I'll believe it when I see it. All the rays have been eaten by white sharks or migrated to a far away island, out of reach of any pendulum cast.

Fished Spot B again 1730-1930. No bites on the bat rod, some on the UL. I don't think there are actually any real fish in OC...?

ONCE AGAIN, a dog owner walks by me, stops 10 yards up current, throws ball into the water, dog goes and gets it, is nearly swept into my line in 10 seconds. I hop up and retrieve my line asap. I had nothing good to say so I muttered something about at least the dog got her ball when he apologized to me.

Unfortunately, there was a stupid Bike Race that closed much of MB drive and all of Fiesta Island.  I did a long walk fishing and flew the drone along a lot of beaches, but the really high tide made everything muddy, green, or both.  Needless to say I didn't get any good intel, but I will try again this week.  I'm also sending out a few guys to check the front of the bay in case something is happening up there.

...but the bats are there.

Quote from: Tim524 on March 01, 2026, 06:08:50 AMMake the drive and Join Team San Diego, we have dogs, horses and topless girls on boats to look at when the Bats aren't biting 

When Alicia finishes nursing school I may be joining Team SD indefinitely, so I gotta show you guys up this year while I can!

And Newport has no shortage of girls! Unfortunately it isn't the Saturday Night Girl Fight though...

Make the drive and Join Team San Diego, we have dogs, horses and topless girls on boats to look at when the Bats aren't biting 

Hahaha, well nice way to strike some spots off the list. I especially love the dog story as Squatch and I have more than I can even recall.

I'm heading down tomorrow for some aerial recon. I have 5 areas I want to check out from above before I make our call for Team SD.

Fished 2 spots this morning with Jake on a big outgoing tide, 0930-1245.

First was totally new to me and looked promising from the satellite view, but got no bites. Several hurdles for that spot, but might be okay on an incoming instead of an outgoing tide next time.

Second spot was also tough. Soaked for bats and for UL critters, only got a few short bites on the UL. Some signs of rays feeding on the shoreline. Walked by a guy who said he hadn't caught anything, then walked by his stringer of short spotties. I would have called the DFW if he weren't packing up.

Dog off of a leash ran into the water and into my UL line at one point, thankfully didn't get tangled. I recently dog-sat for a big doodle and the experience further enlightened me to all the hazards for dogs. It affirms my view of how many stupid dog owners are out there.

Hot day! Drank a whole gatorade, even took my shirt off for a wee bit to activate some melanin. Unfortunately I blinded Jake and he will be unable to pre-fish with me tomorrow.

Gonna try something else for pre-fishing tomorrow, not entirely sure what but it will probably involve an incoming tide.

Too bad no pintos but good to bring home something different in the crabs. You had an excellent run of fishing the past 6 months from the yellowtail units to everything else, glad you made it to the other side in one piece, albeit with some shots in the shoulder.

With the exciting pictures I saw of the Pinto Spiny Lobsters from another fisherman here in SD, I was real hopeful of finding a Pinto or Green Spiny here in SD this night.



I really wanted to fish a little more North but my buddy was dead set on fishing SD Bay again.  Not my boat so not my call.

We had quite a few BIG ships roll past us as the evening went on.  A little too close if you ask me.  hahaha



30 hoops pulled and we still didn't get a single lobster, even a short one.  The one thing that was crawling though was the crabs, of all shapes and sizes! 

Lots of swimmer and sheep crab...



and more yellow and red rock crab than I ever remember catching.  All on Mud bottom so I have no idea why there were so many.



We finally got a short lobster and were stoked just to finally stop blasting out goose eggs on the white board.  We adjusted nets at this point and got a visit from the navy since we were a bit close.  The guy was really cool and we shared intel with him.  He told us the guys that were in the apparent "Hot Zone" only got 4 legals between the 5 boats that were set up there.  Not a good sign.

We kept (or I should say my buddy kept) pulling and pulling hoops.  We caught well over 2 dozen legal rock crab, but many had eggs so we let a lot go.  It was already 2:00 am and all we could manage were 2 legal bugs (which we were super stoked for) so we decided to pull and drop in front of the ramp just as a last quick drop hail mary.



Well, my buddy measured out a wrong amount of line and we watched one of the heavy nets slowly sink 10 feet below the boat.  He was going to jump in, but I was like, there has to be a better way.  I grabbed one of his jigs and tied on an extra hook on some 100# test he had onboard and went fishing.  Well, he went fishing first but had zero luck, so we switched and tried to see if my abilities to lose a lure in the tree was better.  Well, damn, I got it!  We recovered the net and reset but I was about done when all of a sudden 10 cops with their light blazing all stopped in front of the ramp with some suspects in the middle of them shouting... WTF!?!?

Well we had to stay out there until they left and pulled our last set about 3:45 am and found another lobster!  It was a short, but just a random place for a bug along with another big crab.

Long story short was I didn't get home until 5:00 am and was exhausted!  I spent the day cleaning, cooking and shucking the crabs for the meat (what a process that was) and now have a bunch of things to do before starting work on Monday.

Well, not the successful lobster trip for Pinto's I was hoping for, but I did bring home the good haul of crab.  Definitely my best ever haul of them.



Well, so much less fishing for me coming up soon now that I'll be back at work, but it's been one hell of a six month run of fish fo me, I'm pretty good for a bit.

Until Next Tide!

So, this may be a tricky one.  It specifically says "California Spiny Lobster" in the regs, but it also only says "Spiny Lobster Report Card" and "Spiny Lobster" multiple times throughout the regs.  My guess is it would still have to measure up to the gauge used on Cali Spinys.  I'm sure there would be a few wardens who would let it go, but most probably would state something like I mentioned in the beginning of this post.