Bait
 

Anyone willing to share how the bait situation is in LJ....?

The bait is in the water.

...and probably fishy.

or inky.

or crabby.

I was out at la jolla yesterday.

Caught nothing but lizard fish on the sabiki. Friend caught no bait at all on his. We gave up ~9am and switched to plastic and frozen squid. Saw no boils, no visible schools, very little surface activity.

Water was full of kelp forest debris. Sabiki kept getting eel grass stuck on it. plenty of patties on the surface within 100ft of old surface forest edge.

Current was reversed. Kept getting pushed east rather than south/SW like the rest of the summer.

The secret to making bait
 

I just can't share it, but I will say it does not involve day light

so why didn't you use the lizard fish?

This site is starting to be a microcosm of US society: the rich get richer and the poor get toyed with by the rich.

The bait at LJ has been hard to come by. The anglers at LJ are a secretive bunch, band together and don't share too much info because they feel you are using this site to circumvent hard work and time on the water. No hand outs, you have to earn it, sound familiar?

Bait moves around. Here are some tips; talk to people on the beach. Watch where people go after they launch. Keep your head on a swivel and look at the water surface for clues and learn sonar returns to identify bait.

Good luck. I could just tell you where to go but if the bait moves on you won't know what to do then.

:cheers1:

sounds about right
 

Fishing has always been secretive nothing new here. If you have bait you have a better chance at fish( not a guarantee ), summer bait and winter bait are in two totally different places and yes time on the water will eventually give you the knowledge of the LJ fishery.

Just an FYI, the surface bite is going to be almost non-existent from here till next spring. Might want to add a few yoyo's to your arsenal.

Almost is the key word.... the best surface iron bites I've been a part of off La Jolla occurred during the winter months.... and lasted months.

I started kayak fishing down in La Jolla this summer and it took me several tries before actually landing a yellowtail. The quote above is on point but I don't mind sharing my recent experience with bait being tough the last few times I was down there. Anyhow the best times is always before sunrise and you can try the usual spots over by the pier and on the way out west past the reserve line. The pier was the go to spot for me the last two times and its been over a month since I've been so it could be not be holding bait anymore. If your having trouble finding bait just keep heading your way out west and working your sadiki in the kelp bed areas first then start paying attention to your fish finder and any bait schools that maybe splashing on the surface. When I was having a tough time I snagged a few random baits in the kelp area and also when I would see a bait school swim by on the surface and that would get me a few more. Also had one or times where I could not find anything. Not sure what the fall and winter months will be like yet but from what I read it will be tough but looking forward to finding out with more time on the water...

They don't keep well in my bait tube, I can only use them as I catch them if I want them to remain live bait.

I used one wednesday, because one was still on my sabiki by the time I set up my rod to use it, but I caught nothing with it. No nibbles, no strikes, pulled my rod up 15-20 minutes later and it was gone. Switched to squid.

With a sample size of one and no real reason to believe it was taken by a fish rather than just falling off, I felt that information wasn't useful enough to add.

It's not the freshest Intel cause I was out last Saturday but I could not make bait. I don't have a FF but shadowed along with some one who did. It didn't help.
Around 10 bait schools started breezing and feeding along the kelp line in front of the condo.
I chased them around for probably 45 minutes, casted 2 different sibikis in to them many many times for nothing.

2 weeks ago I had to go all the way to the access road at Blacks to find bait.

I've seen lots of larger smelt in the kelp and closer to the beach. They will usually come to chummed bread and be caught on very small sibikis. People seem to hate smelt but I've caught about every local sports fish on them Smelt don't troll well but they will get bit. Mike

sometimes you just got to shop around! mackerel might be over the kelp, or might be feeding on krill in 200' of water.

don't just stick to what you know

current
 

That may be enough to explain the void. As confirmed many times OTW and on this forum, south-to-north current wipes out all fish in LJ.
I wish we could use a good source for local ocean current info, but it seems non-existent.

Curious if anyone has tried surflines new FishTrack app... I’m on the free version, but there is a locked current map overlay for paid users

Not True
 

I went out saturday to strickly make bait for future lobster trips, and headed to the usual pier spot for hardly any action( couple here and there ), headed west to some birds working and came across the mother load of bait balls. 30 mackerel in 5 min and 1 almost landed Yellowtail on the sabiki, broke off 20ft from boat( i use the bigger 4 hooked saboki with 30lb main/20lb branch). im assuming as I was pulling maks off my one rod, the yellow came and smashed a mak caught on my other sabiki.

So the the bait is there, u just have to work for it, dont think the current pushes bait out of the area, just tends to push it out from the usual MLPA line that everyone is accustomed to.

:cheers1:

Bait in LJ
 

I was fishing LJ yesterday (Oct. 9th, '17). The bait was hard to find, but I managed 2 greenbacks. I caught them directly west of the beach and maybe 200 yards or so west of the MLPA line. All around the kelp perimeter were what appeared to be bait on my fish finder, and I wondered why these schools weren't biting my Sibiki! Turns out, they weren't macs, but were in fact White Fish. Schools and schools of them. They weren't interested in the Sabiki, until I added some squid.:)

For me, the biggest factors to catching bait are 1) have a fish finder, 2) know what bait looks like on the fish finder (which isn't always easy as I learned yesterday), and 3) keep moving around until you find it (if you're not catching, keep moving). I feel like when I do these things, my bait chances go up tremendously.

Good luck.