Making bait for lobster
 

I was kind of curious about something. Does anybody ever just bring a sabiki out with them to make bait before dropping your nets? Is it just too much gear on your kayak? Macks aren't worth using as bait? Some kind of regulation preventing it? Too difficult to work a sabiki in the grey or after dark?

Making Bait for Lobster
 

When my dad and I use to go out it was easier to attach a can of cat food to the bottom of the net with holes punched into the can. Macs and Bonita are great for lobster if you can get some at that time.

Macs are just fine for lobster. I usually carry out a sibiki with me hooping and try to catch a few as extra bait or for next time. The bait tends to be real hard to make after dark but sunset works good (sometimes!).

Hooping takes alot of bait especially if you are doing it often with 5 nets. I try to keep every bit of bait I come across, i.e. used bait from fishing, ask buddies to hold onto their macs or bonito they catch, etc, to help keep the total cost down....

It can be done, but it will take some time to get enough macs. I had a $0 trip last week thanks to the sabiki.

If you make bait fishing out in La Jolla, and decide to bring it back with you, do you need to kill it before paddling through the reserve? Aren't there some rules against possessing in the reserve or bringing on shore live fish?

Sorry for the noob questions. I did try searching here with no luck on this topic.

I save myself the time and just buy the bait, I can overstuff all five cages with Salmon heads for under $10. Occasionally, I'll find both Yellowtail and Bonito heads for $.99/lb....they're hard to come buy but I do find them from time to time. The fish market where I get my bait will give me their scraps(guts, gills, tails..etc) for free if I ask for them.

Which market do you go to, if I might be so bold and ask the question.

Its in Cerritos down the street from the Cerritos Mall (605 and 91)....unless you're coming this way its probably best to look for an asian market in your area.

Awesome, thanks for the heads up.

Pier fishing
 

I did something different this year! Went to balboa pier with two rods, homemade chum and lots of sabikis. Chummed the water and averaged four macs per retrieve. Got several neighboring fisherman and kids interested and my bucket became the mackerel lobster bait depository! Good times and the kids that started catching was priceless. Sure it cost a few "loaner" sabikis but it got the job done.

X2.

I may be mistaken but I feel like I've heard/read that if you are hooping for lobster that you are not allowed to have rods and reels on the boat. I could swear that I've heard of people getting written up for this...am I wrong? I'm much too lazy to just look it up.

Yes, I thought I saw that somewhere as well. But I can't find it in the regs.

I found a reference to diving only:

(g) Diving for crustaceans: In all ocean waters, except as provided in Section 29.05, skin and SCUBA divers may take crustaceans by the use of the hands only. Divers may not possess any hooked device while diving or attempting to dive.

I believe that is different...what they are talking about there is a "tickle stick". You can't use a spear, a pole, or anything else to coax them out of their holes.

mops work great for this ...