Planning a new trip!

I am going to Seattle Washington in about a week and I want to get one more fishing trip in before I leave. So, me and my fishing partner, Carrie, have decided that Friday morning is the best bet.

Of course we are going to head to the Ventura pier. I know I told everyone I would be going to many different piers but I am pretty hooked on this pier right now. Also, I am planning on going to the Malibu pier once I get back from Seattle.

But my trip to the Ventura Pier will include a little fishing along with crabbing. Recently, I got some advise to going fishing in the hole on the Ventura pier. Personally, I am a little skeptical of that because I feel that it is always over populated on the end of the pier and I also feel that I would get tangled in the poles. But I think I will give it a shot and let you all know how it goes.

That thing! When I am in Seattle I will be doing a little bit of fishing. I know that this blog is to focus on crabbing in southern California but I think it will be fun to post my experiences up for all to see.

My Trip to Redondo Pier

Just about a couple months ago I decided I wanted to see if i could catch some lobster so I did a little reading and heard that Redondo pier has been known to have some lobster. So me and my fishing partner Carrie (girl friend) got our stuff ready and headed out. We arrived at the pier at around 5:30pm on a saturday. There were about 75 to 100 people on this fairly small pier.

When I go fishing and crab fishing I like to have a little room so that I can relax and have a good time. So I was a little bummed but I still set up my things and started fishing. Since it was so packed I decided to just set up camp on the back side of the pier. I had been there for about 3 hours and had caught nothing at all. But right about that time I got a bit on my line. It was a very large Mackerel. But after that I had no luck with anything. Right around 10pm I was ready to go but I decided I would give it about another hour. At that time I pulled up one of my pots and I had a decent sized lobster in it! I was extremely excited.

But once I cooled down from that I decided to just go because I really was not having any luck. If someone asked me if Redondo was a good pier to go to I would tell them NO. It is too over packed and really only has Mackerel. Maybe if you were to go during the middle of the week when it is less populated.

Overnight Fishing and Crabbing on the Ventura Pier

So while me and my girlfriend were home cooking our crab from our last fishing trip to Ventura we decided we would try to go over night and see if we might have more luck with the fish this time. Last time we didn’t catch one fish.

So we left our house at about 8pm and didn’t get to the Ventura Pier till about 9pm. We set up the nets and poles right away. Within the first 5 minutes I had two fish in my line. The first sure were hungry at night. We stayed out till about 2 in the morning just pulling fish after fish in. We ended the night with 5 perch and about 15 of these other smaller fish that I was using for crab bait in my nets. The only bummer about the night fishing and crabbing was that we didnt get any crabs.

So we nap a little bit and come back out to fish at around 5 am. We set everything out and got started. After about an hour we had only caught one fish. But right at about 6am the crab started to come. We were pulling in about 6 crab an hour. We were even catching crabs with out fishing lines. Another very cool event that happened was that while I was pulling in one of the nets I saw my pole had someone biting on it. I finished pulling the net up and then started to reel in my line. I was actually having to struggle to get what ever was on my line up. Once I could see what I had caught I realized it was a string ray. It was about 2 feet long. It was very exciting but I threw it back because I was not going to eat it.

After that things slowed down at around 7am. We didnt catching anything else until about 12 noon. That is about the time the crabs were out again. After pulling in about 4 decent sized crabs we decided to start packing up the poles to get ready to go. Once the poles were ready to go we started to pull up the nets for the last time. The last net I pulled up had a large spider crab. It was a great way to end the day.

Crab Fishing on The Ventura Pier

For the last two weeks I have gone to the Ventura Pier to go crabbing and fishing. I always bring my fishing poles with me just to keep me busy inbetween pulling up my nets. The first week I went I was just seeing what was being caught there and trying to see if I was going to like the pier. I have noticed that there are some piers that I just do not like.

There are several reasons I might not like a certain pier. One reason is that it is over crowded. For example, I went to Redondo pier about a month ago and I really disliked it. I showed up around 5pm on a saturday night. I was thinking that there might be a few fisherman and a couple people crab fishing BUT there was about 50 to 75 people fishing. There were so many people fishing that thet were all literally standing elbow to elbow. I dislike that because I have no room to throw my pole out and have no where to throw my nets. Also, if I were to catch a fish I would most likely get tangled in someone elses line. I like to relax and have a good time while catching some nice size crabs and fish.

Back to Ventura pier. So i show up and see that there are a couple pier out on the pier. This pier is 1700 feet long so the fact that there are only about 10 to 20 people was great. So I headed down the pier about half way and set up my nets and poles. I was seeing people near me catching a few perch and a few smaller fish so I knew there were fish out there.

After about 15 minutes I pulled up my first net and had one crab. It was to small so i there it back. A little while later I pull up my nets again and I had a bit of seaweed. So i pulled the net up to clean out the seaweed and I realized that there was something in the seaweed. I CAUGHT A LOBSTER! I was extremely excited but also a bit bummed because lobster is out of season right now. So I admired it for a little bit and then threw him back. The rest of the night I caught about 6 very decent sized crabs. It was on ok night. I realized this was my new favorite pier.

Hello World!

This is my first post on my new blog. I created this blog for a couple reasons. The first reason and probably the biggest reason is because I found it very hard to find any information about crab fishing in Southern California. So I feel like I am helping out other people by letting them know where might be the best places to catch crabs in Southern Cal. The second reason is because I love going fishing and crabbing and I want to meet some new people through this site and find the best spots. The last reason is because I want people to see what I have been catching. Haha I want to brag a little bit.

Stay tuned to see how I have been doing.