Bocaccio Archives - Pier Fishing in California

Seacliff State Beach Pier — Aptos

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required Only a few piers have truly unique features and this pier is/was one of them. The end of this wooden 500-foot-long pier connects to the old cement ship Palo Alto, a bad idea turned good that has now…

Capitola Wharf

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required While some piers along the coast (such as Seacliff) have characteristics that help define and give identity to the pier, here it is the area itself that makes the pier special. Supposedly the oldest seaside resort along the…

Moss Landing Pier aka Sandholdt Pier — Gone But Not Forgotten

Most of the earth’s continents are girded by shallow shelves that slope gently away from the land for many miles, their depths seldom greater than a few hundred feet. On the East Coast of the United States, the shelf stretches for more than one hundred…

Monterey Municipal Wharf #2

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required The floating docks of Monterey Harbor and the pilings beneath Municipal Wharf II provide a rich and diverse community created largely by human activity. Such communities have imaginatively been called “accidental zoos.”… At low tide the pilings, shaded…

Balboa Pier

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required Piers are one of the most romantic spots on earth! If you don’t believe me, tag along on a visit to Balboa Pier on almost any summer night. By 10 P.M., darkness has enveloped the pier. But while…

Santa Cruz Wharf

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required When I first sat down to write about this pier, I almost didn’t know where to start. Should I talk about the pier itself, the municipal wharf built in 1913, the wharf which is the longest of the…

Morro Bay North T-Pier

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required Named for their shape, two mid-sized piers sit at the north end of the Embarcadero in Morro Bay. They are only a short distance apart and the environments and fishing are nearly identical. Regardless of size, they are…

Morro Bay South T-Pier

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required Sitting just a few hundred yards south of the North T-Pier, the South T-Pier is slightly larger and seems to be seeing an increasing proportion of the local pier anglers choose it as home. Perhaps this is due…

Cayucos Pier

Public Pier — No Fishing License Required Don’t believe everything you read. On a visit to Hearst Castle I had read that the fishing at Cayucos was generally poor—and so, I avoided it for years. I would drive right by the town as I headed…

Bocaccio

Scorpionfishes and Rockfishes: Family Scorpaenidae Species: Sebastes Paucispinis (Ayres, 1854); from the Greek word sebastos (magnificent), and the Latin words pauci (few) and spinus (spines). Alternate Names: Commonly called salmon grouper or simply grouper. Less common names include rock salmon, lockjaw, salmon rockfish, brown bomber,…