Shelter Island Pier, Crystal Pier, Oceanside Pier, and Santa Monica Pier
This weekend I hit up Shelter Island(6/20), Crystal(6/20), Oceanside(6/20), and Santa Monica Pier(6/19). Santa Monica Pier to my surprise is actually getting some mackerel action. Anglers are using sabiki rigs topped off with squid strips and shrimp. This is at the end of the pier, I didn't see anymore mid or near catch much. For Crystal Island Pier there is an abundance and I mean a **** TON of Zebra perch, Sargo, and Corbina swimming around in schools near the beginning of the pier. The water is crystal clear (get it) and you can see just about anything. The bait/tackle shop was very friendly and sold me squid and shrimp. Mackerel have been a no show toward the end of the pier. The sargo have been hitting on shrimp but when I went the person next to me using ghost shrimp and I could not get any of them to hit which was unfortunate. Those schooling fish were huge! I hit up Shelter Island Pier shortly after and the bite was pretty much nonexistent, people earlier told me that in the morning hours it was a little better than this. Oceanside pier was packed full of anglers. probably for the same reason why I was visiting. I heard the mackerel action was very decent there and that rays were being caught in abundance at night. When I arrived, skunk for almost everyone. There was very slim picking of mackerel but the ray game was decent. I saw four people pull up rays as I headed down the pier and another two as i left. All were I believe caught on either squid strips or chunks of mackerel. One very interesting catch was a juvenile white sea bass that was released mid pier. I had the pleasure of hand reeling the fish in for a youngster after I noticed his rod slumped over with him fighting dead weight. I assumed he was stuck on a rock and headed over to help him. That's when I looked over and saw that the fish was indeed at the surface! Lucky boy, pretty sure he'll be hooked on fishing from now on. Unfortunately for me and my girl... SKUNK! Hopefully I can get her first fish later this week. I later discussed things with the bait shop owner at Oceanside and he believed the bite died down today because of a temperature drop, water got colder or something? As a side note I was at Balboa Pier 6/13 and it was dead as well. I used Ken's monthly fishing report as my intel and was skunked not once but three times! I have been skunked in the past using his reports but nothing ever like this. But hey that's fishing you never know what you're going to run into or get. I guess that's what keeps me coming back for more in the face of adversity. Anyways it was a fun time, got to hit up my school UCSD on the way there and it was a pretty nice campus. Scripps pier looks very VERY appealing but it was gated so I wonder if they would open the gates for me to fish in the near future haha.:LOL:
