10/19-10/21 quick trip to San Diego

My buddy Shirk (Polarcat) invited me down to San Diego for some fishing and I was definitely in. We were only going to have about two and a half days to fish, so we planned on one day to go for rockfish/other big fish, one day for bay bass and the half day we planned to surf fish. Since I had never fished in SD, I was pretty excited to catch anything.
 
Day 1 we launched out of Mariner's Cove by Mission Bay Park in Mission Bay. We paddled out of the channel and headed south to Sunset Cliffs. What struck me right away was how chilly it was. With the fog and cold weather I thought I was still in NCAL. Okay, it wasn't that cold, but about 10 degrees colder than normal. We fished all the way out the channel, but didn't catch anything. As soon as we rounded the corner we started to smell something foul. It smelled marine in nature, but extremely nasty. Then I saw the brown water (a cross between chocolate milk and diarrhea) and I had my first "taste" of the red tide. We paddled through it, worked our way to Sunset Cliffs and found the kelp. As I fished I felt worse and worse and I knew I was getting sea sick. After about an 1.5 hours Shirk asked me how I felt and he let me know he was also feeling sick. This surprised me because he never gets sea sick. We hung in there for about 4 hours and then had to head in. I couldn't get anything to bite, Shirk got a rockfish and a barred sand bass. It was disappointing, but we had a good paddle and I could see how cool this area would be if we weren't fighting the stinky tide. Next time.
 
Day 2 We decided we weren't heading out into the crap anymore and decided to have fun with bay bass. So we launched from the Glorietta Bay launch ramp in San Diego Bay and fished towards and past the Coronado Bridge. This was a great choice because we had a fantastic day. We tried a few different swim baits, but the only one that really worked for us was what our buddy JT sarcastically calls the "Pink Lady." All areas produced, but working the grass mats and the docks was the most productive. Shirk caught the most fish slaying the spotted bass and pulling in the biggest at just over 14." I didn't get quite so many spots, but I added a few different fish that kept it exciting. We ended up finishing just before dark after about 8 hours on the water. If you find yourselves in SD and want to have a fun day, I suggest this area with light gear, it's a blast.
 
Day 3 was a short session of surf fishing on South Mission Beach. We had some things come up so we only had about 2 hours of surf fishing. We also hit the low tide and that didn't help us at all. We did manage to catch about 10 barred surfperch and I lucked out with another guitarfish. Our biggest SP was about 11". Unfortunately with the cold weather we didn't have the usual "visuals" you have at a SD beach, but a few brave girls were out in bikinis and that made the trip interesting. Overall, a fun day on the beach and a good end to my trip.
 
I learned a lot this trip and next time I'm definitely going to get out there and finally get my sheepshead I've been dreaming about. We did more fishing than picture taking, but here's a few pics from our trip.

Scott

Here's our last two spots we caught right at the end of the day (Shirk's largest). And a couple pics from our Mission beach surf perch trip.

Good action, Kraken.  Thanks for taking us along.   

Looks like a great trip,

Thanks for sharing,

Thanks for sharing the Kraken, I really do miss SD.

Here's a few more pics of the trip

We missed the other members of Team Bridgeport (Jebidiah Tubbs and Hydrospider) on this one but the Kraken and I worked it for a couple of days.  The red tide really crapped on us day 1 but San Diego Bay was a blast.

Thanks for taking the drive to San Diego Kraken

Polarcat

wow, those are exotic species for us up here in central cali. Corvina, what a trip!  I've always had a soft spot for the lowly guitar fish, they are neat sharks (tasty too).

That was a cool report, thanks guys!

Thanks guys for the kind words. I wished we had gotten into some big fish, but we did have a blast "going small." Next trip I'm bringing my trout rod and using 6# test for a great battle.

Well, I found one more pic of a little bonito I got. These guys are a blast, his tail never stopped the whole time I was holding him.

That looks like mad fun!! Thanks for the report and all the great pics.

-FF