June: Corbina Arrival

After fishing at Dog Beach a couple of times a week during the summer, my uncle came out to my house from the San Fernando Valley to help my family's construction work in our bathroom. He did not believe me when I told him that Dog Beach was incredible. So, the next chance he had, I took him fishing. I showed him the best rig, the best bait, and how to work the rig. Something interesting that happened about halfway through June was the arrival of corbina and millions of sand crabs at Dog Beach. Corbina are a large hard fighting surf fish that proved very difficult to catch. The conditions changed a lot mid June. The sand crabs arrived by the millions, the water warmed, the holes and trenches got deeper, the tides got higher, and  the corbina arrived as a result.

Corbina!

My Uncle's Corbina

In order to catch a corbina, you need an extremely light and long leader (a 24inch 4-2lb test leader is perfect), the smallest weight you can possibly use (less than 1oz), sharp medium sized hooks (corbina have hard cartilage mouths), and soft shelled sand crabs to match the size of your hooks.

My Corbina

You should work your bait by casting just over a hole or trench and only reeling in the slack resulting from the waves pushing your bait towards shore. Step away from the water when you are fishing (as corbina have fantastic eyesight) and don't be afraid to fish in less than a couple of feet of water. Sometimes, early in the morning, you can see corbina's backs out of the water as they launch themselves on shore to devour sandcrabs. It is safe to say corbina DO NOT fear becoming beached on land. You should always be weary when feeling a corbina bite because they tend to chew the bait before you feel the bite. In other words, what feels like a tiny surf perch can turn out to be an 8lb corbina. Many other forums will say that corbina fishing is best in the fall, but for me, nothing can beat summer corbina fishing.

Brandon Lynch

Eureka!

After our failure at Crystal Cove, my dad was a bit discouraged. We began to wonder if we would ever figure out surf fishing. Fortunately, our luck was about to change! One day when my dad decided to bring my dog to dog beach I brought a fishing pole. This was the breakout day that gave me hope. I threw out my line and caught 3 perch in about an hour. They were small, but the bites were much quicker than anything I had experienced with surf fishing before.

Being the "fishing nut" that I am (my mom's words not mine) I took every chance I got that spring to go surf fishing. I brought my friends with me and even made my parents drop me off alone sometimes. We would catch perch and an occasional guitar fish or shark. Pretty cool but I knew things could get better.

My friend Slater with a guitarfish notice deep blue water behind
his head (a trench)

My friend Slater and I with a small barred surf perch

Going surf fishing as often as I was going, I began to figure out tricks to increase the amount and size of fish that I was catching. The first thing that I figured out was that the trench, as shown above in the picture on the right, is where most of the fish were being caught. Before, I would throw my line out blindly as far as I could. Now I could find deep water and structure and cast there for better results. An additional early discovery I made was that the best hooks for surf fishing are circle hooks significantly smaller than the crab's carapace. Small size 2 fine wire circle hooks were absolutely perfect for the surf perch. Being fine wire they would not kill the sand crab and being a circle hook would not often be swallowed by the surf perch

This is a good sand crab to hook ratio

As I continued to experiment, my uncle became interested in my surf fishing quests and together we would experience the best that Southern California surf could offer.

Next Post more surf fishing info

Brandon Lynch

Surf Fishing Equipment

When I was young, my dad would always take me surf fishing up north in Lancaster where his cousin lived. Surf fish in Lancaster was BORING. We would set up large 10+ foot poles with sand spikes and wait hours for one bite (if we were lucky). Then we would reel in a small fish on a reel with 20lb test. Needless to say, you can barely even tell you have a fish on, and what fun is that? I honestly never liked to surf fish until I learned how to do it the right way.

The wrong way

The right way

The right way to surf fish was taught to me an event called the Fred Hall Show in Long Beach. A man at the Berkley seminar booth for salt water fishing techniques was explaining to us the art that is surf fishing. He taught us that the right way to surf fish requires a ~7 foot, high action pole (very easy to bend), about a 1 oz egg sinker (depending on the current you can heighten the amount of weight or lower it), a swivel, sand crabs or the Berkley artificial shrimp and sand worms he mentioned, and a 2-4 sized hook. The hook, weight, and swivel were to be tied in a Carolina Rig (like the one shown below). The weight and hook combination with the high action 7 foot pole sounded surprisingly similar to the gear we had for trout fishing! With this new completely foreign information my dad and I hit the surf! With our trout gear!

Our first experience surf fishing with our trout gear was less exciting than we expected. We went down to crystal cove and used Berkley shrimp but we caught nothing... What we needed was practice and experience with this new gear along with knowledge of tides and other factors.

Next post will have more surf fishing information.

Brandon Lynch

The Discovery

There is a beach between Huntington Beach and Bolsa Chica in Southern California called "Dog Beach", or as some might often refer to it, Huntington Cliffs. The name "Dog Beach" comes from the fact that dogs are allowed to be walked on the beach! So one summer day when my dad and I were walking my dog at Dog Beach I decided to bring a fishing pole. To my surprise, that day, I caught 5 medium sized surf perch in only one hour!

I was extremely excited by this because every other time I had gone fishing at our local beaches I would catch little to none! So what was different this time?

The topography of this beach was very important to my success. This beach is along cliffs and the sand is often very steep. This steep sand bank causes a trench to form about 5-20 feet from the berm line. In addition, few people swim in the water at this beach for lack of parking and the fact that it is a "dog's beach" (which isn't really topography but I feel it was important).

The biology of this beach is also significant. Far out in the ocean there are oil rigs and an area between them called "Huntington Flats", which is a common place for charter boats to go fishing. Beyond the break out in the ocean you can observe pelicans, dolphins, and sea lions hunting. In addition to this, millions (seriously... MILLIONS), of sand crabs take residence at this beach.

Between the biology and the geography of this beach, it was no wonder that the fishing was fantastic. It is no surprise to you that I went back once a week every week that summer for more fantastic surf fishing.

Dog Beach at low tide (notice few people are swimming)

Next post will be about surf fishing gear which proved extremely important to success as well.

-Brandon Lynch-
enormedjules@gmail.com

Hello and welcome to Fishing Socal

Hello and welcome to my blog! I am Brandon and I have never blogged before... My english teacher, Mr. Ziebarth, made this an assignment so I decided if I have to blog on something I may as well blog on something I love! And I love to fish. Ever since I was a child I have loved to throw my line in the water and wait (rather impatiently) for a bite. I would always ask other people that were fishing (even if I didn't have a fishing pole with me) "how is the fishing today?"

My dad always used to take me fishing in the Eastern Sierras where we would go trout fishing. The Eastern Sierras are where I began to fall in love with fishing. Anyone else who knows the area up there will tell you... The fishing can be fantastic. So I grew up loving trout fishing and as I got older I began to get creative with my fishing techniques and strategies.

My feelings for fishing grew from a love into an obsession when I discovered surf fishing. I live in Huntington Beach, CA, and the beach is a good 6 hours away from the Eastern Sierras. I always thought that the only fishing in the world was in the Eastern Sierras. Fortunately, I was wrong. About two years ago, I discovered surf fishing in Huntington Beach can be just as fun or even more fun than trout fishing! Who knew that I was driving 6 hours to find fishing just as good as the fishing was 6 minutes from my house.

Basically, this blog is meant to teach people what I know about Southern California Surf fishing and Eastern Sierra Trout fishing. I will go into great depth with these two locations in my next few blogs.

-Brandon Lynch-
enormedjules@gmail.com