Took the float tube down to the harbor after work tonight. The weather was nice, the water was clear by harbor standards (6 feet or so), but it was still rather chilly.

I cast around for 30 minutes or so for nothing but ronkie bites. Landed one mighty ronkie and fed it to a pelican. Pretty much every cast out in to the deeper channel area was ronkie bit.

All of a sudden bait started popping up out of no where. I saw a few baits pop the surface, cast a 5" Big Hammer over there and caught a short seabass, just a little guy about 18". A few casts later I missed another one. This seemed promising :) But after a while, bait was popping all over the place and I didn't have any more real hits. I think the bait up top is small mackerel but I'm not 100%.

So overall my feeling right now about SB inshore fishing is that there are a few fish around, but the water needs to warm up before they really start biting. I don't have a super strong sense of what temps normally are this time of year, but looking at the terrafin images it looks pretty cold to me

http://www.terrafin.com/sstview/samples/freesocal.htm

Throw the smaller 4" Hammer Rob on a lighter head and you might get the bites you want. D-shot can be effective in the colder water also. I imagine this stuff would work up there for you.

It's funny, I've actually been trying the 3" a fair amount because the water is so cold. I got the little halibut at goleta on 3" and a lot of ronkie bites in the harbor on it. My problem is that my bass fishing mentality carries over to saltwater and I always want to use a bigger lure in hopes of catching something bigger. Like if the sea biscuits start actually biting in the harbor, I'm going to get some of the new 6.5" and use those :)