Balboa Pier 11-3-07 late report

[Hawkeye5447]

A few friends of mine went out to the pier the other night to try a little fishing. I was really mad when we got their cause i remembered that i had forgotten my hoop net at home(not like i was going to catch anything anyways,but still). One of my buddies had never fished the ocean before so this was new for him. We set up just before rubies where those comfortable benches are. It started off really slow but then my buddy's (the one that has never fished the ocean)pole starts movin'. I grab the rod and set the hook and hand it too him and say you got somethin on there. He didnt know what was going on. He ended up pulling in a nice thorn back ray. Right after that my other buddy caught one. Then it got slow again...I had a sabiki rig on one line and a c-rig on the other. I figured i would better my odds if i just stuck withthe c-rigs, so i made both my lines c-rigs and wamo!!!! I caught the next thorn back. All in all we caught 7 thorn backs in about 3 hours. i was hoping to catch something else but there was a seal swimming around the pier all night. Got him good though when we threw on of the thorn backs back in the water right next to him and scared the piss out of him. Also i wish i had left my sabiki line on cause i saw a school of something swim by looked like MACs or something. All in all it was a great night. Sorry no pics all we had where camera phones and none of them came out too well. We are thinking about heading out again on the 24th. If anyone has any suggestions on how to catch something else please let me know. Kinda gets boring just catching thorn backs.


Oh yeah and one more thing there was some great Bioluminescence in the water that night. You could see your rig go all the way to the bottom.

[legacy1]

Generally speaking in my limited Balboa Pier experience, I have been able to catch BSP in the surf from the pier with mussels, and croakers too. More in the middle to the end of the pier I caught various rays and mackerel with squid on a c-rig. I did get lucky one time and caught a halibut with a swimbait, in about the middle of the pier. One more I learned after a while is not to let dead bait sit on the bottom or the crabs will eat it all up. Hope it helps a little.

[Silver Hand]

I fished that pier a lot this last summer and mostly caught 12-16 inch mackerel and bonito. There were a few big ones thrown in here and there. Use a Krocodile in Chrome Silver Prism Lite pattern and retrieve it quickly. A sabiki is also a good rig to use. I've brought in 10 mackerel in 10 minutes more than a few times using the sabiki set up. That's some good catfish bait. :secret:

[Hawkeye5447]

Definitly thanks for all the info. Yeah i hate those crabs so much you bring up your line and your bait is gone or there is a huge crab hanging off the end. Ill have to try muscles cause it seems everyone on the board is using them in this area.