LA Fishing Report: SoCal Fall Bites Bright, Tides Turn it Up

Hey folks, you’ve got Artificial Lure here with your Los Angeles fishing report for Monday, November 17th, 2025. We’re staring down a classic SoCal fall morning: temps hovering around 57 Fahrenheit just after sunrise, a bit of drizzle still lingering from last night, and humidity holding over 80%. Winds are light, but keep an eye out—they’ll start to pick up closer to noon, topping out around 11 to 12 mph from the south by early afternoon. According to Ventusky and the National Weather Service, this front that dumped record rain on us over the weekend is finally fading, but ground and surf are still damp and visibility's solid. Sunrise was at 6:27 AM, and you’ll see the sun dip behind the Palos Verdes hills early tonight at 4:48 PM. Tides are lively—Long Beach Inner Harbor saw an early low at 12:43 AM, a solid high at 7:03 AM pushing up to 5.6 feet, a minor midafternoon dip to near zero at 1:57 PM, then rising again to just under 4 feet at 8:05 PM. These moving tides, especially the strong morning high, are stirring up bait and predatory action. The weekend storm really turned things over, and fishing’s fired up as a result. Dock totals from Marina Del Rey Sportfishing report 135 sculpin, 17 sand bass, 15 whitefish, 14 calico bass, 8 sheephead, and a lone Petrale Sole caught by 27 anglers over two boats just yesterday. That’s a bucketful of variety and solid numbers for November. Sculpin and bass dominated, and whitefish are always reliable table fare. The sport boats going out from the Channel Islands and Long Beach are echoing those numbers, with sand bass and calicos tight to structure, particularly near breakwalls and artificial reefs. Sheephead have been hammering fresh-cut squid, while sand bass and calicos are locked in on plastics—think 5-inch swimbaits in sardine or root beer, especially with a little chartreuse. Sculpin are hitting cut anchovy on dropper loops when drifted softly along hard bottom. Pier folks at hotspots like Santa Monica Pier, Venice Pier, and Redondo have been finding some short halibut, steady jacksmelt, and an uptick in yellowfin croaker—bloodworms and lugworms getting the job done. And down at Huntington Beach Pier, while it’s an off chance, November sometimes brings a stray striped bass to the mid-pier stretches, typically caught on Lucky Craft jerkbaits or a live smelt if you can find them. Best bets for top water activity today: the morning high tide from 6:30 to 9:30 AM, working deeper troughs just inside the breakwater or the rocky zones at King Harbor and Cabrillo. Point Fermin and Dockweiler Jetty are both holding bait balls and should produce. For surf, the outgoing midday tide swinging into low should concentrate bait, so work shrimp imitations or Gulp! sandworms in the shallow flats for perch and corbina. My hot spots for the day—Marina Del Rey rockpiles and the Long Beach breakwall, both absolutely loaded after the churn from that rain. Try a ¾-ounce leadhead with a Big Hammer in motor oil or chov This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.