Most people see harbors as just a place to launch your boat, a place you have to pass through to get to the real fish. These often over looked bodies of water can hold big fish; you just have to know how to catch them. The great thing is you don't need a yacht to get at them, and you can fish them in almost any weather, even when it is too rough to go outside. Harbors have everything that inshore fish, mainly bass need. There is a myriad of forage such as perches, smelt, queenfish, and miscellaneous fry. There is also an abundance of structure in these harbors. Whether it is a dock piling, or a breakwall, there is plenty of structure to hold fish year round.

Harbor fishing in many ways is like fishing boiler rocks. There is a great variety of fish to catch here, from white sea bass to calico bass, and chocolate bass to Cabezon, they are all here. Some of the best times to target these harbors and breakwall are at night. The fish will bite year round, but I do best in the summer and fall months. Pick nights or days where the tide movement is the greatest. These inland bodies of water are greatly effected by tidal flows. For this reason you want to fish them as the high tide is coming in, and the water levels are rising. When fishing at night, I have found that the time best is during a full moon, there generally stronger tidal movements on a full moon, and the light levels greatly improve. I also have another suggestion for those nighttime adventures, get one of those headlamps that the spelunkers use, these are a Godsend when fishing at night.

Finding the fish is usually not a problem here; most of the structure is visible above water. There are three main areas that every harbor has that are worth fishing every outing. Bait docks are a must, always take a few cast at the main bait dock. No matter what time of year they seem to hold fish, it may not be your target fish but often times you will catch something. The bait docks also seem to hold an abundance of the demsersal species. These are fish that congregate on soft bottom, mainly your halibut, White Sea bass, and often times sand and spotted bay bass. The next things to try are your finger docks. Bays like Newport and Mission Bay have almost an endless supply of these docks, and they usually hold fish. The last thing to try, and my favorite are the breakwalls. You wouldn't believe the size of the fish you can pull out of these rocks. Most people make the mistake of thinking that it is too close to shore to hold big fish, well they are wrong. These breakwall provide the perfect environment for most rock dwelling fish like our Calico Bass, Sand Bass, and Cabezon.

The water inside here is usually dirty and shallow, for that reason I usually stick with two basic color schemes. Brown bait patterns are my hands down favorites here. Almost any dark color brown will work but I have done very well with a few specific ones. My number one go to bait, is the Big Hammer™ Herring (#19), second would either be Halloween (#5), or Calico Hunter (#45). These brown baits match up with a lot of natural forage in these bays. There is a lot of tomcod, perch and juvenile bass present here, and brown baits mimic their colors well. The other color scheme I use would be a bright one, but I stay away from the standard chovy and sardine color baits. I go two ways, either a smelt or grunion pattern like Keylime (#4) or a Chartreuse like Invader (#40). When the grunion move in shallow to spawn in the spring and fall or there is and abundance of smelt in the water, that's when I go to the smelt type baits. During the day in stained water I will throw, chartreuse bait to attract a little more attention in the stained water. At night stay with the dark colors such as Smoke Red (#6) or Deep Purple (#39). These dark baits provide a much more well defined silhouette in low light conditions and the sparkles pick up what little light is present.

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