I live in Los Angeles which has been crazy past week to say the least. My house and I are okay but a few of my friends lost everything other than what they wore when they dashed off their home at 3am plus a car they drove with. Brutal. I have been busy supporting them as best as I could. So this is an old news that I could not share earlier but I feel better later than never.
I’ve chatting with @Jellyfish on Instagram on and off and we decided we should meet up for our first 2025 season fishing. I proposed seal beach pier. I picked up ghost shrimp at Big Bait and arrived at the pier before 9 am. Jellyfish joined me at 10am with our lunch. We tried mid pier section with shrimp hi-lo while catching up on our lives. Nada. Nothing. Tried the surf break wall area. Upper pier for baitfish by sabiki, still nothing. We saw a regular picked up a couple surfperch but saw no one else landing nothing.
Jed had to leave for an afternoon appointment. I was gonna stay for evening bite. But still not even a tag. As I was concentrating on my game plan, this jolly old Mexican guy named Fred came around ask if I caught any. We grinned each other as I answered him NADA! He stuck around and we chatted. He asked me if I ever fished this newish pier in Long Beach. Veterans? No. Pier J. I knew of the spot for jetty fishing but apparently new fishing piers made in a few years ago. I complied to his invitation and we together moved to this pier.
Pier J is a huge cargo loading pier of the Long Beach port (not like our kind of piers) but a pair of new small piers have been made by the rock jetty that sides the Pier J. It is about 15-20 yard square size. It comes with bathrooms and bench but no running water. I learned after came back that Ken has visited this pier already but this complety went under my radar!
As I gave Fred a ride to this pier, he insisted that he buy us a meal. We stopped at Jack in the box. This pier was much fishier. Folks on jetty are catching small rockfish/sculpins. I found shiner perch schooling. I got them on shrimp-sweeten sabiki rig.
As getting darker after catching half dozen shiners, walleye surfperch and sargo started to bite.
Fred does not have a car so he needed to hitch a ride back home. He quickly found a ride back to his spot with another angler. So he took off after sharing a meal with me and fished about an hour together. While I was playing with the perch a couple showed up. They did not seem to know what they were doing. Exchanging a few words revealed in fact they just started to fish as a part of their new year resolution. Quickly a lady fishing next to me and I re-rigged their rod. They had a single rod between them and a guy was holding it. A girl started to handining with rugworm. As I observed her, wind was getting harder. I was not prepared to do night fishing. I was thinking I should probably call it a day then I saw she jumped up with her handline! Whatever it was must have gone into a rock. She ended up snagging rock and lost her rig. Her only rig. That’s when I reached my line, cut my rig and quickly tied to her line with all my leftover baits in her hand. I took off thinking, ya, it was not the most exciting fishing but it was the perfect way to start my 2025 fishing season with real good feelings in my heart. That's the way it goes. Things come and go. I forgot to bring any food with me but everyone fed me for the entire day.
Thanks for reading!
I’ve chatting with @Jellyfish on Instagram on and off and we decided we should meet up for our first 2025 season fishing. I proposed seal beach pier. I picked up ghost shrimp at Big Bait and arrived at the pier before 9 am. Jellyfish joined me at 10am with our lunch. We tried mid pier section with shrimp hi-lo while catching up on our lives. Nada. Nothing. Tried the surf break wall area. Upper pier for baitfish by sabiki, still nothing. We saw a regular picked up a couple surfperch but saw no one else landing nothing.
Jed had to leave for an afternoon appointment. I was gonna stay for evening bite. But still not even a tag. As I was concentrating on my game plan, this jolly old Mexican guy named Fred came around ask if I caught any. We grinned each other as I answered him NADA! He stuck around and we chatted. He asked me if I ever fished this newish pier in Long Beach. Veterans? No. Pier J. I knew of the spot for jetty fishing but apparently new fishing piers made in a few years ago. I complied to his invitation and we together moved to this pier.
Pier J is a huge cargo loading pier of the Long Beach port (not like our kind of piers) but a pair of new small piers have been made by the rock jetty that sides the Pier J. It is about 15-20 yard square size. It comes with bathrooms and bench but no running water. I learned after came back that Ken has visited this pier already but this complety went under my radar!
As I gave Fred a ride to this pier, he insisted that he buy us a meal. We stopped at Jack in the box. This pier was much fishier. Folks on jetty are catching small rockfish/sculpins. I found shiner perch schooling. I got them on shrimp-sweeten sabiki rig.
As getting darker after catching half dozen shiners, walleye surfperch and sargo started to bite.
Fred does not have a car so he needed to hitch a ride back home. He quickly found a ride back to his spot with another angler. So he took off after sharing a meal with me and fished about an hour together. While I was playing with the perch a couple showed up. They did not seem to know what they were doing. Exchanging a few words revealed in fact they just started to fish as a part of their new year resolution. Quickly a lady fishing next to me and I re-rigged their rod. They had a single rod between them and a guy was holding it. A girl started to handining with rugworm. As I observed her, wind was getting harder. I was not prepared to do night fishing. I was thinking I should probably call it a day then I saw she jumped up with her handline! Whatever it was must have gone into a rock. She ended up snagging rock and lost her rig. Her only rig. That’s when I reached my line, cut my rig and quickly tied to her line with all my leftover baits in her hand. I took off thinking, ya, it was not the most exciting fishing but it was the perfect way to start my 2025 fishing season with real good feelings in my heart. That's the way it goes. Things come and go. I forgot to bring any food with me but everyone fed me for the entire day.
Thanks for reading!
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