Cool places to spearfish!

So, since my brother is going away to college next year, our parents are letting us do a brothers camping, surfing, fishing, spearfishing trip throughout southern california. I was Just curious if anyone had cool places to spearfish or places you know that has good spearfishing or surfing or anything fun in general. I think we plan to go as far as santa barbara!

Check out Refugio north of Santa Barbara. They have a campground and you can dive right out front.

there are some decent structured spots all along the stretch between Gaviota and Goleta, all within a few minutes of Refugio or El Capitan beaches. expect to find grass RF and cabezon.
Be prepared to do a little mountain goat-style cliff climbing to find them.

I never had luck right off Refugio beach, lots of sand and not much else there.
You might try Goleta Beach, off of the slough mouth at the far end of the park, for halibut. Seen them there (and lots of bat rays) back in the day.

all of my old fav spots in IV are in the MPA and closed now

I would PM Big Jim for his "Honey Holes" 

You should plan to spend some time in big sur on your way down. Plasket Creek has Good camping, surfing and fishing. Lime kiln and Kirk Creek are nice also but no surf break.

Hope you guys have a great trip!

-Eliot

You should plan to spend some time in big sur on your way down. Plasket Creek has Good camping, surfing and fishing. Lime kiln and Kirk Creek are nice also but no surf break.

Hope you guys have a great trip!

-Eliot

X1000

BigSur has a lifetime of areas to explore...I've never ventured south of there so really can't give any advice.

Good luck and have fun!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

You should plan to spend some time in big sur on your way down. Plasket Creek has Good camping, surfing and fishing. Lime kiln and Kirk Creek are nice also but no surf break.

Hope you guys have a great trip!

-Eliot

X1000

BigSur has a lifetime of areas to explore...I've never ventured south of there so really can't give any advice.

Good luck and have fun!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

You really blew it Jim. Now this person has a 100% chance of diving on someone else spot.


 

I know one really nice place, but the thing is that it’s in Greece, Corfu island  . Its amazing spearfishing there! Will fly there again in July. Looking forward to! Would like to stay longer this time: about 2 months, will see Greek life from inside. Thought about buying apartment in Greece to be able to stay longer and not to search for hostel each time (in summer it becomes a disaster, both the prices and availability).

Just remember that hwy 1 is closed south of Gorda. So if you drive down 1 to camp/spear, you’ll have to cut across the coast range via Nacimiento-Furgeson Rd (it drops down to hwy 1 @ Kirk Creek campground). That road is semi-dangerous so allow plenty of time to drive over it, and be careful.

I'm pretty ignorant of much of Socal diving these days, but have dived a bit around Santa Barbara. I noticed Refugio State Beach got mentioned. It's a nice area, but let me mention something: it gets a lot of diving. One time I spent a full day there, just chilling after a morning dive. I dove the little kelp patch to the north end, which has slightly better structure than the much bigger kelp beds out and to the south (they come from flattish shale rock bottom). Anyway, over the day, including a few kayak divers, I counted 26 divers hitting that northern patch! Not much chance of surprising a white sea bass there, at least on a weekend!
A much fishier spot, no doubt because of the vastly better bottom structure, is just south of the "pier" by the Ritz Calton Bacara. I don't know the story, but somehow there is a substantial pile of concrete riprap chunks on south side of that "pier." It's the only place I've seen a pair of decent lings out free swimming together plus a few small white seabass.
It has quite a few lobster traps in season and you'll see a lot of smalls in among all the kelp covered chunks. Easiest access of course is by boat (if you tie up directly under the structures you will have a LOT of bird shit on your boat (I found out the hard way), but anchoring close is fine. Also, although the Ritz probably doesn't advertise it, they have to allow public parking and an access path through their resort so it is completely do-able to park there and walk/swim your way out there.
Good luck, dive safe!

Thanks for all the responses still planning out the trip! Ill lyk what I do! Its a bummer though I havent been diving recently because of school