please help ??????

[Fly Trainer]

well here the deal I live in Oceanside and have done the bay peir surf thing all the time and last summer right before i left for iraq i had a guy take me out and fish bonito yellow tail mahi mahi and the list goes on.
now my ? is I have a boat now and have been out in the big blue once but I just don't know where to start so anthing would be great, seasons, where and when thanks so much

[Funjunkie74]

I have found with past posts with questions like this, you should also include:
What kind of boat.
What size (length) of boat.
What size engine.

This will greatly help people to help you.
Without it, they could tell you all about Catalina or the Coronados, but you'd never make it cause you bought a pedal boat! (As an example)

Also, don't be too discourage when most boat-owners aren't willing to share information. Something about "ownership" of a spot.

[kanco]

Welcome to boat ownership.

I agree with the previous post. It would help a bit if you provided a bit more information on you boat.

As far as fishing locations go. It all depends on where you usually launch from. Your best bet is to go to your local Westmarine or Boatersworld store and pick up an area fishing map for the area that you would be interested in fishing. They sell them for most inland and offshore areas from Northern Cal to Baja

or you can go to http://www.bajadirections.com/ and purchase their atlas which has the most popular fishing spots fished in southern cal and the best thing is that they are named and have the gps numbers. so that whenever someone talks about a spot, you can reference it to you map.

Hope this helps.

Here is a picture of the cover:
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/SouthernCalfishing.gif

[one_leg]

As far as reports go this one does not impress. Just a bunch of questions. j/k :lol:

A good place to start would be a United States Coast Guard Safe Boating Courses.

http://www.uscgboating.org/safety/courses.htm

Going out with an experienced offshore boater is also highly recommended prior to venturing out alone.
Flotillas make a lot of sense.

One_Leg

[fishin417]

As far as safe boating goes... ALWAYS check the weather trends first. A good place to find would be The NOAA site: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/Southwest_inset.shtml
Also make sure you've got a good VHF.
I fish out of Oxnard quite frequently and have made numerous trips out to Anacapa/Santa Cruz Islands in my 15 footer (weather permitting). Using the atlas mentioned above is a great place to start looking for some fish and then you can start marking spots on your GPS and learning some patterns.

Good Luck

[fishin417]

As far as safe boating goes... ALWAYS check the weather trends first. A good place to find would be The NOAA site: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/Southwest_inset.shtml
Also make sure you've got a good VHF.
I fish out of Oxnard quite frequently and have made numerous trips out to Anacapa/Santa Cruz Islands in my 15 footer (weather permitting). Using the atlas mentioned above is a great place to start looking for some fish and then you can start marking spots on your GPS and learning some patterns.

Good Luck