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Brewfish
06-01-2008, 09:15 PM
Fished Santa Barbara’s East Beach again this weekend with my buddy Dave on both Saturday and Sunday. We fished from about 6:00 – 8:30 AM each day. Here’s the scoop:

Despite my concern that all our reports would result in lots of pressure, we did not see a single other fisherman either day. Come on guys, there are fish to be caught!

On Saturday, we kinda goofed around. Dave fished a 4” chartreuse swim bait, and I mostly fished jerk baits: LC 110SP in Ghost Minnow color and a Cultiva 112SP in a color close to the LC Metallic Sardine. We caught two short flatties, both on the LC, and a bunch of nice perch which hit the rear hook on the jerk baits. For some reason, I don’t think I’m fishing the LC correctly. It just seems like I should be getting more halibut, based on the success that Wingnut and others are having on the LC. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

On Sunday, I started with the 3” Big Hammer in Green Machine. It’s a darker color, and I thought it would be good because it was still dark out at that early hour. Got bit by perch quite a bit, and maybe a halibut bite or two, but nothing stuck. Once the sun came up around 7:00, I switched to the 3” Key Lime. Believe it or not, got two halibut on the first two casts. Needless to say, we fished nothing but the Key Lime the rest of the day.

Because of the slow bite, we used the Pro Cure Calico Cocktail scent. It seemed to make a difference.

We ended up Sunday with two legals, four shorts and two perch. One of the perch was huge. We would have caught tons of perch, but they were biting short on the Big Hammers.

The two legals were sweet. Dave got one and I got the other. His was 23.5” and mine was about the same size. Attached is a picture of Dave and his legal. Mine went back in the drink (killed one last weekend and getting soft in my old age).

There was incredible bird activity most of the time. Just a war zone of pelicans, cormorants and sea gulls diving on the bait, with lots of porpoise activity to boot. I kept wishing we could bottle it and replay it on the tuna grounds this summer.

Hard to believe it’s not even summer yet!!

Have fun out there,

Brewfish

Koshaw
06-01-2008, 09:18 PM
Great report :D


I may have to come out there one of these days :D

Tikka
06-02-2008, 12:58 PM
Nice one Brewfish....East beach sure is one beautiful place to fish, especially before sun up...very peaceful and it always seems to deliver the goods!
Did you find that as the sun warmed the water, the action went up a few pegs?...seems to be the way it's been fishing for me.
Tikka

Brewfish
06-02-2008, 03:36 PM
Hi Tikka:

Yes, it seems that once the first light hits the water that the action starts to improve. It almost makes me want to sleep in a little bit, but then I'd lose some of the insanity factor that makes it so appealing!

Wingnut
06-02-2008, 09:13 PM
Nice job Brewfish, glad to see you got some good action out there.
Kudos on letting your Flattie live... Poseidon do keep score. ;)