Author: Erik Landesfeind

Sometimes it seems like yesterday and other times it feels like a lifetime ago, but it’s actually been a little over seven years since the big bluefin first showed up in our backyard from my recollection. While the fishing has been better some years than others, one thing is for sure, looking back on the many lopsided, and often losing, battles fought in the early years, we as anglers have become a lot more effective at targeting our Pacific Bluefin Tuna. There’s been no shortage of tactics and almost every year we discover a new method that has everyone scrambling…

This week the coast is biting with Calicos, White Sea Bass and Yellowtail. The offshore scene slows down a bit although we’re seeing plenty of fish. Yellowfin and Dorado make an appearance in the reports as well as exciting news as what’s to come in the Southern California Bight. JOIN FISHDOPE On the water conditions and charts provided by FISH DOPE. Our combination of daily fishing reports, SST & chlorophyll charts, and the latest hot bite locations will give you the confidence to know exactly where you need to go to find the fish. FISH DOPE gives up-to-date and comprehensive…

We’re off to the races, the Southern California Bight is in full bloom. From the Channel Islands to the coast down to the border, there’s something for everyone from inshore to offshore. Check-in with Erik Landesfeind as he gives us the scoop on what’s going on in the Southern California Bight. JOIN FISHDOPE On the water conditions and charts provided by FISH DOPE. Our combination of daily fishing reports, SST & chlorophyll charts, and the latest hot bite locations will give you the confidence to know exactly where you need to go to find the fish. FISH DOPE gives up-to-date…

This week Erik shares some phenomenal fishing up at Catalina Island for some Calicos. Sandbass also seem like they’ve made a return and are showing up in good numbers on the coast. Bluefin are still taking the main stage with the fleet focusing their efforts on some monumental catches. Check out the report from Erik with some great info in the Southern California Bight. JOIN FISHDOPE On the water conditions and charts provided by FISH DOPE. Our combination of daily fishing reports, SST & chlorophyll charts, and the latest hot bite locations will give you the confidence to know…

If you’ve been waiting for the weather to straighten out and for the fish to start biting, consider this your opening week. Things seem to be lining up in the entire Southern California Bight from White Sea Bass, Sand Bass to Bluefin Tuna. Get the inside scoop from Erik in this week’s report. About Erik Landesfeind Since getting his start working as a deckhand on a ¾ day boat in the 1980s, Erik Landesfeind has spent the last 35 years fishing the waters off Southern California and Baja. Taking what he’d learned during his years fishing on sport boats, Erik…

At the root of it we’re all anglers but when you start to dissect the practice as a whole those that take it seriously are highly specialized and that really just comes down to what your personal preference in fishing style is.  Your specialization may be based on technique, species, locations, or other factors entirely.  In Southern California, Calico Bass fishermen are some of the most specialized and dedicated to their trade.  Sure, anyone for the most part can go out to their local kelp bed and hook a calico on a soft plastic or stick bait, but when it…

A lot is going on in the Southern California Bight in regard to fishing and conditions. In this installment, Erik Landesfiend breaks down our current wind cycle and its effects on our local fishing, talks CCA fishing tournament, breaks down our local fishing scene, and lastly gives us some great insight into the current lures being used to target some of our local bluefin tuna.   About Erik Landesfeind Since getting his start working as a deckhand on a ¾ day boat in the 1980s, Erik Landesfeind has spent the last 35 years fishing the waters off Southern California and…

The weather is finally starting to cooperate here in the Southern California Bight, which means we’ll finally be getting some coverage out in our local waters. There have been some whispers of yellowtail, bluefin, white sea bass, rockfish and bonito. Erik Landesfeind one of our most respected contributors fills us in on this week’s report. Additionally, we get some great insight into “shallow water” artificials for targeting rockfish. Make sure to check in with the Department of Fish and Game for the latest regulations on your targeted species. About Erik Landesfiend Since getting his start working as a deckhand on…

We are rounding out the third week of March and for many of us who call the Southern California Bight our backyard, we are waiting in anticipation for the main fishing season to kick off. Well, it sounds like that time is finally here with several sportboats and anglers finally getting off the dock on the hunt. We are lucky enough to have Erik Lendesfeind to give us the latest and greatest here in Southern California. About Erik Landesfiend Since getting his start working as a deckhand on a ¾ day boat in the 1980’s, Erik Landesfeind has spent the…

ROCKFISH BITE WHEN WEATHER COOPERATES It’s been another week of hit and miss weather and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon, so I’m going to start this week with a weather report. Starting up north, the weather looks sport boat fishable at Rosa and Miguel on Saturday, but I wouldn’t make the run in a skiff. After that, except for a brief break on Monday, it’s going to blow up there all of next week. Things aren’t looking much better for Santa Cruz and Anacapa, but you might be able to find a spot to fish…

After having to sit out this year’s rockfish opener due to a bad back and busy work schedule, I was really looking forward to catching some this weekend. Sadly, after consulting the weather forecast, which is calling for 30 knots of wind across the inner waters on Saturday, my plans are going to have to be put on hold. And while the boats that fished the opener had good to great fishing, they’re probably not getting out this weekend, so reporting on it seemed like a waste of time. Instead, I figured I’d go over some of the different rockfish…

There was some pretty decent wintertime bass fishing to be had over the weekend, but this week’s storm was likely strong enough to hit the reset button on the conditions in the hardest-hit areas. While we didn’t get much rain, there was quite a bit of wind associated with the system and that wind likely led to cold water upwelling along the beach and at the islands. The good news is that the wind probably won’t have as significant an impact on the deep-water bass bite as it will in the shallows. Speaking of the shallow bass bite, the fishing…

It’s been an interesting week of weather across Southern California with warm Santa Ana’s interspersed with cold west wind and thunderstorms. The good news is that the weather is forecast to settle down for the weekend and I doubt Tuesday’s storm was significant enough to have an impact on the fishing. That being said, we have another weather system coming in next week, so if you’re planning on fishing, I’d get out there this weekend and please be safe and keep an eye on the weather. While the fishing has been status quo along the coast, the one new bright…

After spending the last two weeks beating our heads against the wall at Clemente, it felt really good to sleep, make a ten-minute run instead of a two-hour run, and enjoy a fun day of mixed bass fishing along the coast. While it took looking in a few different areas to find fish in the 58-degree, mostly clean, water between Newport and Huntington Beach, we eventually found a steady pick on bass in structure from 50 to 60-feet deep. Despite the cold water and deeper depths, the calicos were schooled up and willing to bite a crankbait while the sand…

Maybe it’s a byproduct of the information age we live in, but it seems that we’re constantly being bombarded with a barrage of ads for special interest groups, non-profits, and political organizations. As such, it’s human nature to turn a blind eye to even those groups who claim to have a fisherman’s best interests in mind. Well, I’m here to tell you that if you’re a fisherman living in California, it is 100% in your best interest to become a member of CCA California, an organization that not only fights against those in government who are trying to take our…

It’s been another week of good winter fishing across Southern California. Well, at least for those who aren’t too hard headed to adjust to what the fish are biting. Case in point, I’ve made two trips to San Clemente Island over the last couple of weeks and my grand total for those trips is zero calico bass. After a tough first trip of the year to the island with Matt Kotch, who at least caught a half dozen fish on weedless swimbaits, I returned to the island with Jimmy Decker and Rob Kato over the weekend. My high hopes of…

The header shot was taken on the FISHDOPE app and shows Saturday looking pretty nice. So, other than a little bit of wind blowing off Ventura and hitting Anacapa, the rest of the So Cal Bight is open for business. Good luck if you’re heading out this weekend! Please make sure to check the latest weather/ wind forecast and reports as things can change from the predicated quickly. As for what happened last weekend the Santa Ana wind event definitely lived up to the forecast in most areas. The strange part was that there were also areas with little to…

As an outdoor writer, I often get asked to test drive the latest and greatest products and when it comes to fishing line, the “latest and greatest” often ends up being indistinguishable from the products that have been on the market for years. As a result, I was a little leery about agreeing to write a review about a new braid being released by Seaguar. After years of using their Threadlock braid with my offshore tackle, I was already very happy with their spectra but wasn’t sure that I’d have a lot to say about a new product. As it…

It’s been another mostly good week of wintertime fishing in Southern California. I added the word “mostly” because at this time of year the fishing can change day by day at any given location and if you’re lucky to time it right you can have a good day and if you don’t, the fishing could very well be poor. As it turned out, my first trip of the year fell into the latter category when I ran to San Clemente Island on Thursday. While I neglected to snap any photos, this picture of a fish caught by my friend James…

Happy 2022 everyone! Due to the holidays, it’s been a while since my last report, but trust me when I tell you that you haven’t missed much. With the amount of weather we’ve had the last few weeks, there wasn’t much happening even when it wasn’t raining or blowing. The good news is that the weather has gotten back to normal and there are some good fishing options available for the weekend. In case you’re unaware, rockfish are closed until March 1st, so if you’re a sport boat angler, your fishing options are fairly limited. Most of the 3/4 day…

Watching the clouds roll in and the palm trees sway outside my office window this Thursday morning, makes me glad that I’m not out on the water today. While today’s storm isn’t forecast to bring all that much rain, there’s another, and much bigger, system scheduled to roll in on Monday. The good news is that today’s storm won’t be strong enough to put a damper on the good late fall fishing we’ve had and we’ve got a couple days of great fishing weather to look forward to this weekend. The bluefin are still biting for the few boats still…

Despite the weather changing from hot and dry to cool and damp, the winds have remained reasonably calm on the water over the last couple of weeks and the fishing has been as good as you’d expect it to be at the beginning of December. Better yet, we’ve got at least another week of mostly windless fishing weather ahead of that. And with squid showing up in several areas around Southern California, there might be better fishing yet to come. As has been the case the last few weeks, the rockfish bite around the Channel Islands continues to be the…

It’s been another week of good weather and good fall fishing across Southern California and, with Santa Ana conditions through the weekend, that’s likely to continue. Before I get into the details of what’s been happening, I’d like to take a moment to talk about what hopefully is getting ready to happen. As has happened the last few seasons, in October the bluefin left our local banks and took off to wherever it is that they go. With water temperatures being cooler this year, I assumed that those fish might be gone until next year. 30 to 80-pound bluefin briefly…

Though far from being wide open, the bluefin bite has rebounded at the Cortes and Tanner Banks. Sport boats fishing on 1 1/2 to 3 day trips had multiple shots at good size fish that have been biting both during the night and day. There have been some really big fish in the mix, with several topping the 300-pound mark, mostly being caught on flying fish. With good weather in the weekend forecast, I’d imagine that this area will see considerably more boat pressure, so it will be interesting to see how much fish there is to be caught out…