Ep. 54: Harbor Fishing Setups, Fall Season Preview & [FISH]rx Favorite Baits

Hosts: Daniel Dahlin ([FISH]rx), El Charly, Luke Dean (Bait Slingers / Artemis Charters)

Episode 54, recorded live on August 27, 2024, is a shop episode — Daniel, Charly, and Luke talking harbor fishing, setups, and favorite baits without a guest to direct the conversation. The shop setting meant they went deeper on technique philosophy than usual, including one of the cleaner articulations of [FISH]rx’s core idea: technique matters more than the “special bait.”

In This Episode

• Technique over special bait — Daniel’s direct quote: more important than color or which specific bait you’re using is technique. Whether that’s micro baits and slow pitches or bigger presentations, knowing how to fish it is the separator. The “special spot” and “special bait” are secondary
• Favorite harbor setups — the crew’s current go-to rigs for spotted bay bass in the harbor: paddle tail on a roll head for mid-column presentations, slug on a drop shot for finesse, crankbait trolled to locate fish before committing
• Slip-to-slip harbor approach — fishing slip to slip through a marina rather than stationary, reading which slips have active fish and moving past the dead zones. The mobility advantage of float tube and kayak anglers over boat anglers in tight quarters
• Fall season outlook — what changes in the harbor as summer transitions to fall: bait moving, calico and sand bass becoming more active, spotties transitioning from tight summer structure to more open water feeding
• [FISH]rx now on Tackle Supply — baits going live on Tackle Supply as a new distribution channel. The platform giving the brand reach beyond the direct-to-consumer base
• Glizzies planning — the next Glizzies at the Ramp already in conversation. The event becoming a reliable fixture on the SoCal fishing community calendar

Beyond the Rod & Reel on Harbor Fishing

The technique-over-bait statement from this episode is worth highlighting because it’s the clearest expression of what [FISH]rx is actually built on. Daniel has said variations of this across many episodes — “I make what I fish and I fish what I make,” “throw confidence” — but here it came out directly: if you don’t know how to fish the bait, the color doesn’t matter. The bait is the last variable. Technique is the first.

Shop episodes tend to produce the most honest conversations because there’s no guest to manage. Daniel, Charly, and Luke talk to each other the way they’d talk at the ramp. The technique philosophy that defines [FISH]rx comes through most clearly when nobody’s performing for a guest.

Watch the full episode on the Time On The Water YouTube channel. New episodes every Tuesday at 6 PM.