Yes indeed, a fun day out there today. I really miss the inshore fishing at SB. It seems to get better every single year. 4" green sardine on a 1/2oz fishco head caught all of my fish today. I actually had 9 shorts Brian, I thought you were counting. Har!
Catching that seabass was the highlight of the day. I had made a short cast into a pocket in the eelgrass and gotten bit. I missed it so I threw right back in. It hit again and instead of the little halibut I was expecting, the fish went ripping off through the grass and generally kicked my butt. A great fight in shallow water. I also had two halibut come up and hit my swimbait right on the surface as I reeled it in. One was a short but the other was around 25-27 inches. I had it hooked for a second but it pulled off. I love that stuff.
I also wanted mention how important it is to be conservation minded at a spot like Goleta. Take time not to brutalize your short fish. If you can release a short by just grabbing the leadhead and shaking by all means do it. It's not always necessary to bring a fish into your boat or grab it. Don't net undersized fish, and do like Pete and Mike did. Keep a fish for the bar-b-que but don't keep more than you need. I kept a halibut and a seabass but planned by all means to release any more legal halibut I may have caught. I'm not saying any of this because anything happened today, I'm just trying to encourage everyone to be responsible with our good inshore fisheries.

Great to be back in SB and with some good company!
Here's a pic of the legal halibut and seabass

http://www.calfishing.com/dcforum/User_files/3b5a6ac219872fe2.jpg