anything like humboldts jetty, its just like bass fishing to me. Big Hammer swimbaits work well, along with flukes, senkos, and just about anything really. Its a lot of fun! Good luck! Just be sure to rinse your reels with freshwater at the end of the day, The first reel I used out in the ocean i never rinsed, and it got ruined fast. It stopped working and we took it apart to clean it, and It had enough salt to salt my dinner with that night

Tin Can · Post by **Tin Can** » Thu May 20, 2010 1:14 pm

CN wrote:If you do dig up your own Sand Crab's,which I highly recomend,sort threw them and you will find some with a soft shell they will out fish the hard shell one's 10-1.

You may have to sort thru a whole lot but it's worth it. I Surf fish all the time up here in Monterey and Moss Landing and the Striper's are in big time. Fun as hell but your dog tired by the end of the day.

You're getting stripers down there already? I'm up in Santa Cruz and it's just starting to get going. Not many people are even fishing yet. I've been out a few times and had miles of beach to myself. Maybe we could swap some striper intel ?

CN · Post by CN » Fri May 21, 2010 10:44 am

Tin Can wrote:
CN wrote:If you do dig up your own Sand Crab's,which I highly recomend,sort threw them and you will find some with a soft shell they will out fish the hard shell one's 10-1.

You may have to sort thru a whole lot but it's worth it. I Surf fish all the time up here in Monterey and Moss Landing and the Striper's are in big time. Fun as hell but your dog tired by the end of the day.
You're getting stripers down there already? I'm up in Santa Cruz and it's just starting to get going. Not many people are even fishing yet. I've been out a few times and had miles of beach to myself. Maybe we could swap some striper intel ?

It's been pretty good Tin off of Tiago here in Sand City and off of Marina but you have to walk about mile a towards the Salinas River.

Two tip's,Fish Traps and NIGHTIME.