Well this evening surf fishing trip was nothing short of phenominal!
Hit Carpinteria state beach today after work from 5:00 till 8:00pm, Things started out a little slow till about 6:00 when I tried a different type of retrieve with my grub, instead of my normal chuck and wind I went to a ultra slow presentation, I was turning the handle on my sedona 2000 just slow enough to keep my line tight as it rolled around in the surf, and from there on out it got stupid! Before I knew it had caught and released a dozen perch some of them real nice! Then I get hammered and its starts smoking the 6lb off my reel, after 5 minutes of running up and down the beach in comes a 3ft shovel nose shark! (fun stuff) then I do another dozen perch then I hook up big time again! This time he breaks my hook off after 10min and about 50yds of tugowar! Then as the sun stars to set things kinda slow down but Im still picking at them when my grub feels like it got snagged about 12-15ft out, then it starts going side ways, now what do I have?? This things heavy and swimming right at me! I side step it and a 23in Halibut goes swimming by! That one was little tricky to land but after 5min of chasing it around I got him! My second ever legal halibut from the surf! After himhawing around for a minute or so I decide to let him go!
Final count: 34 barred surf perch with (11) going 1-2lbs! A 23in halibut and the shovel nose.
Conditions were much improved from the last time I fished this beach,this evening I had moderate surf, but not too bad, water color was decent, and the weeds were not too bad either..
All fish were caught on hammer hooked motoroil/redflake BigHammer perch grubs fished on a carolina rig
On a Shimano CPS76M spinning rod and Sedona 2000 reel, with 6lb main line and a 6lb flouro leader..Larry

Way to go Larry!! What a great variety of action, sounds like a great trip. I can't believe the halibut swam right at you! My evening trip a week ago was pretty similar, I think that there's something to fishing as the sun sets, the fish seem to get really active.

In fact, my buddy Warren and I are fishing Hendry's beach this Thursday evening, if you wanna try it out with us. We like fishing the south side (facing the water, thats to the left of the restaurant), we'll be there from about 5:30-7:30pm. I know you suggested in the other direction, but my buddy and I have both caught corbina on the southern side in recent weeks. If you're interested, let me know, I'd be happy to learn some more tips/techniques from ya! ;-)

Hey Daniel, thanks for the invite, but ive got stuff to do on thursday after work, that and Hendrys is a little far for me to drive for a after work session(live in ventura, work in oxnard) but I might be up there saturday if its too blown out to take my boat out...Larry

I didn't realize you lived down there. Actually, I'm living in Thousand Oaks and working in Woodland Hills, but I'm driving up to SB today to fish with my buddy and have dinner with my fiancee....two things that make it worth the drive ;-)