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LA Coastal Fishing Forecast: King Tide Opportunities for Inshore Structure and Nighttime Bites
Artificial Lure here with your Los Angeles coastal fishing report, coming at you like a high-tide push over the sand berms.
We’re sitting under a king tide pattern this morning, with local tide charts showing a predawn low around 2 AM and a big high piling in mid‑morning at just over 7 feet, then draining hard to a deep negative low mid‑afternoon before a modest late‑night high. That big morning flood is the money window for inshore structure, harbor mouths, and rock edges; the afternoon minus tide will expose holes and troughs in the surf that are absolutely worth marking in your mental map for your next incoming tide session.
Weather along the LA coast is classic early‑winter SoCal: cool, light offshore breeze at first light, then a light onshore bump as the sun climbs. Expect air in the low 50s at gray light, warming into the 60s, with mostly clear skies and good visibility. Sunrise is just after 6:40 AM and sunset just before 4:45 PM, so your prime bite windows line up nicely with that morning high and the evening glow leading into the small nighttime tide.
Nearshore and harbor action has been steady more than spectacular, but the folks putting in time around rocks and structure are cashing in. Party boats and six‑packs running out of Marina del Rey and the LA/LB landings have been stacking rockfish, whitefish, sheephead, and a scattering of lingcod and sand bass on the deeper hard bottom. In the bays and harbors, spotted bay bass and sand bass are chewing on the edges of docks, rock walls, and current seams, especially on the last of the incoming and the first of the outgoing when that king tide water is really moving.
For lures, think local and low‑light friendly. In the surf, 3–4 inch swimbaits in anchovy or smelt colors on 1/4 to 3/8 ounce heads, as well as Carolina‑rigged Gulp! sandworms or camo grubs, are doing work on perch, corbina, and the occasional shallow‑cruising halibut. Around the breakwalls and harbors, smaller profile swimbaits, leadhead and squid combos, and metal jigs bounced along bottom are producing mixed bags of rockfish, whitefish, and bass. If you’re soaking bait, lugworms, sand crabs, and mussel in the surf, and squid strips or cut mackerel on the rocks and piers, remain the go‑tos.
Fish activity has been best in that gray‑light to mid‑morning window as the king tide pushes up, then again in the last hour of light when the water is still moving and the sun is off the water. Expect fewer but better‑quality bites mid‑day; slow down, fish closer to structure, and don’t be afraid to bump up leader size a bit around rocks. Offshore pelagics are mostly a memory inside of easy day‑range now, so the realistic targets are bottom fish, bass, perch, and local halibut, with an occasional bonus yellowtail still possible around deeper structure and kelp if you can stretch your run.
Couple of hot spots to circle today: Marina del Rey north jetty and adjacent surf line, where that king tide is wrapping clean current around the rocks and stacking bass and perch; and the Long Beach/LA Harbor breakwalls and inside edges, which are holding solid rockfish, sheephead, and sand bass for anyone dropping squid strips or slow‑rolling swimbaits tight to the stones. For pier anglers, Belmont and Manhattan are good bets for mixed perch, mackerel, and a shot at a legal hali soaking a live smelt on the bottom.
That’s the bite, straight from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a tide cycle or a hot bite update. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.
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This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
Published on 3 weeks ago