Bryan and I surf fished East Goleta Beach this morning for 2 hours. We were targeting halibut with the 3 inch Big Hammers. The halibut weren’t over-abundant but the massive perch were. We got 3 short halibut along with at least 15 barred surfperch in the 11 to nearly 17 inch range (largest was 16 7/8 inches). Most of the perch were in the 13 - 15 inch range.
All of my fish were caught on the 3 inch Sea Wolf colored Hammer with a 3/16 oz. Assalt Round Ball Head and Pro-Cure Shrimp sauce.
Bryan’s fish were caught on the 3 inch Bleeding Mackerel with a 1/4 oz. Assalt Darter head and Pro-Cure Shrimp sauce with one fish on the Excalibur Minnow crankbait.
Hey there LeapinBass,
Sounds like more was leapin’ than the bass! Awesome, I must confess, I’ve never got close to a 16 7/8inch BSP. Must have been a real rush. Seems like the big perch are happy to chomp on the 3inch and even 4inch hammers and a few other softbaits for the last 10 days or so. Maybe I should put away the finesse noodling pole for now and just chunk 3~5inch stuff for the halibut and whatever decides to take a whack at them.
East Goleta, Humm.. How was the Sunday crowd (beach and surf)?
Great report, Thank you,
JapanRon
The beach had no one on it as we were only there from 6:45 - 8:45 am.
We fish for halibut quite a bit using the 3 inch Big Hammers and large perch “by-catch” are not uncommon. We’ve had a few days in the past few years where we’ve caught monster perch like that on the swimbaits.