1. Buy a license (quite expensive for non residents)
2. Fish off a public pier/jetty (no license required)
3. Fish on one of two "free fishing" days/year
(I guess there's also technically a 4th option, to fish without a license- but i'd not risk it as they take fisheries enforcement a whole lot more seriously than in the UK. )
As I was on a family holiday with fishing very much on the back bench, I decided not to spend 130$ on a licence, instead opting for options 2 and 3.
A few days south from San Francisco we came across a large pier. I thought it was quite an odd location for a pier, it looked rather out of place. Picture a large sandy, shallow bay fringed with eucalyptus and cypress trees, a few small farm buildings and an enormous wooden pier about 250 m long. It really didn't fit the scene.
Considering it was midday, about 30 Celsius and a 25 mph cross-shore wind I didn't really think it would be worth fishing. We'd only really stopped to have lunch as there were plenty of picnic tables and a good view.
I took a walk along the pier regardless and saw two fishermen packing up, they had caught two small pilchards on sabikis but nothing else. The water couldn't have been more than about 10 foot deep even at the end of the pier, so I figured any fish would be in deeper water till the evening. Staring into the slightly murky water I noticed a dark patch, about 20x10m. It looked just like a patch of reef , but this 'patch' moved. Only very slightly, but over 5 minutes it was now about 20m to the left. Baitfish? Or a huge raft of weed? I ran back to the car and grabbed a travel rod to confirm. Casting a metal lure against the stiff wind into the 'patch' soon resulted in catching a small horse mackerel. More fishermen had started setting up- perhaps 10 were now positioned along the pier, all casting downwind. Despite there being a very obvious mass of bait, everyone else was casting out onto barren sand.
I could feel my metal bump into the baitfish, but nothing larger was having a go. I decided to change to a delalande swat shad and 15g jighead and bump it along the bottom beneath the bait. This turned out to be a great idea, as about 3 casts later I had a take! A big weight pulled back and stripped a fair bit of line from my reel. What had I hooked? It felt big, and also quite like a flatfish. I'd done a little research into potential target species, but was under the impression that it wouldn't be easy to catch a halibut from the shore with no prior knowledge. Sure enough, a California halibut soon surfaced!!
One problem - I didn't have a drop net. Nor did anyone else. This meant I had to walk the fish 240m back to shore, past angled barnacle encrusted pier pilings. It was a heart-in-mouth 10 minutes. I nearly lost the fish multiple times as it made several dives for cover, but by some miracle I landed the fish! Just under 10Lb of prime halibut, well over minimum size. As it's a well managed fishery I decided to keep the fish, which we enjoyed over the next couple of days. Possibly the best fish I've ever eaten?
I didn't have a chance to fish for a couple weeks, until a "free" fishing day came round. To cut a long story short, we walked about 6km to a remote surf beach to try for striped bass. You're probably thinking I'm deluded, people only catch striped bass in the Atlantic, right? Surprisingly, a couple hundred juvenile bass were transported from the East coast to San Francisco bay in the late 1800's and a healthy population soon established.
The spot was superb, the wind however really wasn't. 30mph cross-shore again... 10ft swell made things interesting too. We fished metals as nothing else could even make it to the shore dump! I blanked over the 5 hrs but my dad managed to catch a beautiful 60cm+ bass and a tiny weever fish. Actually, I did foul hook a crab..!
I was quite impressed with the quality of California's fishing and imagine it's well worth going back to explore the fishing in more depth. There's also stacks of other marine life to keep you interested if the fish aren't biting- saw orcas, elephant seals, sea otters etc..!
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