[Ken Jones]

4-minute film. Shows you why to fish by the pilings.

http://www.ocean.com/film.asp?locationid=44&resourceid=7409&ProdId=&CatId=11&TabID=&SubTabID=



And, by the way, it has our favorite "fish expert" Milton Love.

[Bat-Ray-Dave]

Wow! The kind. More people should do more films of other piers as well.

[mel]

Wouldn't be able to see much underneath some of the piers around here. Nice, clear water down south, that's for sure. Cool footage of the halibut feeding though. Wonder what it was eating.

[kelpangler]

Cool video, I was wondering what that halibut was eating, too.

I bought a DVD earlier this year called Liquid Safari that covers SoCal waters. It's divided into coastal and offshore areas with some really amazing footage (no piers, though).

[onelilcrazyazn]

wow nice i should start fishing closer to the pilings now ahha

[snookie]

My brother has a camera for filming under the water. He has done the Balboa Pier several times. There is also a lot of trash there besides fish. It is interesting. I have one for our boat. Used it in some of the shallower areas we have fished. What a view we get.

Snookie

[Ken Jones]

There used to be film showing the pipe reef next to the Goleta Pier but I think it was taken down.

[SurfFisher08]

I've went down on SCUBA at the Port San Luis Pier as well as Santa Cruz Wharf. Port San Luis looks like a dump down there and is like a barren desert.

Santa Cruz Wharf has tons of fish down there and you would never had guessed it from it's usually bad fishing. Lots of keeper greenling, rockfish, and huge perch.

[Ken Jones]

I wonder what the bottom looks at piers that are near outfalls (since many piers were built in part to serve as platforms for outfall pipes). In particular, I'm wondering what the bottom looks like at Pacifica.

[Bat-Ray-Dave]

I wonder what the cost would be to install one at a pier and have real time video. Have the monitor on the pier for the public to see. It would attract more people I think once the word got out. A feasibility study should be done. I would contribute to one at Seal if it was proposed and approved if they needed public funding. Maybe the WCB should look into it.

[piemel]

high tech equipment on a public pier?

if it won't be vandalized within a week it will be corroded to bits

[Bat-Ray-Dave]

Of course not on 24hr piers. It wouldn't last long with all the riffraff out there.

[SurfFisher08]

Pacifica would be a pretty cool pier to check out down there and my dive buddies and I discussed it. The surface swim would be too dangerous in my opinion since the waves are usually curling pretty hard there.

I really want to check out all those old Monterey Piers. Capitola would be a good pier to check out too. BTW, the sea lions do not like you down there. They will stare you down and bark at you underwater.

[Ken Jones]

Monterey Wharf #2

“The 30 to 40-ft-high pilings provide a treasure trove of interesting and colorful marine life. Carpets of pink, lavender and orange corynactis (strawberry anemones) cover many of the pilings. Amid the anemones, large acorn barnacles reach for food with their pitchfork-shaped feet and suck plankton off their ornate plumage. Other pilings are covered with snow-white anemones, feather duster worms and reddish-brown bryozoans. A wide variety of gaudy nudibranches also populate the area...The base of the wooden columns is a virtual junkyard, replete with old shoes, tires, bottles and cans, and myriad other human castoffs. Because this area was and is used extensively by fishermen, there is also a great deal of monofilament fishing line, as well as hooks and even pieces of old gill nets."

—Steve Rosenberg
Diving & Snorkeling, Monterey Peninsula & Northern California

[SurfFisher08]

Yup, I've been tangled a few times. It's really no big deal and sounds worse than it is. You just have to always carry a dive knife or dive shears to get you out of those situations. Sabiki rigs are the worst and will get all tangled up in your wetsuit.