My brother and I decided to try our luck on the sandbar in the Santa harbor. We were throwing 3" big hammers in various colors and neither of us got a single bite. We noticed that the water in the harbor was a dark red and smelled really bad, it looks like a nasty bloom is in effect. On a better note we fished the bait receiver on 7/9 from about 7-10pm using squid and small shiner perch we were catching near the sea landing docks. This was very productive, we managed to get 2 medium white sea bass on the squid and 3 halibut 1 reaching 23" all caught on the perch. Let me know please if any of you guys have had any luck in the harbor recently. I always see a bunch of guys float tubing and I am sure many of them post here on cal-fishing, I am curious as to what is working out for others.
#10264, "RE: SB Harbor Skunked 7/10" In response to Reply # 0
Seems like when the red tide gets really heavy the bite can shut off some. Years ago when I was fishing the harbor a lot this seemed to be the case. It also seems like when the red tide gets really heavy you get a ton of small mackrel, sardine, and sometimes chovies in the back of the harbor. When there is soo much food in there I think it makes the seabass bite in very short windows right at dawn and dusk.
#10277, "RE: SB Harbor Skunked 7/10" In response to Reply # 0
Hey man, we usually don't bother with bait because we do really well on swimbaits and crankbaits, plus it's less mess and hassle to deal with in the tube. Try a 5" rainbow trout big hammer for the seabass (straight wind, medium retrieve, toward the surface) and a 3 or 4" big hammer in lemon/lime, pepper trout, or sea wolf for the halibut. Rob wrote a halibut article on the site which will dial you in on the retrieve. Another bait to check out is the fastrac minnow or spoonbill minnow in black/silver or blue/silver. -Brian