Hit one of the VC 7 holes Saturday night about last light and low tide. Conditions looked great, just a breeze and almost flat surf. Started out casting from about where my bait usually sits the tide was so low. Spent the next 2 or 3 hours without ever getting a bait to set for more than 5 minutes max. Looking at the conditions I would have never guessed it but the floating salad and current was out of hand. Before I could even get my rod set up in a holder ilI would have a leafy stringer wrapped where my line entered the water dragging everything to the south quickly.Even 8 oz sputniks weeny holding for more than a minute or two and my line would end up parallel to the shore within 10 or 15 minutes. Only reason I gave it more than an hour is I could tell the hook was staying clean of salad most of the time, I was just getting wrapped up high where line entered the water surface. Oh well, twisted my own arm to put up a lackluster skunked post but the long term surf forecast looks good and will give it another go soon...
JOE

I was just perusing over some tide chart graphs and saw that the biggest movement this year between the high and low (8.5') is going to happen on the 13th & 14th of this month (a 7.0 high to a -1.5 low) & then again on January 11th & 12th the biggest swing in 2017 will happen (6.8 high to -1.6 low)
Any thoughts on how to use to an advantage, if any, these big tidal swings and all the water movement they're going to create, while the opportunity is upon us? (Assuming the waves and weather will be behaving)
Of course some structure surveillance during the minus as well as exposure of the big juicy clams of Tom's dreams... but how to fish it? what locations types? Bay and inlet mouths?
On a side note I can't believe it took me this many years to notice the "low low" is always preceeded by the "high high", and never the other way around. It looks like the "high high" is always preceeded by the "high low", never the "low low"....
Like I said, perusing....

All I know is it's butt ass cold and windy up here right now and that means one thing...deserted beaches. At least it's an offshore, I'm thinkin I need to bundle up and hit the sand this weekend
JOE

Coudn't make any fresh bait before the sunset. Had to settle for some jumbo market squid, their mackerel weren't even worthy of my hook.Good conditions, just a little salad, not bad, dark with no moon, nice calm quiet night on the sand but also in the water as well. I knew if it didn't happen by 8pm or so it probably wouldn't with the tide draining. Just logged a couple more hours till 10pm or so cuz I had nothin better to do.
This brute, as far as Grassies go, is all that I got to stick.

   

Shot straight over the hill to the Bu after work to get an hour or so of casting in before dark with a new 12' steelhead rod I picked up last week rated 6lb - 10lb, 1/4oz - 5/8oz armed with a LC 110 flash minnow on the end of a 12# flouro leader and some 18# Gliss I picked up for pennys online from Cabela's closeout stock. Believe it or not this is the first time I've ever thrown a LC.  Picked up a nice sandy in the first few casts and then walked the shore knee deep to a stretch usually not accessible but the tide was low and surf tame as well this evening. Fan cast in between exposed large rocky structure ,which is a bit hairy knowing there's a $20 bill on the end of the line, but didn't see the point of casting scared. It felt fishy tight to the structure. After a dozen or so casts I felt the LC get bumped so I paused my retrieve and gave it a couple twitches...and Bam, he came back and nailed it. After some drag pull got em to slide up on the sand quickly as I could manage. Didn't have a tape with me so after some quick thinking I remembered a cigerette is 80mm long, just over 3". He went 8 cigarettes long, for sure over 22" LoL. I only keep 1 or 2 fish a year for tablefare and this would be one of those. Didn't make another cast and headed straight to my truck carrying the butt by a gill lock and was home with it within 15 minutes. Used a old phone to snap the sh!tty pics and filleted it up, 4 nice ones will be tomorrows dinner. i think i'll try these LC things again soon.     

Hit the closest beach in the early AM with the light rod and castmaster to make some bait for the evening sesh. Picked up 8 yellowfin croakers from 6" - 10" in a couple of hours.Home by 9am. Decided to try a new AO based on surf conditions and also have been wanting to try since I caught a video on you tube put up by a free diver that had soupies and sevengill in the vid. I had a good idea where he was diving at by glimpses of shoreline I could catch in the background.  Got a line in before last light after about a half mile trek in with dark black clouds approaching from the horizon quickly in a stead wind. Set up in the break trench that happened to be in between a large rock to the left about yds 200 offshore and another to the right about 100 yds out. I thought, well, hopefully a hook up will run to the left and I can put some brakes on before it's 200yards out.Within an hour got a screamer that picked up a de-finned and scaled  8" whole croaker, made a blistering 50yd initial run, of course to the right, around the rock, vibration, and pop  . Line came back all frayed and roughed up on the top shot, shock leader and rig donated to the cause. Fished for another few hours with a strong wind and mist in my face with out a solid hit. I know , I know, but it was the obvious deep trench where the waves wer'nt breaking...At least I still have a few left over croakers for next sesh.
JOE

expired

Damn!, wish I wouldn't have read this post on another site's forum right before I was going to bed for the night.Got me a little pumped up, now it'll probably be an hour or two before I can fall asleep.
I DIDN'T AUTHOR THIS. IT WAS POSTED ON ANOTHER SITE'S FORUM BY AN MEMBER UNKNOWN TO ME...
So here it is for those who didn't see it already there.

"New postPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 7:54 pm    Post subject: Heads up for VC shark fisherman    Reply with quote
I went out to SUP surf at solimar today and I paddled out just beyond the break maybe 30-40 yards out and I hear a lil splash, normally I don't care but the water was dead calm and Erie feeling. I look down and see a baby GWS or mako didn't get a good look but I did see his fin out of the water coming right to me a few feet behind my board. I pause and then continue to paddle and he's right on the tail of my board. I paddle In and he's cruising the shore back and forth up and Down fin out. It was pretty awesome. My wife saw a shark full breach maybe 100 yards out. And two ladies walking on the beach said they seen a few more fins out maybe 300 yards down the beach. The water was real sharky today. I waited 45mins or so and went back out didn't see anything back on the beach and he was back like he knew I was in the water. He stuck around for a long time. Go get'em. It was strange seeing them so close to shore fin out like in a movie. Oh btw this was around 2:30 when we got to the beach until about 6 ish

I think I've found what Jim was referring to as a sand spike with a kickstand. It's made of aluminum so weighs less than 2 lbs, folds down to 40" to carry. Can hold 2 rods, be used just as a regular spike without the legs. extends up to 7 feet high and is fully adjustable as far as leg lengths and angles that it sits at. Can be used in the soft sand or on hard rock. It has a hook to hang a counterweight from under the center, like a bucket full of water or a sand bag  I'll be putting to the test on the sand this weekend and will post my feedback as to how it actually performs in battle conditions but....check it out.

This is it broken down

Time to tie up some more rigs, the package just arrived. I can't believe there isn't anyone in the States that sells any of these, I have only been able to find them in Australia, Italy or the U.K. ...If you order in a decent quantity the shipping cost isn't too bad if you find the right store that will combine items for a rate.....
Splash down bait clips ( For you guys that clip your bait down, these are much better then the imp clips or imp sheilds I think because they allow you to OTG, [off the ground cast] without releasing)

Proper pulleys (I didn't think these would be strong enough for big game but I accidentally hooked a 50in batray while using a pulley rig with one of these and it held, no problem, I was surprised, but I almost trust them now) [Ron!, remind me next time we bump into each other to give you a couple to try out on your pulley rigs]

Rotten bottom clips (If you would rather lose just your sinker instead of your whole rig and shock leader when your lead gets hung up, these do usually work. They open up on splash down and release your sinker which is still tied to your end swivel eye with a short 6" - 12" length of mono that tests about 5 lbs lighter than your other weakest link, or point where you would snap off otherwise. To me it's worth sacrificing the 5 lbs less of breaking strain before I lose my sinker as opposed to losing the whole rig and shock leader if you do have to break off without a rotten bottom system)


Oh yea, also couldn't resist a good deal on this Ultegra 14000 (Not the 5500 you see everywhere) This is hard but not impossible to find in the States, not at the price I got it at. The 14000 has some serious line capacity (400 yards of 65lb braid, 330yds of 20 mono)
It wont be my main reel but will be a decent back up or secondary long rod reel at least. Time to decide what to spool this up with now...Besides, i don't think anyone could ever own to many reels or rods, right?

JOE
 

Decided to give it a go during the daytime yesterday since the evening tide looked so dismal. I knew I was going to be up against the summertime Saturday beachfolk crowd situation most everywhere so it was going to take some doing to avoid that. Cast out from one roadside close spot first stop and got a SNGF , a -1, salad issues, and within an hour, here they started to come...the kids with boogie boards, the people with dogs letting them pee on my pole holder and get into my bait, the curious 300lb middle aged women passing by who stop & try to strike up conversation, etc.etc...I can't do this all day I said to myself, packed it up, and rolled down the highway with 15' & 13' rigged rods extending up over the cab of my truck...I thought of a spot that I knew was going to be a bitch to access, but with the help of my friend Google Earth mobile (cell battery drainge  ), scouted out a direct looking path in. Found a turnout on the highway in a small stretch without any "no parking" signs and decided to give it a go...Worst case, I know if can get to the mean high tide line and seaward, its public domain, by law.

The entry and approach-


Ah-oh, more signs...


Ahh I'm there....Set up shop here...

Didnt see one one person or one piece of salad the rest of the day

If I didn't know otherwise I would have thought I was in NorCal ,as even on this day of low surf, the swell, current and turbulance were very strong and just had that big feeling to it, that photos can't capture properly

This fool was anchored in the giant trough in his bahma bass boat, but he knew what he was doing, as I watched waves break out past him with a wall of whitewater approaching, lay back down into a swell again as they passed under him time and time again. I'm guessing this trough was 20' deep and 50yds across, just massive, with a huge sand bar on the far out side.
I found the trick here was not to use a sputnik and have your bait anchored but to use a 6oz flat and let the current and swell push it around until it would drift into and find a sweet spot by itself to rest in and would get picked up shortly there after.


Got some really big models of these after my cell phone battery died  5 for the day

and the bats here felt like they were supercharged or on steroids, imagine fighting bats in a big river, thats what it was like. Got 7 of these on the day ,all in the 40s except for a 53" brute on which was to be my last soak.

I know better from experience and should have had it well covered,but when I had to walk with the big bat down the beach 100yds or so, I look back and see a damn seagulls swoop down and pirate the last of my bait, I yell and wave my hands to chase them off, but too late, bags were empty, they gobbled down what squid and mack I had left >:
Was forced to call it quits before 6pm but all and all a great 10+ fish sesh considering it was all during midday as well. Got back to my truck which was still where I parked it without a ticket on the windsheild.Was home before it was dark, unheard of when I go fishing, so much so the GF came out in a panic wondering what went wrong.
Woke up this morning sore, sunburt and satisfied with still a little regret about the dying cell battery and thieved session ending bait but, it was a good fun day overall....
JOE

OK, it's almost been 24 hours since, so I'm settled down enough to be able to write a post up now...
Hit it last night around sunset just after the tide had turned to an incoming. Knew the swell was going to be up some and wanted to change it up a bit so decided to try an AO that had a gentle slope to it and was all sand, nothing but sand bottom for a mile in every direction, except for a finger jetty in the shallow I set up about 100 yards away from.
This was not 7 gill territory, soupies and leos is what I have seen come from here before. So I soak fresh mack heads w for a couple of hours on a 12/0 circle with not a bump, not even from a -1 , SNGF or any crab picking. Just an occasional kelp stringer that would drift across my line on the surface and get sucked outward by an incoming swell and pushed back inward as the wave broke, was the only thing that gave my rod tip any sort of movement. It was already a bit after the no parking time so I got my bag packed up, and was reaching for my rod to give it the last reel in when something hit it like a freight train at full speed. In my experience bats won't take a bait on the fly, they stop, mouth the bait, and take at least a few feet to get their momentum back up. This hit had me guessing for a second if a pelican flying by in the dark had hit my line with its wing it was so sudden. But in the next few seconds I felt the power, and knew this wasn't no bird, as I turned down the drag , not slowing my screaming spool at all. Then I hear and see out on the surface a splash,splash, splash, splash of water being thrown from side to side and feel big thumping shakes on my taught line. It's was that hold your breath moment of the fight. Every thing held, whew, but now realized I realized it was on course to end me around the finger jetty rocks and I had to decide do I go out chest deep in the surf to try to get an angle on it or do I button down the drag some more to try and angle it away. I felt like I had some room to tighten it down more so I went that route. Mind you this is all in only about a 15-20 second span since the initial hit. So as I'm buttoning down gradually, with room to go even tighter, I feel the dreaded dull....pop..the kind you just instantly can feel you lost everything and that the hook didn't just pull out. So with a pit in my stomach I quickly reel up my slack line and I feel it come through my rods eyes way earlier than expected, about 100 feet early, half my 30lb mono top shot missing. I look at the break off point and find this.(See pics) Last night I really couldn't think of anything but a freak windknot in my mono? That idea just does'nt sit right in my mind as I thought about it into today. I more plausible idea came to my mind a while ago, but I'd be interested to hear what comes into your guys thoughts on how the hell a big slipless loop knot with a 6 inch tag end on it 100 feet up from my sinker got in my line to cause a break off point. The 6 inch tag is bizzare as it didnt break at the knot...     ...I'm OK now 
CLOSE UP OF THE MYSTERY KNOT AND TAG END. THE LINE GOING DOWNWARD WAS THE ONE LEADING TO MY ROD. THAT TAG IS WHERE IT BROKE, NOT AT THE KNOT

THE SINGLE LINE GOING TO THE RIGHT WAS MY MAIN LINE LEADING TO MY REEL, THE 2 GOING LEFT FORM A BIG LOOP OUT OF PIC

THE BIG LOOP

THE SANDY WASH I FISHED IN

Got out last night just after sundown for a couple of hours. Started out with a -1. Lots of small annoying nibbles...then another -1. Swell started to come up quick. Watched it go from what seemed like a 1-2' to 3'-4' within a couple of hours...Looks like the weekend into early next week is going to be tough as far as the swell goes.
Decided to call it a night after this double  ....how would you score this one? 

Set out driving yesterday after work with a friend that's a female, my surf fishing set ups and basic gear, 1/2 dozen recently caught surf macks and some drinks on ice in a cooler, change of clothes, all hastily thrown in my car... and headed towards the coast with no particular destination in mind set. It was one of those, let's just pack it up, get outa here, go, and see where things lead me type plan or, non plan you could say. Picked up a pizza on the way, took a canyon road over the hill and asked her left or right when we hit PCH. "North" she says. OK I say (as I'm thinking to myself, damn, why'd she say that, the better spots are to the right...)You have to remember this isn't slated as a hard core mission to fish trip in her mind, we're just taking a drive. So northward we head, past a few spots I knew had potential for fish but would require a bit of a walk into, that I knew would draw some whining, so I didn't make the suggestion...and the now what had turned into a scenic drive up the coast for her continued on, and on some more, until finally she said "oh look how pretty that beach is, let's stop here for a while. As I'm thinking to myself, of all the places we had passed by and she picks this snaggy bottom, lose my rig everycast looking stretches of coast with just a small patch of sand to put a blanket down on beach that I havn't fished for over 20 years because I remember losing 10 rigs in 10 casts the one time I had tried it.  So I casually tie on a rig to one of my set ups cast it out with half a mack on it, and put it up in my rod holder, prepared to just let it sit till she's ready to move on in 30 minutes or so, when I'll be stuck and have to snap it off, like I remember from my brief encounter 20 or so years ago here. So, before I even can get sat down and comfortable, I hear my reel start out screeeaming at one speed, fast! Not really prepared for that to happen so soon, I struggle to get it out of the holder, fumble to tighten down the drag knob and burn the sh!t out of my hand against the braid flying off the spool, tighten down into it too much for it's initial run and.... pop, I feel that dreaded slack line weightlessness that doesn't even provide enough tension to wind the line back onto your spool. So, I go from zero to 100 , 100 to zero without warning within a span of less than a minute. Leaving me in that simultaneous full adrenaline rush, loud cussing mode, that I'm sure most of you have experienced before, with my friend just looking at me like, "what a freak" and me loudly muttering "f@ck, that was big, it was f@cking  big! sh!t!" to myself. LOL...So I sit down for 5 or 10 minutes, have a smoke, and try to wind down a bit before I retie, bait up and cast out again. I pin 3/4 of a mack on a pully rigged 12/0 circle hook and launch it out again. Before I can take up enough slack to get the hook up to the pulley I feel thump, thump, slack.. thump,then click-click-click-click, line tightening up from a constant slow steady pull for a bit, until I give my drag knob a turn down, and I can feel the pressure  slowly load up and set the circle hook. Now it's that moment when whatever just got the hook set in the corner of it's mouth feels some unnatural resistance to it's swimming, panics, it's flee instinct kicks in, and it's the hold on tight and hope 3/4 of the spoon sn't get peeled off before it slows down any. After about a 100yd initial run away from any structure it slows to an almost stop  I feel a sense of relief as all held up through the initial run and at this point I'm 95% sure it's a big bat I've hooked into. So I think to myself this is a perfect time to explain to a rookie, without words, what this fishing thing is about, and put the butt of the rod in the side of her hip, put her hand up on the fore-grip, and say hold this up like this, don't let it be pulled it down, as it starts it's second run that I knew it would, and easily beats her at the arm wrestling match and gets the rod to a position pointing directly out at it and almost yanks my whole set up right out of her hands completely. At this point I say, "see, they're really strong huh?, let me finish fighting it." and me thinking, how stupid am I? My best set-up almost just got pulled into the drink. Anyhow it's close to an hour of the classic type bat ray give and take type power battle and another 15 minutes in the skinny before I can wade in and and grab onto it by it's gill ports and drag the 54" beast out of the wash and up onto some wet sand. I just hear a bewildered "Oh my god, look at that thing" as the big bat is grunting and slapping it's wings on the wet sand. I tell her to take some quick pics for me and gets a few snapped before my cell phone's battery dies. This was only the first one of the night and in the next few hours got 2 more bats onto the sand along with a nice 56 inch Leo. This night the these surf bats were more then welcome to be back on the end of my line again. This was one of the fun times that fishing can provide, that only a small percentage of people will ever be able to understand but I think I added one to that mix last night    Thanks for reading my montage if you got this far 
JOE




                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
     

Headed a ways north than usual in search of some grinner holding cooler waters. Fished from the bottom of the low till almost the peak of the high before salad rolled in with a vengeance and shut me down for the night. Always nice to fish new water. No grinners, only some puckermouths, but felt this water has potential for a later date. Usually don't post AO pics but if someone wants to do the hike it takes to get into this one , more power to ya...

Low tide at sunset

Mr. Horny




Thanks for looking
JOE

So here's a rig I've been tinkering with and had some success with my last few seshes for SNGF and sand bass at least. Like anything else it's uses are situational, but seems to do best when there's not much if any salad and on non-snaggy bottomswhere there is an ebb and flow of current to take advantage of the long length of line the baited hook is tied onto.I've been tying it with the hook on an 8' length of line off the main line which theoretically means your bait could get 16' of drift in along the bottom when the current from a swell pushes towards the shore and then 16' back out the other way when the swell action creates a receding flow, back and forth, etc...

The diagram is not to scale...but length B (from 3-way swivel to hook) needs to be twice as long as length A (rig clip to other leg of 3-way swivel)




For the cast then 8' section of line is run up (4') to the upside down rig clip and then back down (4') where the baited hook goes into some kind of bait clip. In the pics I'm using an imp shield and in the diagram it's a gemini splash down clip but an imp clip should work as well but yould have to be more precise on the lengths of line felative to each other.

ignore the line going straight left in the diagram, it now goes up and over the rig clip and back down into the bait clip.


Here's a close up of the gemini rig clip up top that holds the line during the cast until splash down, when the bait clip releases the baited hook and the line will release from this rig clip as it falls through the water to the bottom.


the orange line would be your main line or shock leader tying on


here's the bottom half, but a regular 3-way swivel could be used in place of the rolling barrel on a crimp sleeve as in the pic.
Not to be confusing but in this pic the orange line leads to my hook


http://www.gemini-tackle.co.uk/listings.asp?id=220

Hit it last night for a few of hours from sunset till 11pm...Beautiful conditions all around and weather perfect. Picked up a couple of sand bass on an up & over rig I tied up a few of and was trying out to make sure it cast well, didn't tangle or have any other unforeseen issues. It seems like it'll work well in certain conditions. I might post the details and pics up in the tackle talk section shortly but its basically a 3 way rig but with an 8' length of line the hook is tied onto that all clips down for streamline casting....



What do you guys think of the new camera phone pics? I picked one up just because Tom's night shots looked so good...LG Nexus6x
JOE

Beautiful conditions alround contrary to the bump in weekend surf forecast but, Tom's right, now I understand, my first moray eel was enough, no more please...Haven't heard of any taken in LA County before but this one managed to foul tail hook itself on my circle hook somehow and before I got him on the sand he managed to spin and interweave my rig and shockleader in with eelgass salad and himself to make a slimey birdsnest from hell that bites. Even though my 10/0 only barely caught about a inch of him I could not pull my hook out of it's skin. Now I get why it's used to make boots with. Its tougher than tanned cow hide. Combined with a couple dead lobster washed up on the sand,at least I know I was near some reefy type Sevengill structure I look for edges of.
Not much else going on with the 8 rods we had out between me, Sean and Edgar until well past midnight. Those guys are are fun to fish with regardless, plus they pack plenty of oreo cookies along with them 
JOE

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS....RETIE TIME

Alright, alright, your probably wondering where that soupfin diet chart came from...here...
It's from an old study conducted in the 1940's in California using specimens taken mostly by gill net and not meant for angler's use but some of the statistical data could be applied to surf soupies if you do some creative interpretation & know some stat.
Warning- don't open unless you have a spare 30 minutes or so...Ron, this means you too
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt3b69n668&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text
   

Hard to complain if your getting paid for the day off and on the sand instead of at work.. First time in recent memory that Ive fished with the sun still high in the sky. It was kind of strange to actually see my cast, haha...Got a 50" Leo on a small mack head pulley rigged. It was one of those fun Leo's takes that looks like they grabbed your bait on the fly while swimming at full speed past it. Knew it was too fast to be a bat run...Fun fight, high speed zig zaggin roostertails up in the trough and skinny...and my first SNGF of the year, 49 incher, ....and probably the last one of the year that Ill bother taping & posting a pic of....wasnt going to be much beach left after sunset with the 6+' high rolling in so packed it up in time to go see some fireworks with the GF by dark...Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention water was virtually salad free, what a difference a week can make...
JOE

Meet up with FishJerk in VC last night. Got to play sandhand on a bat & a couple of ornery 7's for him. Me nothing but a couple run & drops and one lost on a rig failure. Chatted with the Sheriff a bit as we were leaving an hour past curfew. Since we were just fishing they were cool. Asked us we had noticed any panga boats out here ever at night dumping cargo overboard and would appriciate it if we nightfish alot to keep our eyes open and give them a call if we see anything like that in the future. Said theyre on watch for Mexican cartels smuggling in dope with pangas lately...I'll let Ron post up his grinners.
JOE