Newport Bay is surrounded by the communities of
Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and Irvine. It is a
hidden oasis centrally located between all major
freeways, exquisite shopping, entertainment,
business parks, and social activities. The
Newport Bay offers diverse landscape settings to
explore from residential homes and marshlands to
high bluffs and park lands.
The bay is an ideal location for all levels
of paddlers, providing novice paddlers to
paddle the nineteen miles of shoreline
sections at a time. I divided the bay into
three sections. The northern “Upper Newport
Ecological Reserve” area, which is about
three-and-a-half miles long by a-half mile
wide, and is accessible to paddle at high
tide. The middle “Back Bay” area has a
campground and a boat launch for a fee and
is located at Newport Dunes Aquatic Park on
Back Bay Drive. Lastly, the “Newport Bay”
area has numerous tiny islands to explore,
but you need to watch out for outgoing tide
conditions and to stay out of the restricted
areas.
Newport Bay provides excellent kayak fishing
opportunities for surfperch, spotted sand,
kelp, and sand bass, white sea bass,
yellowfin, and spot fin croaker. Except for
the white sea bass, all fish inside the
harbor are wild, native fish. There isn’t
any stocking program. In the winter, there
is usually good action in the bay for
spotted
bay bass man and working the walls
(breakwaters) for calico’s. The nice thing
about fishing in the bay in winter is you
will most likely catch spotties and maybe
halibut every time out.
Map of Newport Bay
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