It was nice because there was nobody at the end which is unusual. I agree that this seems to be the hot spot. Last year we would fish Goleta times a week but it was usually so crowded that we would fish at the second or third bench from the end. We usually got less fish but would usually get a couple. I would rather catch one or two and not be elbow to elbow.
Where do you fish for leopard sharks? I have heard that its better fishing closer to the surf using sand crabs but have not tried it. I have only seen one caught from Goleta between the portacrapper and the crane. What an amazing fish. I guess that is not so common. In terms of the time period, from what I remember last year, we got most of our bites were after 9 PM till about 11 PM, but you are right this time all fish were caught by 8 PM.
Last year we started later in the summer, around the end of July, so maybe the time period has something to do with being later into the summer. It was a nice one about 5 ft. I hear a lot about leopard sharks being caught there but I believe a lot of them are swell sharks. In September of two blues came close to the pier. One was about 6 ft. A half an hour after dark until around midnight on a rising tide has always been the best time for me.
Went out there for the first time this year last Thursday night… started trying to catch some bait and only got one tiny jack mackerel. Fished under the last light on the right hand side secret spot!? Because of the pipe, and to avoid getting snagged in the kelp, I typically fish off the left side for sharks and rays.
Fished the left side near the last fish cleaning station with the mackerel on my lighter stick 15 lb. Got one bat ray lb. The people on the end got 3 thornbacks for 4 guys. The only other fish I saw was a tiny swell shark that they swore was a leopard shark this happens all the time.
Read somewhere that the big Calicos bite best on an early morning incoming tide — so I found myself at Goleta today at 5am. In the dark. Tried squid. Tried anchovy. Tried shrimp. Nothing but white croaker and more white croaker. At seven this guy comes out trundling an industrial sized utility cart he converted to a pier cart with an aerated live bait well and multiple rod holders. As soon as he shows up the bite is on!
Croakers, Johnny Bass and Sand Bass. Spent the rest of the morning talking with Ruben and his friend — you are never to old to learn. Especially from someone who has caught more legals this year than I have caught in my entire life! Thanks Ruben for a great morning! He says he lurks here but has yet to post. Tight Lines!
I first met her early one Saturday morning while I was fishing towards the end of the pier. At that I went over and asked if I could help … thinking that maybe someone she knew had climbed down under the pier and was having problems getting back up. Finally after 10 minutes or so she seemed satisfied that Flipper had acknowledged her and she left the pier.
During the entire encounter I had seen no dolphins whatsoever. Afterwards the reporter sidled up to me and quietly asked if I had seen the dolphins that the women insisted had been there. With that the reporter turned around and marched off the pier. Fished just after the low tide this morning. No wind and very calm. Still exploring the reef from the restroom area to the first west side light. Met with Shaun aka Goonerdude and began working the reef with whole anchovy and some squid strips.
While Shaun threw a new lure I got a pretty good hookup. Took a whole anchovy as well as some line. It had dark wavy and mottled lines across it like it was in deep shadows. Shaun looked it up in the Petersen Field Guide and discovered it was a banded guitarfish. Which two California piers were threatened by closure in due to the number of pelicans being caught by anglers?
Knowing that the prize was a beautiful 7-foot, one piece, hand-built and custom wrapped rod by none other than Gyozadude himself I shouted out the answer—Stearns Wharf and Santa Cruz—completely forgetting that I was supposed to preface it with my board name. But they cut me some slack …. Today I took the rod out to Goleta to formerly inaugurate it. Got there around 7am to fish the incoming tide.
Set up on the west side just behind the breakers hoping for halibut but there were no baitfish to be had so I settled for squid and anchovy which were spectacularly unsuccessful. While I was temporarily away the Sealine went bendo and a friend rushed to help out.
But it was a start and I rebaited and tossed out again. Well, my rule of thumb is that when the thornbacks show up I split. But just before I packed up I decided to move up the pier to give it one more try. I really wanted to be able to post a catch on the new pole as a way of thanking James for both the pole and the kind thoughts expressed towards me in a post yesterday.
Sabikied up a couple more sardines and cast out—giving his pole the favored position in the kelp reef. How appropriate as green is my favorite color and it also matches the wrap on the pole. By the time I had measured, weighed and photographed it the fish was kind of tuckered out. So I placed it back in my net and lowered it over the side. It revived within a couple of minutes and slowly swam away. Mission accomplished!
And no net because he is a percher … But he goes through this routine several times a year so he is kind of used to it. Walks the fish down to the surfline and floats it high up on the sand on the biggest wave of the set.
That gives him some time to run down and pick it up. BUT, Augie says he will get it and makes a beeline for it. Fred, being the patient guy that he is and knowing that Augie sometimes needs to feel useful, nods his assent and watches him approach the fish, bend over and … freeze.
Perhaps it was the teeth that were snapping at him. Perhaps it was something else. No response. But Augie just stands there watching as the fish comes unbuttoned and starts flopping around just above the incoming waves. Time is running out … the waves are getting closer. And Fred is about to lose the biggest halibut he has had in years.
Finally one of the bystanders races over to the fish and steps on its tail … which squirts the fish into the next wave. Nice clean release… but not what Fred had in mind.
So after hearing that story from Martin GreenRag last night I made up my mind that I was going to try to replace the fish that Augie lost. Now at Goleta bobbers are rarely used so I got a lot of questions this morning. You can see just how long the fish runs before it stops and swallows the bait. I used to pass the hook behind the eye and wrap the body several times before pinning the tail but the two I lost this morning were done that way.
So I just did the nose thing and the bait had a more natural movement. The first two wrapped baits had large semi-circle bites out of the stomach whereas the nose-hooked were taken in completely. The wind was against me so I cast out 25 yards and let the bobber drag the bait back to the pier. All 4 hook-up were within 10 yards of the pier and 25 yards from the surfline.
A visit to the pier by myself in — Collage by Pierhead. Got a late start leaving Pasadena last night. With reports of algal blooms from Ventura south, we decided to take the long drive to Goleta. I arrived with my dad and brother Dan around midnight. Dan and I scampered down onto the beach and grabbed about a dozen for bait. Already, I was very pleased with the decision to drive all the way to Goleta.
Dan immediately put three grass rockfish on the pier with his first three casts. Holding the Sabiki stationary seemed to do the trick, instead of jigging it up and down. Around A. Half an hour later, he was right next to us, after having walked an estimated lb. I assisted by holding his rod, while he fashioned a lasso and tried to work it down around the brute. Alas, the knot parted after several unsuccessful attempts, and the big girl lived to fight another day. The angler was a nice guy named Tyler, and as we said fare-thee-well, we made a verbal agreement to bring landing nets with us from now on.
The fact that we did not have a landing net also became apparent on the next cast, when Dan hooked something huge on a live Spanish mack.
A 5-minute fight through the kelp produced the largest swell shark I have ever seen. It was easily 4 feet long, and was probably pushing 25 or lbs. We tried to hand-line it up, but the 30 lb. Last night also marked our first lobster of —a close-to-legal male hooked in the mouth on squid.
Like everything else caught last night except for the grunion it was returned to the water unharmed. A huge bat ray had inhaled the bait, and was heading for UCSB.
The big ray took Dan from the elbow all the way to the surf line, running all the way. When the big fish got shallow, it really hit the accelerator. With the reel screaming and line peeling down towards the knot, Dan made the decision to glove the spool.
The big ray was gone—but as Dan said, better that it just has a pierced lip, than a pierced lip with yards of mono trailing behind it in the surf line. Good call. Despite the late night, we had a great time with awesome fishing and nice weather. The grunion are forecast to run again tonight. Totals for the night: grunion; 1- 25 lb. Go get em! Not really a lot of bait in the pier for most of the day until around five when the macks showed up. I was out there with pierhead, big Goleta kid, and seabass seeker.
I caught a few little rockfish, some macks and some little perch. Got a keeper red rock crab in my net, and seabass seeker pulled up a crazy looking eel fish thing in his net. I talked to Boyd and he said it was an interesting day at the pier today, especially when massive bait balls of anchovies appeared next to the pier.
Within an hour the number of anglers at the pier went from about twenty to over sixty. Scenes: 1 A thirty-five-year-old or so mother and her teenage daughter decide to jump off the pier near the hoist while making sure they held on to their forty-ounce malt liquor cans. Lifeguards finally got them out.
Unhappy anglers on the pier! A bit late for today, but Goleta has been very slow all summer. I fished the end today across the top of the tide and it was better than average, but still a long time between anything. People were getting jacksmelt reliably inshore, and some sardines were hanging around about 1. Mind you, this is about x more fish catching than has typically happened here since late June.
Windy afternoons and murky water, with a great deal of salad inshore, have been the norm at Goleta this summer, and today was no exception. Sardines and macks have been mostly absent, and gone in a flash when they do pass through. The clear water line usually stays about cast lengths off the end, thanks to the wind alignment and the surf breaks at Goleta Point. Just saw your revised swell shark article. You mentioned that small swell sharks are not able to puff up like the adults.
Was just wondering where you found this bit of information. While I am not sure if they are able to gulp in enough air to create a distended stomach like the adults, it is something they try to avoid, and if one of the small swell sharks does gulp air, they need to burp it. Which leads me to another interesting thing that you may consider adding to your article. They prevent these small swell sharks from gulping air by holding their mouth closed when they are out of water.
I have been using this technique fairly successfully with the swell sharks we catch off of Goleta Pier as well. After we pull a swell shark to the surface, we try to keep it in the water until we can get our crab net ready.
As soon as we net the shark and pull it out of the water, we pull it up as fast as we can and grab the mouth and hold it shut. This gives us all the time we need to untangle the lines from the net and remove the shark. Then allow the mouth to open for only as long as we need to remove the hook, and then again lower it as fast as we can in the net to get it back under water. Perhaps we need to revise it a little?
Finishing my rounds as a resident Park Host this morning I came across a group of night shark anglers with an unusual for Goleta catch, a seven-foot, nine-inch sevengill shark. I met Brandon Nguyen from Malibu who said he caught the shark around midnight using a large chunk of mackerel. He and his two friends were unable to lift it out of the water by themselves and waited until 6pm when Greenrag and another local showed up to help.
I called the other Park Hosts who came out with the Park utility vehicle and the shark was carted to the Angler Center for pictures and then to one of the cleaning stations. Brandon said he had a freezer full of shark meat and, after taking the head for a scientist friend, left the rest for the regulars to divide up.
Roy Qi did an excellent job of filleting and the meat was distributed. Brandon and his group heard about Goleta from friends and pierfishing. Several weeks ago there were four threshers, two large soupfins, and a six-foot and seven foot sevengill caught in just one weekend!
The pole was a 7. Collage by Pierhead — — Pierhead, swell shark and brown rockfish. A few people commented on the seemingly wasteful nature of Brandon leaving his catch behind. I just wanted to clarify a couple of things. Brandon does not actually have a freezer full of shark. It was Gerel spelling? Brandon ended up running away without taking anything because as a result of waiting for help to pull the shark up to the pier he was running late for class and other commitments back at home.
So, unfortunately, he did not get to stick around while I filleted the fish and took some of it home. Potpourri — Perhaps more than you may want to know about the Goleta Pier. There is a prize-winning flower named after the pier. The beach upon which the pier sits is partly man-made resulting from operations that covered the existing sand spit with additional sand in Unfortunately there has needed to be constant and costly efforts to keep the beach from eroding away. Since the mid s the beach has been eroding an average of 20 feet-per-year.
Fear that the seaside park would eventually fail to exist has resulted in several different plans and millions of dollars have been dedicated toward preservation. Latest plans include widening the inner portion of the pier and adding several hundred additional pilings to change water flow and block the flow of sand away from the beach.
It drains the Goleta Valley and its entire watershed. The slough receives water from local creeks and those that drain from the southern face of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Wetlands that today cover about acres once covered 1, acres. Construction of the Marine Corps Air Station, Santa Barbara, along with the subsequent construction and expansion of the Santa Barbara Airport, has covered up most of those wetlands.
An old torpedo plane fuselage was suspended from the crane. Trainees in full battle gear would enter the fuselage as though entering a plane and then the fuselage would be dropped 15 feet into the water. The crews had 60 seconds to orderly abandon ship and properly inflate a life raft.
Sometimes the trainees were also dropped from the crane in parachutes. Records do not record how many men failed to perform these exercise in a timely manner or their fate if they failed. One day I was fishing with Boyd near the Angler Center when a nearby angler hooked into a decent-sized bat ray.
He played him up to the surface at which time Boyd dropped down a hoop net that we used to bring the heavy fish up to the pier. As we looked at the ray, we noticed it had an oily look to it and indeed it was somewhat slick and seemingly coated with what appeared to be light oil.
In checking, I found the following:. Offshore Santa Barbara has the second largest marine oil seeps in the world. According to the California State Lands Commission, they comprise more than 1, of the over 2, active submarine seeps along the California coast. It is estimated that oil seepage for a single 6-mile stretch, including Coal Oil Point, averages 10, gallons of oil each day barrels.
Every 12 months about 86, barrels of oil seep into the ocean —the equivalent of the quantity of oil spilled in the Santa Barbara oil spill. Boyd Grant, better known as pierhead to those at PFIC, adopted the Goleta Pier as his own in the late s and became its main protector as well as its most vocal advocate. As a bonus, Boyd also began a couple of personal web sites that offer an unparalleled look at the day-to-day life on an individual pier.
Summary: Rockfish continue to be the predominant catch in the kelpline from the 3rd quarter of pier using either anchovy or squid. Fish—staghorn sculpin, Pacific mackerel, white croaker, barred surfperch, blue rockfish, brown rockfish, kelp rockfish, bat ray, thornback ray, shovelnose guitarfish, brown smoothhound, barred sand bass, kelp bass, lingcod, anchovy, shinerperch, jacksmelt.
Summary: Rockfish remain the predominant catch in the kelpline on the west side of the pier. Increased species count by fishing pilings as well as kelpline and channel between pier and kelp.
Halibut are also beginning to be caught regularly as the water warms above 64 degrees. The Corbina are still very active inshore along the surfline as well as a few White Seabass in the early mornings.
Several large Bat Rays caught towards end of month—one was estimated to be over pounds. Baitfish are still somewhat scarce but Mackerel are showing up with some frequency.
Summary: Major change this month was a drop in water temperatures during the 3rd week from 65 to 57 degrees. Rockfish catch rates were down in the first 2 weeks but seemed to have bounced back—perhaps due to the lower water temperatures? Grey Smoothounds and swell sharks are still being caught as well as the occasional WSB. The corbina are no longer appearing in great numbers as of the third week nor are they as easy to catch but baby squid are showing up at nights under the lights.
There have been reports of the occasional giant Humboldt squid appearing on the beaches. Great bioluminescence. Good run of mackerel. Water upgraded to B. Fish—Pacific mackerel, white croaker, black rockfish, blue rockfish, brown rockfish, grass rockfish, kelp rockfish, yellowtail rockfish, thornback ray, brown smoothhound, gray smoothhound, kelp bass, lizardfish, Pacific sardine. Water upgraded to A. Recent beach sculpting to create a winter berm has deepened the inshore slope causing steeper waves and more water movement.
I have had a great year exploring the kelp reef structure and accumulating lots of good data on the rockfish population but now it is time to switch gears—my new emphasis for first half of this coming year will be on the piling structure and associated species like pile and buttermouth perch. I will also explore the wonderful world of Corbina fishing which was outstanding this past year at Goleta.
Best wishes and good fishing to all in the New Year as we adapt to the new restrictions on our sport. Fish— brown rockfish, grass rockfish, kelp rockfish, bat ray, thornback ray, cabezon, white croaker, shinerperch.
Summary: Lots of baitfish—small jacksmelt. In the State became the new owner but then leased it back to the County. Now more than 75 years old, major reconstruction of the pier first took place in the early s when it also was lengthened from feet to its present 1,foot length.
A launching crane or hoist was added and a rock revertment was built to protect the Park and restaurant. While today's pier is used for recreation, previous piers and wharfs in this location had practical applications. A wharf or pier has been in existence here before the turn of the 20th century, initially used for shipping farm goods and natural resources before a rail system was established.
During the mid-to-late s there were many more wharfs along the coast than now exist and they were vital to commerce and growth in California. This location now called Goleta saw its first wharf feet long built in by rancher T. They serve both lunch and dinner from a menu that includes a wide range of seafood, salads, soups, sandwiches, pasta, steak, pork and chicken.
Hours: Sun. Children between the ages of 9 and 17 can participate in the University of California Santa Barbara's Recreations Department's Junior Lifeguard Program offered every summer. Participants learn about ocean safety and environmental education. During the 4-week long sessions they learn lifesaving skills, first aid, and CPR.
They also develop their physical fitness and learn ocean recreation skills. Among the recreational activities usually included are surfing, body boarding, water polo, kayaking, volleyball, swimming, beach games, and special events. All new applicants for UCSB Junior Lifeguards must pass a tryout evaluation of each child's swimming skills before they can participate in the program.
Discounts for siblings. The Goleta Pier boat launch is available for public use on weekends and holidays. The park's resident ranger must be in attendance to facilitate the launch.
Boat owners are allowed to drive out on the pier under the ranger's guidance to launch their boats. Boats may not exceed pounds or 22 feet in length. To make arrangements call between the hours of AM and PM. California State Parks and Recreation cautions that " large surf, cold water temperatures, backwash, sudden drop-offs, pounding shorebreak, and dangerous rip currents can turn what seem like safe activities such as playing near the surf line, wading, or climbing on rock outcroppings, deadly.
Every effort is made to provide accurate and up to date information, but we cannot be responsible for errors or for changes that may have occurred since publication. Always confirm information with the service provider and check for any recent changes that may have been made.
Also, check with lifeguards that conditions at the beach are safe for your planned activities.
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