I Built a Free Surf Fishing Forecast Tool for SoCal

I built a free surf fishing forecast for Southern California. It scores all 52 beaches for the next 7 days, so you can see at a glance which days are worth waking up for. No paywall, no ads.

You can also find it anytime under Blog/Reports in the top menu, then Forecast.

The Problem With Other Apps

Before every trip, I do the same thing you do. I check a surf app for the swell. I check the tides. I check the wind. Then I try to combine all three into one answer: is tomorrow morning worth waking up for?

The problem is, the apps I’ve tried were either designed for surfing, or they’re blanket-style fishing apps that don’t really help the surf angler.

After 12 years of doing that math in my head, I built something that does it for me. It’s called the SFSC Surf Fishing Forecast. It covers 52 beaches across So Cal – and expanding. And it answers one question for the next 7 days: how good are the fishing conditions going to be?

What The App Does

Well technically it isn’t an app. If you want it to function as an app, you can download a browsing app you don’t use as your primary app and save this webpage to your home screen and it’ll function exactly like an app. For example I use safari as my main browsing app. So I downloaded Google Chrome and opened https://surffishingsocalsd.com/forecast/ in Chrome. Then I clicked the share icon and saved it to my home page.

Every beach gets a score out of 10, every day. Actually two scores: one for the morning window – the hours after first light, and one for the evening window, the hours before last light. Those are the two windows that matter, and they can fish completely differently on the same day.

You also pick your technique: light tackle, lures, or shark. The scores change with it, because what makes a good light tackle day isn’t exactly what makes a good lure or shark day.

How the rating works

This is what makes it different from a surf forecast. Surf forecasts are made for surfers. Surfers care about wave quality. I care about whether I can get a bait where it needs to be and whether the fish will bite. Different question, different answer.

Here’s how I read conditions. It’s exactly what the rating does:

• Surf height matters most. It sets the ceiling for the day. If the surf is 6 feet, the day is capped no matter what else is going on. Everything else works inside that.
• Wind, tide movement, and time of day move the score up or down from there.
• A tide rising into sunset gets a bump. Big surf on top of a high tide gets knocked down. Rough water stacked on deep water is just bad fishing.
• A big tide on a small surf day gets credit. Moving water turns fish on.
• There are a myriad of other factors that I’ve built into it and “Nick’s take” explains a lot of the reasoning for the score each day.

Same model on every beach. The only thing that changes is the data going in. Each beach pulls from its own nearest tide station and buoy. I’m a big believer that you can analyze all you want and at the end of the day, you can select the best conditions possible, the best soar and lunar windows and barrometric pressure etc., and the bite can be different on two days with near identical conditions.

I’m not chasing the idea of “predicting the bite”. Rather, I’m simply identifying the most optimal conditions to provide the best opportunity to have a good day of fishing.

Where The Data Comes From

Wave height, direction, and period. Wind and air temp. Tide predictions. Real buoy readings for current surf and water temp. All public data (Open-Meteo, NOAA, and the NDBC buoy network), refreshed every 6 hours.

About Each Beach Forecast Page

Each beach page gives you the full picture for the week:

• The big number. The day’s score out of 10. If you see 9s, clear your schedule.
• AM and PM. The dawn and dusk windows, scored separately. A day can be a 7 overall with an 8.5 morning and a 6.5 evening. That tells you when to be on the sand.
• The charts. Tide curve with every high and low marked with its time and height right on the chart, surf bars, wind bars. All 7 days share the same scale so you can compare days at a glance. Dark shading means nighttime.
• Nick’s Take. My plain English explanation of why the day rated what it did. The part I’d tell you if you asked me straight up.
• What’s Biting Now. What’s in season for the technique you picked. The fire emoji means it’s peaking. Tap any species for the full guide.
• Water temp and current surf. What’s actually happening out there right now, from the nearest buoy.
• Moon phase. Each day shows the current moon phase with illumination percentage, right below the sun times.
• Season Check. My latest monthly report, right at the top of every page. A 7 in a slow season means something different than a 7 in May. This keeps it honest.

The Home Page: Start Here

The forecast homepage is the launchpad:

• Best Bets Today and Best Day of the Forecast. The two answers most people want, right at the top.
• Every beach organized by county, with its current surf height and today’s rating.
• A map with all 52 beaches. Tap any pill for surf, wind, and water temp.

You can get here anytime from the menu at the top of the site. Just click Forecast.

What It Won’t Do

Straight talk:

• It won’t guarantee fish. It’s my judgment turned into numbers. Good starting point, not a promise.
• It won’t find fish. It scores conditions. Which fish are even around is the other half, and that’s what the seasons section is for.
• It can’t see the bottom. Every beach has its own bars, holes, and structure. No model knows your spot like you do. Factor that in.

It’s Free

No paywall, no ads on it. I’d rather it just be useful (I honestly don’t know what the long-term plan is). Something you bookmark and check before every trip. If it pays for itself, it’ll be by pointing you toward the rest of the site: the species guides, the gear I use, the monthly reports.

Help Me Make It Better

This thing is live, but it’s not done. I’m still tuning it, and I want it to be as good as it can possibly be for the anglers who fish these beaches.

So if you use it, I want to hear from you. Did the rating match what you actually saw out there? Is something confusing? Is there something you wish it did that it doesn’t? I read every comment.

Drop your thoughts below. The more I hear from real anglers, the better this gets.

Go Use It

Here’s the link again: SFSC Surf Fishing Forecast. Check it before your next trip.

And if you want to fish one of these beaches with a guide, book a session – but if you can, do it in the summertime. I’ll put you on fish.