Fishing

Turning left from the south facing rocks the landfill falls off to a due north direction. The water begins to get shallow as the beach area is approached. Because of the shallow water the currents get very heavy and cause sand buildups in particular areas along the rocks. Sand spits are formed on every right angle corner where the rocks open into the container areas or anywhere the rock line is disturbed by a bend. In some areas the spits extend out 40 yards into the harbor. They are very shallow ridge like fingers that disappear into the depths. Halibut lay on top of these spots waiting for their lunch to swim by. The shallow bottom of these spits are excellent areas for light tackle applications. One of which is drifting a small smelt with a 1/4th ounce split shot across the spit on #6 pound. But lookout! My friend caught a 33 pounder and it wasn¹t easy on #6 pound line. Pier J concludes at the Queen Mary, the Downtown Shoreline Marina and the head of the Los Angeles River where the sand beaches begin.

The sandy shoreline extends south and ends at the Alamitos Bay Jetty about 3 miles from the Shoreline Marina. The sandy strand presents a different fishing situation. Many surf fishermen cast their long rods from the shore out into the water in search mostly for corbina and yellowfin croaker. The absence of surf also promotes a good halibut fishery especially during the grunion runs. Halibut love to eat grunion and many large fish are caught in water only 3 feet deep as they chase the grunion through the shallows. Many 20lb "butts" swim with the grunion and a few 30 pounders have also been dragged out of the water by lucky anglers.

The beach strand is also very popular for the Float Tube guys because of the easy parking access to the fishing area. The parking lot at the foot of Cherry street is located just a few yards from a launch point into the water. Beach parking lots are located along the entire 3 miles of beach.

In the middle of the strand, in the suburb of Belmont Shore, a fishing pier extends out into the harbor. Many people fish from "Belmont Pier" catching a variety of fish, mackerel, perch, mullet, yellowfin, bonita, barracuda, white sea bass, sharks, corbina, sargo, spotfin croaker, jack smelt, and sharks. The pier is a great spot for family fishing adventures and many take advantage of the clean facilities for a day angling in the "deep sea".

Occasionally, from the Belmont Pier southward the waves can build from southern storms. This happens most of the time in late summer when the Mexican winds kick up. The waves can actually reach 6 foot in a strong influence which is very unusual since the largest waves during the year don't get bigger than a foot. When this happens the surf anglers come out of the wood work because the wave action moves tons of ocean bottom around exposing food for the surf fish and they become fairly easy to catch. The beach concludes at the Alamitos jetty at 72nd Street.

The Alamitos Bay rock jetties are very popular fishing spots for the anglers. Fishermen cast into the jetty boat channel for numerous kinds of fish. The most popular method is to cast different baits out as far as they can into the channel and catch sargo, corbina and spotfin croaker. Back in the 1950¹s anglers lined up on the rocks shoulder to shoulder the length of the jetty and cast with their 12 foot surf rods more than half way across the channel. You could see the schools of spotfin croaker coming up the channel by watching the rods bend down in the sand spikes consecutively from left to right until most every rod bounced with a biting fish. They moved up the channel on the incoming tide which sometimes ran like a river. Anglers also fish outside the channel for perch and halibut and surf fish. The south Alamitos Channel jetty is also a barricade against the outflow of the San Gabriel River. Actually, there is very little outward flow of natural run-off as the river is dammed up stream about 25 miles and most of the water is taken out by the towns of Whittier and Pico Rivera. The Los Angeles and Edison Power Plants send tons of water into the river. The plants pump cool sea water into their generators for cooling then exit it into the river at 80 degrees or more. It is about a mile away from the shore, so by the time it reaches open ocean it is still in the middle 70¹s which creates another fish habitat.

As the river flow enters the ocean it can go either south or north but it usually is diverted south by the south jetty. Sometimes during a strong uphill current the rive water is pulled into Alamitos Bay much to the disgust of the Naples and peninsula residents. This happens mostly in the winter months after a winter rain spills tons of river garbage into the bay.

Many years ago a fish was introduced into the All American canals to reduce the algae that inhibited the flow. From hundreds of miles away these fish found their way into the San Gabriel River and presently infest the headwaters of the river. The tilapia can and have adapted to the brackish saltwater environment. During certain times of the year large schools of tilapia migrate up the river looking to spawn much to the delight of the Pelicans and Cormorants. Hundreds of these birds dive and chase the tilapa up and down the river. It¹s unnerving to watch a flight of Pelicans glide about ten feet over the top of the commuters on 405 freeway as they drop to dinner in the river below.

Tilapia are fished by anglers where ever they can reach the river. Most use
cut- up worms for bait and most catch large numbers of them. The fish can get to 3 pounds and are very good eating as represented in many of the fish markets that sell them commercially. They don¹t leave the fresh water totally but sometimes in a heavy rain they accidentally swim into Alamitos Bay to their demise because they can¹t take straight saltwater.

The warm waters of the river can attract creatures not normally found in Southern California waters. Large sea turtles to four feet across often appear at the surface momentarily for a breath and then disappear. Small hammerhead sharks have been caught in the headwaters and thresher sharks have been seen one mile up the river. For some reason bonita love to swim up the river to where the power plants dump the water. Larger than normal yellowfin croaker and corbina are caught the year round in the river when normally they are a spring and summer appearing fish. Frequently, the uncatchable mullet can be seen jumping out of the water in large groups doing something that is not known to us.

Less than a mile south of Alamitos Bay, the Seal Beach pier is situated about 1/2 mile from the Huntington Harbor jetty which marks the end of the Long Beach Harbor. The pier is much like the Belmont Pier except it receives the warm San Gabriel River water 90% of the time. The surf around the pier is normal beach surf because the area is facing open ocean. In the 1980¹s storm, half of the pier was washed away because of its proximity to the elements. The pier supports very large corbina and yellowfin croaker fishing. The south side of the pier produces some very large halibut which live in the area because of the abnormally hard bottom.