About Needles

Needles is an outer-exposed rocky drop-off off San Francisco, where the bottom falls from roughly 30 to 130 feet over broken rock structure. Chinook Salmon move through from April to September and are worked with trolling using whole anchovy, spoons, hoochies, and flashers, while mooching with whole anchovy or sardine covers the same window. The rock holds Lingcod, which peak February through March, again from August into October, and in December, and they respond to jigging with metal jigs, swimbaits, and leadheads over the structure. Black Rockfish stack up from May to August and take jigs or bait rigs of squid and anchovies, while Blue Rockfish run April through September on shrimp fly rigs and jigs along the deeper edges of the drop. The exposed position and steep contour concentrate fish near the rock, so working the transition between the shallow lip and the deeper base keeps baits in the productive zone.