Seal Beach Pier

Date: January 27, 2005; To: PFIC Message Board; From: smellsfishy909 ; Subject: Seal Beach Pier

 During the warmer months, the lights from the boat launches near the end attract tons of queenfish. This in turn attracts predators to the feast. I have caught several big sand bass throwing Fish Traps under the pier near the fish cleaning station. Otherwise, the mid pier area near the lifeguard tower can be good for bat rays and thornbacks if you like that kind of thing.

Date: January 23, 2011; To: PFIC Message Board; From: Redkorn ; Subject: Seal Beach Epic Report

 Time From Sat night to 7 am Sunday.
Rights: 6-tf dropper loop rig with whole squid with 2 (0//2) hooks
Hoop: Ambush Promar with perch and squid.

Had some nice company to start off with. After about the 2nd set with the hoopI got crabs…good size crabs. A lot of keepers too but since they were jumbo female I decided to let the breed one more year. Around 2am I got hard hit. I have cord around my rod to keep it from flying off. My rod was dancing over the side. I rush to it. Push up the drag. Shaking heads and mad dog runs…I so found myself near the surf. It breaks the water line …Its a 5ft T shark. Then it make another run…I push up the drag more trying to get it back into the surf zone….the it makes a mad dash under the pier =( only got 30lb line…it breaks. I cry a little. Call for a ride home after thinking about what happened at 5am. My buddy’s said “What the hell was your plan to land that monster?” I replied “To bring him into the surf and bleed him out” My buddy replied “I think that was his plan to LOL”. He went back to sleep and I toss out one more rig waiting for my ride. 20mins later I get hit hard again. But It only was making short runs out into the open sea. So I put the drag low walk over to the surf. By now the morning crew guys are starting to show up and watch the my drama. I get it in the surf. Monster Battle. 4-5ft Wings span. Its head alone was about 15 to 22in high. A young boy offered to hold my rod so I can run down the pier to the surf and take care of it. I really didn’t know what was thing until Im looking this monster in the eyes. I thought “Now what you got all the people watching you”. So I ask for some pliers and cut the line. But the big boy is far to big and heavy to make out on the surf. He still had his barb. So I took a clip off my key chain and some shoe string. Broke of the clamp. And put it under his jaw. Then moving in front of him into the surf I was able to get him out enough for him to swim on his own. I freak for a few moments because I’m thinking I might step on him or get hit. But he made it out fine. The sad part of this was I set the boy like in an old western movie to get my friend to come down and help. The boy came back and said this “He said your on your own deal with it”. I was like WTF?. So after battling.. running down the pier…down the sand….thinking hard and fast and getting soak wet in Jan I make my way to the car. We pack up and here I am to tell you this story. Lest night at seal beach ever. Sorry no pics of the monster battie since my buddy never came. But there a few pics of the t fight. Head on down they are hitting the squid high in the water.

Potpourri — Possibly more than you want to know about the Seal Beach Pier

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — Fish and Game fish surveys done from 2004-2009 show 27 different species and a somewhat typical list of species for a SoCal sandy-beach pier. The species (numerically) — jacksmelt, yellowfin croaker, Pacific mackerel, queenfish, walleye surfperch, Pacific bonito (all fish from one year), topsmelt, white croaker, Pacific sardine, spotfin croaker, California corbina, shovelnose guitarfish, shiner perch, California halibut, white seabass, barred sandbass, black croaker, black perch, bat ray, gray smoothhound shark, California scorpionfish, sargo, opaleye, jack mackerel, barred surfperch, silver surfperch and petrale sole (probably a similar sole). Strange is the lack of a round stingray considering the following story.

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — Seal Beach is “Stingray Central” for both California and the nation. In fact, residents sometimes call the local waters “Ray Bay.” One fourth to one third of the entire nation’s wounds from stingrays occur on the mile-long beach that is home base for the pier. Therefore, don’t be too surprised if you pull in a round stingray when you’re fishing in the shallow, inshore surf area.

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — One visit saw me sharing the railing with “Bill,” a youthful 82 years of life. Bill had a million and one stories to tell but this book only has room for a couple. One was his story about a granddaughter and her first yellowtail. According to Bill, all anglers must eat the heart of the first yellowtail they catch. Sure enough, when he took his granddaughter fishing (on a partyboat) she caught her first yellowtail. Ditto several other anglers. Kiddingly, the deckhand cut out the hearts of the fish and offered them to the anglers. No one took up the offer until Bill’s granddaughter stepped up, took a swig of coke and gulped down the heart. The older anglers, now embarrassed, were forced to follow. A second tale concerned his use of “Mexican anchovies” to catch big fish like yellowtail. “What,” I asked, “is a Mexican anchovy?” “Simple,” Bill said, “it’s a strip of mackerel cut thin to resemble a large anchovy or sardine. It’s cast out, allowed to sink a few feet, and then reeled in very quickly. It kills the fish.” The gospel according to Bill!

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — If the pier and surrounding beach area looks familiar to you, it may be because both were main settings for “Sunset Beach,” the NBC soap opera that ran in the late ‘90s. The saucy show didn’t seem to reflect the “small town” character of Seal Beach but most local citizens didn’t seem to mind. They were proud of the attention their town received and didn’t object to the money the movie company poured into the city’s coffers. Although some locals worried that a mob of curious fans might descend on their city, others pointed out that didn’t happen in the past when the area was used for films. Back in the ’20s, when Cecil B. DeMille filmed the original silent version of “The Ten Commandments,” the local shoreline was used as the site for the parting of the Red Sea. If movie fans didn’t invade the beach to see “Moses” surely they wouldn’t invade the area for this show. Of course the actresses in “The Ten Commandments” were dressed a little more conservatively than the vixens in the TV show. By the way, the romantic Sunset Beach Pier (where, according to legend two people would meet and fall in love) was of course the Seal Beach Pier.

The pier and adjacent downtown area by the way seem to show up in many movies. In a scene in “As Good As It Gets” Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt walk along a pier supposedly set in Chesapeake Bay. It actually is the Seal Beach Pier spruced up by the addition of several thousand lights.

In “American Pie 2,” Seal Beach is portrayed as Grand Harbor, Michigan. Both the town and pier are seen frequently in the movie. In one scene, where the boys cruise down the main street, you can see such local landmarks as O’Malley’s Irish Pub, Walt’s Wharf Restaurant, and the pier.

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — In an interesting discussion one day on the Orange County Register message board (in response to an article on anglers catching thresher sharks from the Huntington Beach Pier), the following item was posted by Monta Erikson: “My grandfather caught sharks off Seal Beach Pier—1943-era. Food rationing during WWII—this helped feed his extended families working in the defense plants. Shovelnose most frequently.” So, the catchin’ and eatin’ of sharks is not a new story.

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — Fish Bulletin #96 put out by the California Department of Fish Game in 1953 states: “There is a sport-fishing pier but no fish-cleaning sheds or canneries. Small amounts of commercially caught fish are landed here but the average has been about two tons per year… The catches have been barracuda, lobster, rockfish, and rock bass… In 1952 three party boats and one or two charter boats operated out of Seal Beach. One Sportfishing barge is anchored off the town.

<*}}}}}}}}}>< — 2012 saw a new danger arise to the fishing on the pier—local anglers asking that fishing be restricted. As usual, it was because anglers appeared to be making too much of a mess on the pier. However, nowhere in the story does it mention that the pier was restored in part with money from the Wildlife Conservation Board or that an agreement was made at the time to keep it open as a public fishing pier.

Should Seal Beach Restrict Fishing on the Pier?

Fishermen have been casting their lines off the Seal Beach Pier for the better part of a century, but on Tuesday a city official said she wants the city to consider curtailing the practice to keep the landmark clean.

City Councilwoman Ellery Deaton asked city staff to research potential Seal Beach Pier fishing limits – including the possibility of creating specific fishing times, specific areas for fishing or issuing citations for anglers who break the rules – for a future council meeting discussion. “The fishing is out of control on the pier,” Deaton said. “I think maybe it’s time to get it on an agenda.”

Deaton said when she talks to her constituents they say the fishermen are causing a problem, especially by cutting their bait on the benches. “They leave their trash,” Deaton said. “They leave their fish. They leave their bait.”

In a brief interview with Patch after the meeting, Deaton said, “I don’t want to end fishing out there. I want all of us to be able to enjoy the pier.” Visitors “should be able to use a bench to sit down on and not have to sit on fish guts,” Deaton added during a later interview. City Manager Jill Ingram said that if the item were added to a future agenda, it probably wouldn’t be discussed until 2013.

Seal Beach resident Laura Ellsworth, chair of the Seal Beach Pier bench renovation project, agrees with Deaton. Ellsworth is concerned that fishermen would continue to use the wood on the benches as cutting boards, damaging the work that volunteers recently fixed. “As we are restoring, we are finding fish guts all over the wood and the backrest,” Ellsworth said.

Graham Day, store manager of Norm’s Bait and Tackle, said any proposed fishing restrictions would be a bad idea because it “deters people from coming into our city to spend money.” He added: “I think they should just let it be. I don’t think they need to restrict it.”

As for the benches? “The benches aren’t anything fancy anyway,” Day said, but added that if the city doesn’t want people to use them as cutting boards they should put signs up. “I don’t really fish off the pier much myself,” Day said. “But I service hundreds of people every day that do.”

Here is the text of the city code regarding fishing in the city.

9.05.065 Fishing

1. Each person fishing from the city beach or city pier shall have due regard for the safety of persons on the beach or in the water.
2. No person fishing from the city pier shall cast the line overhead or across the deck of the pier.
3. No person shall use or possess more than 2 fishing poles on the city pier for the purpose of fishing from the pier.
4. No person shall use or possess a bow and arrow, crossbow and arrow or similar device for the purpose of fishing from the city beach, city pier or other city property.

Also according to Code 9.05.010 C, city lifeguards have the power to restrict or prohibit fishing on the city beach.

—John Crandall, Los Alamitos-Seal Beach Patch, November 14, 2012

<*}}}}}}}}}>< —Tis unbelievably sad! For years Ruby’s Diner set out at the end of the pier offering up good food and drinks for tourists, locals, and the anglers on the pier. Then needed repairs and disputes with the city led to the restaurant’s closure. Soon the end was fenced off and the city began years of unsuccessful attempts to find a new restaurant. Everyone had different people to bame but the bottom line is that the end still sits empty and anglers still cannot use the end section of the pier. Doesn’t say much for the city.