Author: Erik Landesfeind

It’s been another week of offshore business as usual for SoCal anglers. The big news continues to be the bluefin that are biting along the backside of San Clemente Island. What’s different than last week is that boats are scoring more mixed grade fish like these caught aboard Sauerfish Charters. The biggest scores have been coming from nighttime flat fall bites but boats also had plenty of opportunities to throw poppers at mixed grade foamers this week. The night bite remains the best chance for sport boat anglers to catch fish without needing to win the kite rotation lottery. On…

“Best SoCal bluefin fishing ever” is a pretty big title to slap onto any given week and that’s why I thought long and hard before making the claim for the fist time in November of last year. As good as the fishing has been recently, I decided to go back to that column and see how this week’s action stacked up. While the counts were similar, the size of the fish being caught told the bigger story. After doing some lose research on bluefin tuna growth rates, I was able to find that fish in the 6 to 7 year…

I’ve developed a bit of a hardbait fishing addiction over the last couple years so I was more than happy to say yes when my editor asked if I’d like to review some new Yo-Zuri Hydro Series baits. A few days later I received a box in the mail containing the baits, one of which I was pleased to see that I’d already been using for months. Included where the Hydro Minnow in 150 and 170 size, the Hydro Pencil (a bait I’d been using and loving) and the 120 size Hydro Popper. My fishing partner, Matt Kotch, and I…

As has been the pattern this year, the big bluefin tuna bit on the full moon for the fourth month in a row. This photo is from a three day trip aboard the Pacific Queen that returned to the dock Wednesday morning with 43 bluefin Tuna, 9 of which were over 200-pounds and one breaking the 300-pound mark. One of the coolest things about this and other photos like it is that it shows just how adept these boat crews have become at targeting these big fish. Speaking of being adept at landing big tuna, if you read my report…

As much as I hate to do it, this is going to be another one of those “good news and bad news” types of columns. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week you already know the good news. The offshore bite has been great! Ready for the bad news? We’ve got a full moon this weekend and unlike the last couple moons, this one is bringing the wind with it. While not all weather forecasts are in agreement about how much wind there’s going to be, they’re all forecasting it to blow at least across the…

After several false starts over the last few months but it looks like the San Diego offshore fishing season has finally hit its stride. Full day and overnight trips found steady action on mixed schools of SoCal yellowfin and skipjack tuna this week and on Wednesday the fleet tallied almost 1200 yellowfin. While many of these fish are small, there are enough bigger ones (like those pictured) to keep things fun. While the bulk of the yellowfin tuna is still below the border, there are fish spread as far north as Catalina so this bite should continue to improve. There’s…

Before I get into this week’s report I’d like to take a minute to talk about this unusually hot water we’re experiencing along our coast. According to a NBC 7 News report, “Surface water temperatures in August hit the highest they have ever been in at least a century, according to researchers with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. On Wednesday, August 1, water samples pulled from the end of Scripps Pier showed a reading of 78.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers said it broke an all-time record. Since 1916, scientists have been tracking water temperatures near the pier in La…

Winn Grip Overwrap Boat It’s been a few months since I first installed Winn Grip Overwrap on some of my fishing rod handles and the product has proved durable enough that I decided to install it on some other things around my boat. If you missed my original article about the product you can read it here. My biggest concern about the wrap was that it would eventually become slippery but after dozens of days of fishing, sometimes with very dirty hands, the grips are still clean and as tacky feeling as the day I installed them. After spending a…

Full Moon Delivers Offshore Anglers Being somewhere in the middle of my seventh year of writing this weekly column, I realize that I’ve developed a fairly regimented Thursday morning routine. I’ll get up, drink coffee, look through all the social media photos I’ve right clicked and saved during the week, drink more coffee, check the marine weather forecast, call Matt Kotch to see if he wants to fish later, check Fishdope and take a final pass through our forums to see if there were any late breaking bites I might have missed. Once done with all that, I’ll sit down…

Using Navionics Fishing Ranges Navionics recently added a new feature that will revolutionize the way we prospect for new fishing spots. The Fishing Ranges feature allows you to customize and display up to five depth ranges on your SonarChart™ map layer at the same time. How does adding depth colors revolutionize prospecting? Let’s take a look The first step is to select “Menu” and then click on “Map Options”. The next step is to select “Fishing Ranges”. If you don’t see this on your app go to the app store and download the latest Navionics update. Once open, “Fishing Ranges”…

Editor’s Note: The full moon will help some and hinder others as it pulls on the ocean this weekend. Bluefin, yellowtail and seabass are liking it and could fire off the bite according to Erik Landesfeind. It’s been another good week of fishing in Southern California and while this week’s report sounds a lot like the last, change is coming in the form of tonight’s full moon. If you’ve been following recent reports you’ll know that the changes have already started. The bluefin that were parked on the Clemente Ridge for the better part of a month have moved on. Guys…

If you’ve so much as glanced at our forums or your social media feed this week, you already know that the big bluefin dominate the bite and it’s about as good as its been since this whole crazy cycle started. For whatever reason this week’s new moon cycle had the fish in a particularly cooperative mood and boats went from getting a shot at a big fish every few trips to getting multiple shots every trip. Rather than repeat all of the success stories here, I recommend a visit to our Offshore Reports Forum to read a few of the…

Offshore Party Well, I’ve finally been paroled from my sentence in the hinterlands of New York and I’m happy to report that the bluefin bite appears to be right where I left it a couple weeks ago. Looking back over last week’s reports, it seems that the yellowfin tuna started biting on the same day I’d been stalked by a menacing (and potentially rabid) chipmunk while wandering through the woods in search of my misplaced rental. You’d be surprised how quickly a day trip to the local strip mine can go wrong if you don’t remember where you parked. My…

Private Boaters Fishing – SoCal Anglers I’m going to be keeping this week’s report short and to the point because I’m forced to write it on my iPad while sitting at the kitchen table of a cramped and over crowded shack in the backwoods of upstate New York. Got to love visiting the in-laws. Oh and it’s going to be 95-degrees this afternoon and the humidity is so high that the stinging insects are having trouble finding enough traction on my sweaty skin to properly assault me. The moral of this story? Never take California weather for granted. Due to…

Socal Fish Bite Full Moon As an inshore guy, I try to avoid fishing around the full moon because the bass fishing usually sucks. The problem is that I don’t always keep close tabs on the lunar cycle and I sometimes get caught off guard by it. That’s exactly what happened to me on Monday night when I sat down to have a cocktail on my patio after loading the boat for a trip to San Clemente Island the next morning. Just as I took my first sip, a very large full moon rose above the horizon and my bass…

The Steady Yellowtail Bite, Seabass, and Big Bluefin Highlight this Week’s SoCal Scene It’s been another good week of fishing in Southern California. From the yellows and seabass at the Channel Islands to big bluefin on the outer banks and the steady yellowtail bite at the Coronado Islands, it seems like everything is biting. But… There is some southeast wind in the weekend’s forecast and depending on how hard it blows, it may make for some tough fishing conditions on Sunday. This shot from Windy shows the forecast for Sunday morning at around 10:00 a.m. This is far beyond your…

Bluefin Bite Improves Looks like this month’s new moon on Wednesday night was enough to get the bluefin back into a biting mood. Boats started seeing fish on Friday of last week but they were mostly uncooperative over the weekend. By Wednesday all boats fishing in the area were having shots at bluefin with some private boaters and 4-pack charters reporting limits. The Grande out of H&M Landing got in on the action during Wednesday’s full day trip and landed 16 bluefin tuna for their anglers. While most of the fish are in the 25-40-pound class, there have been some…

Yellow Dominates SoCal Fish Counts With the irregular weather patterns we’ve suffered through for much of the Spring having finally straightened themselves out, the return to June Gloom followed by afternoon west winds seem to have straightened the fishing out as well according to the SoCal fish counts. With seabass and yellows biting at the islands, barracuda finally starting to show along the coast and the first kelp paddy yellows showing up in Orange County, it looks like summer fishing has finally arrived. While there is still some wind blowing on the outer Channel Islands, most areas along our coast…

It’s been another windy week over much of Southern California and it’s kept the coverage down over most of the outer islands. The good news is that the boats that have been getting off the dock have been experiencing pretty good SoCal action. The better news is that there’s good weather in the forecast for the entire Southern California Bight this weekend and I’d expect that by Sunday nights, the fish reports are going to be a whole lot better than they have been. The bluefin continued to bite for boats this week and while the action has been far…

In case you missed my previous article, I recently did a review of the Winn Grip Reel Handle Sleeves I picked up at the Fred Hall Show this year. While there, I also picked up a couple rolls of Winn Grip Overwrap to cover the beat up EVA handles on some of my rods. I was telling my buddy Jimmy Decker about the handle wrap, as we were heading out fishing one morning, and opined that wasn’t sure how it would hold up in the saltwater environment. To my surprise, Jimmy pointed to a black wrap around the grab rail…

As has been the case with almost every column I’ve written over the last few months, I’m going to start yet another one lamenting the weekend’s weather forecast. The good news is that the wind is only supposed to blow on Saturday and this being a three-day weekend, you’ll still be left with a couple days of good fishing weather to chase these SoCal fish. The bad news is that this being a three-day weekend, and the unofficial start of the summer fishing season, you’re going to have to share the water with more people than you did last week.…

Bluefin Bite Off San Diego I know that it’s still early in the season but this pic, taken aboard the Liberty out of Fisherman’s Landing on Saturday, is my favorite photo of the year. It’s been a really long time since I was these kids’ age, but I still remember how enthusiastic I was about fishing at the time and how excited I was to see any tuna caught, much less a 140-pounder in 3/4-day range.  Early bluefin bite? One thing is for sure, those smiles aren’t going to fade any time soon. At some point, these big bluefin are…

If you fish a lot, following your outboard motor’s manufacturer guidelines for scheduled outboard maintenance can get expensive. I find it funny that most owner’s manuals use the terms “100-hour service” and “yearly service” interchangeably assuming that that’s how many hours most motors run in a year. If you’re only putting 100 hours or less on your motor each year you probably don’t mind paying a shop $300 or more to service your motor. But if you’re like me and put hundreds of hours on your motor each year, you’re going to save a lot of money by doing the…

Ready for some good news? The wind is not going to be blowing this weekend in our Socal Forecast! In fact, most of the Southern California Bight is forecast to be wind free from Friday night through at least Wednesday. The long range SoCal forecast is calling for another shot of wind Thursday and Friday but let’s just enjoy this weather window and worry about the wind next week. This has been another week of thin fishing coverage due to wind. The weather at the Channel Islands has been nasty the last couple days, but boats fishing the coast have…