Hi Dan I love your site and I just joined. i took a female friend fishing two weekends in a row but she was the only one that cought any thing! She cought an 18 in bat ray and a 25 lb starfish! We are fishing of of a pier in San Luis CA and i dont know anything about salt water fishing. We are using squid for bait. what should we do diferent to catch something edible? change bait or less weight, we are using 2 ounce weights thanx for your time

San Luis is a great place to catch fish, as your friend learned recently! However, I’m confident that you can will soon join her in hauling in a decent catch. When you fish off of a pier in San Luis, there are several fish species that are commonly caught from there, including white croaker, jacksmelt, Pacific mackerel, Jack mackerel, sardines, silver and walleye surfperch, flatfish, and small rockfish. There are several tips that can help you increase your catch. First, try and target fish in some of the channels between the rocks around the piers. To do this, you should try using seaworms or fresh mussels. Thoguh it can be tricky until you get the hang of it, aiming for fish between these rocks can result in a catch of rubberlip seaperch, blackperch, calico surfperch, or rockfish. Obviously, this is for fishing on the part of the pier that is closer to land. If you want to go further out, try using cut anchovy on the bottom, which should help you land white croaker, flatfish, and mayb ehalibut (which is delicious). During the warmer months, anglers fishing from the far end of a pier in your area have had success in catching mackerel, bonita, barracuda, and even salmon. If you’re interested in catching salmon (another perfectly edible fish) you might want to try hooking it useing a whole anchovy fished under a bobber. Occasionally, anglers have also been known to land shark from the pier, though those occurrences are extremely rare.