this one is for the veterans out there, in your opinion what are the best baits to use in the surf, crabs, clams, blood worms, night crawlers (heard somewhere) mussels, ghost shrimp, shrimp, squid...

also on the crabs I understand that a soft shell is the best bet among them but I can hardly ever find any, not including the micros, so I normally use hardshells, what sizes of crabs are a better bet to better fish, nickel sized bugs, smaller, or the bigger mini vw beetles (1-1.25")

Depends on your target species of fish you want to catch. But what i like to use is mackrel, an all around good bait to catch just about any species if you just want to catch fish. Fish i've caughtout there with this Lots of barred serf perch, sometimes corbina, all sorts of rays, shark, believe it or not a couple of halies, Shovelnose guitarfish. Now if you want to target a specific species then you will reduce your quantity of fish caught. for corbina Ghost shrimp and sand crabs, mussel. Same for Barred surf perch. I no i've left some stuff out because this can be a large subject. just wondering what exactly are you looking for?

Anchovie

I HAVE BEEN KILLING THE BARD PERCH AT PORT SAN LUIS WITH
A 3.5" SWIMBAIT AND A 1/4 OZ LEAD HEAD. BLUE-CLEAR SEEMS
TO WORK THE BEST FOR ME. BEEN CONSISTANTLY CATCHING 12-13
INCHERS. I LOVE IT!
HOOK EM UP.......BARRY

Just looking for something to bite, barred surf perch and corbina are the main quarry, with some interest on halibut,
never thought that the perch would go for such large piece of plastic, I guess I have to try it out.

for the moment the baits I use mostly are sand crabs if i find them and clams. ocacionally i use blood worms but am a bit of a cheapskate to use them regularly.

havent fully turned to plastics, I gess i have to build a bit of confidence, to me it seems that if the fish wont bite fresh bait i dont think they'll go for the rubber. I need to figure out what sort of conditions make them bite, tide / time of day / temperature / location... lately I'm at a 65-75% skunk ratio, seems that everytime I'm able to get to the beach the tide is at its lowest and/or is full of people or weed. once I determine those conditions and consistently find them critters I'll introduce them to the rubber diet. meanwhile I'll be stocking my box with grubs and swim tails.

I will only fish the surf on the low tides. For me it seems i do 80% better than on a high tide, and i Barred surf perch is what your looking for trust try small chunks of mackeral. If the fish are their they will take it. If your as cheap as I am and you want corbina go to dog beach over where Ocean Beach is and get some ghost shrimp. Then go back to what ever surf line you want to fish and you will have your pick between Barred and corbina.

Tight lines
Anchovie

ps If you want to meet me i'll be fishing ocean beach pier friday night from maybe 6:00pm to 3:00am.

if you don't want to head all the way to dog beach for ghost shrimp, you could head to mission bay directly across from the roller coaster and pump shrimp, there is a pretty good assortment of both large middle finger sized baits to the small stuff. The cool part about this spot is that you can fish there and catch corbina in the bay(you'll also pick up Turd rollers, shovel nose sharks and a bunch of other stuff.
Question....for ForkTail.

I noticed that you fish IB alot, do you know if the channel at the southernmost end of IB, is giving up the leopard sharks...usually this time of year they congregate in the channel.

Tight Lines................

I dont particularly fish the channel, I usually head up north from the pier, beyond the second rock pile. but I'd say that there are a few swimming around, I got cut off a couple of nights ago by something really strong, (it was swimming against the current with two hefty lumps of weed and my drag for about 15 minutes in front of the surf camp) and I nailed a 3.5-4' leopard a bit north on silver strand. anyways, never thought of targeting leopards in the channel, I'll try it out as soon as I can and post results.

tHANKS for the dope forktail...

I usually hit IB more in the winter, It was pretty good there this year, lots of surfperch but not much else...I'm thinking about giving IB a shot this coming weekend or monday... Since its kind of far south I usually end up fishing torrey pines or Mission beach, if I don't jump on a sportboat.

Well I'll post up if I get 'em.


Tight Lines................

the cattle boat sounds like the hot ticket this weekend, calicos and the slime sticks seem to be in a chow binge, I might hit the boats also, get the ultralight gear and some plastics for some fresh bass ceviche :9

I try. first I have the honey to convince that I need to go fishing, thanks for the invite.

well hope you can make. I told a few other people who said they'll try and be their so hopefully you can make. Untill tomarow.

Tight lines all
Anchovie

sorry, but it occured to me at the last moment that I dont know who am I looking for, again sorry I missed you, or maybe not, fished the pier on friday from 9:00-12:00 at night for two small macarel which I turned for bait for no results. we'll se about another time, thanks anyway.