Deaner,
This will probably be a pretty healthy post, so get yourself a cup of coffee right now... :-) Let's start with an overview of the rigs used out here. Probably the most versatile, and at least most used by me, is the sliding egg sinker setup. It's a lot like carolina rigging, only instead of the brass weight and glass bead, there's a lead egg sinker. And instead of a soft plastic lure, there's a bait hook. So it's an egg sinker above a swivel, with about a 2 to 4 ft. leader below that, going to the hook. You can fish both squid strips and livebait on this setup. Typically you'll fish between 1/2 oz. and 2 oz. sliding sinkers on this rig. There are a few variations of this rig which basically accomplish the same thing, like instead of using a swivel, you can use a split shot to hold the egg sinker up, or you could use a rubbercore weight. For stuff above 2 or 3 ounces, and deeper than about 40-60 ft. depending on current and stuff, we have rig number two: the dropper loop setup. This is another heavily used rig for all types of species. This is very similar to an amped up dropshot rig (you may not be familiar with that either, since it's a CA thing...). You typically put a 3-8 oz. torpedo sinker on the end of the line, and a couple feet up tie either a spider hitch, or a dropper loop (you'll have to ask a deckhand to show you, or look it up on the net, or stop in a tackle shop and ask them, if you don't know how to tie it) with your hook on it. For rockfishing, you can add one or two more dropper loops to it. You can also put a jerry's jig, or other heavy iron (metal jig) underneath it instead of the torpedo. The other, most simple, and my personal favorite, rig is flylining. Straight flyline is just a hook on the end of your line. You leave the reel in freespool and let that bait swim out away from the boat. This is when the fish are boiling (crashing the surface) and are very active, chasing bait and stuff. It can also be used to swim a bait through kelp to get those calico bass that are way in there. Fly line also includes adding a little bit of weight, like a splitshot, or a 1/4 oz. egg sinker, or even up to a 1/2 oz. egg sinker. Sardines are typically best for flylining because they're beefier and they swim better. These three rigs will get you through the day on the 1/2 day stardust, or 3/4 day seahawk here in santa barbara. Anything other than that, you can either fairly easily figure out how to tie from looking at somebody's rig, or the deckhands will tell you.

Now for artificials: Check out Rob's articles on this site about fishing plastics for calicos and halibut and stuff. It's good stuff and it will help you a lot in the learning process. Swimbaits (more commonly called plastics, or the rubber) are very useful if you know how to use em. They're also more fun to fish, and if you plan to release fish (I highly reccommend releasing calico bass) they typically don't swallow plastics as much as they do bait. Check Rob's articles for colors and stuff, amish Ed also recently posted a post on plastics on the main board, so check there too.

If you're gonna get serious about saltwater fishing (which it looks like you just might...) you're gonna need a few setups. A true tackle ho has 2 or 3 of everything, but for now, you'll eventually need to acquire these: a 15 or 20# plastics rod, a 30 or 40# jigstick, maybe one of your bass rods can be put to use for some open water calico bass flylining, a 20# bait stick, a 30# bait stick, and a 40# bait stick. For inshore, sportboat fishing, that'll get you through overnight trips. Calstar and G Loomis are very good rods, as well as seeker, old sabre rods, castaway (those are bass rods, but I've found their heavy crankbait rod perfect for light plastics), yada yada. Rob mentions gear in his articles too. 15-20# line will generally be your choice outfits for 1/2 day and 3/4 day. Unless you throw iron, then you'll go to 30 or 40. The Shimano Calcutta, IMO is a very good reel, but you gotta take care of that roller bearing. It's a good reel to put on your plastics rod, and/or your 20# bait rod. Progear reels are also sweet, they've got sizes for just about every application I've mentioned (they've got cool lookin handles too :-)). Penn makes solid reels, but they're customer service sucks. The good thing is that parts are pretty readily available, and they are fairly easy to work on. The jigmaster 500 is a good 30# bait reel. The 4/0 size will work for 40# bait. Another cool thing about Penn reels is you can buy accurate kits, or tiburon frames, and make them really sweet aftermarket reels. Down south for tuna, those guys get them "blue printed" to give them better precision (they basically rebuild parts of the reel with parts that are more exact to the manufacturer's blue print), causing them to perform better. But you don't have to worry about that, cause that's for the big gold reels. Newell reels cast really far, so they are good for throwing iron. The 332-5 is choice for surface iron. They are made of graphite though, which cuts down on weight, but you gotta take extra care when you wash em down afterwards. Hopefully I gave you an overview of what to expect. If I were you, I'd start out with the 9' plastics rod just because you can also fish bait on it, and you can cast in the surf fairly well, but at least once you get more into saltwater, you'll already have one of the rods checked off the list. Feel free to email if you need anything else.
-Brian