Author: Erik Landesfeind

The bluefin tuna bite at Tanner Bank continues to be the big news in Southern California this week. The weather is up on the bank at the time of this writing on Wednesday morning but the fish are still biting for boats making the run. The good news is that the weather is currently coming down but the bad news is that by the time you read this it will likely be windy again. With winds of 15 to 30 MPH forecast for the outer waters through the weekend we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that the fish are…

The outer waters saw a good amount of wind on Wednesday and as of the time of this writing on Thursday morning, there hasn’t been much news as to the effect it might have had on the fish. As of now, only one boat has reported in from the bluefin zone and they reported hanging a couple of fish. If recent wind events are any indication, I’d be willing to guess that the short period of wind we received will do much damage. So, keeping my fingers crossed that fish that have yet to be reported are bending rods right…

Tanner Bank was the hot spot for big bluefin tuna this wee. With overnight and 1 1/2 day boats from San Pedro to San Diego getting in on the action this may be your last chance to get another shot at these fish before the weather sends them packing. But don’t wait too long because trips are filling up fast. As of noon on Thursday 22nd Street Landing was booked solid until Monday night’s trip aboard the Outrider, Davey’s Locker was booked up as well and the only boats that had any room in San Diego were Saturday night’s 1…

I’ve always considered myself to be fairly open minded when it comes to embracing new and different fishing tackle but when Matt Kotch showed up at my house with a new Rainshadow jig stick, I took one look at it and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me”. Matt proffered the 10-foot rod saying, “At least pull on it, it has tons of power”. Bracing the butt against my mid section, I pulled for all I was worth while Matt held the rod tip. Letting out a groan I suggested, “Have fun with that, it’s too much rod for me”.…

This week’s tuna fishing was tougher than it’s been but as far as November tuna bites go, this one is still pretty damn good. The best bet continues to be the backside of San Clemente Island, where the 30-pound class tuna are biting for boats when the Navy lets them fish there. If you’re planning a tuna trip, I highly recommend checking the island’s website to make sure the east end backside is open on the day you plan to go. If it’s not, you’re going to have extremely limited tuna fishing options. The only other tuna game in town…

BD’s Erik Landesfeind spends much of his time fishing SoCal waters for a variety of species.  Heavy into Saltwater bass, Erik shares his tips and techniques with BD’ers in his SoCal Scene Column.  Here are just a few of his many great tackle tips. 1. Choosing the Right Lead Head for Your Inshore Fishing Needs One of the questions I get asked most often is, “Which lead head should I use when fishing for (insert bass species here)?” While that may seem like a simple enough question, it’s actually pretty tough to answer without giving a bunch of situational exceptions.…

This being the end of October, the big question on most angler’s minds is just how long the fish are going to stick around and bite in our offshore waters. While this bite would be considered late season by anyone’s standards, there’s no saying just how late this season can actually go. Unless we get some major winter storms, these fish could potentially hang around through December. The storm we had on Monday morning didn’t pack enough of a punch to put the fish down, they actually bit better after the rain, and I doubt Thursday night and Friday morning’s…

Fishing Bite Early and late season full moons can be tricky when it comes to how they’ll affect the fishing, but the one we experienced on Sunday night was more of a non-event than most. The fish that had been biting going into the moon continued to bite and those that weren’t biting all that well bit a little better. With Santa Ana winds and warm weather forecast for the weekend, there’s no reason the fishing shouldn’t stay good or even improve in the next few days. Since we’re transitioning into fall I’m going to go back to breaking up…

One of the biggest mistakes we make as anglers is chalking up our success to being a good angler while blaming our lack of success on slow fishing. While the fishing is actually slow sometimes, more often than not our lack of success stems from our action rather than the fishes. As a tournament angler, I’ve frequently had this point driven home when, after struggling to catch fish all day, I’ve pulled up to the scales to find that other teams had absolutely looped the big ones that day. The problem is that until you pull up to the scales…

Just when it seemed as if the fat lady was going to sing at any moment, the offshore scene rebounded with not just yellowfin biting but bluefin being seen and caught in places other than San Clemente Island. While the fishing is better than it was last week, there’s no guarantee of how long it’s going to last. So if you want what will probably be your last shot at tuna this year I highly recommend going as soon as possible. The bluefin are back As has been the case over the last couple weeks, most of the fish are…

Save for the occasional large bluefin tuna being caught at San Clemente Island this week, it seems as if a sense of fishing normalcy has returned to Southern California after these many months of unprecedented action. As such, unless something crazy happens again next week, I’ll be returning to my normal coverage by trying to include more information about some of the less exciting species that are biting along our coast. But before I do that, I will cover the last of the unusual bites. The rockfish grounds off San Clemente Island seems to be the spot that the bigger…

With the bluefin becoming scarce and the yellowfin showing more than they are going, the big news this week is the island yellowtail bite. While all of our local islands are holding fish there have been a couple of stand out bites. The first of those is at San Nicholas Island where overnight boats are scoring big numbers of quality fish. Stand out scores for the week were on boats based out of 22nd Street Landing. On Wednesday the Outrider scored full limits of 110 fish for their 11 anglers and the Freedom managed 193 fish for their 36 passengers.…

When it comes to fishing, I’ve always been big on theorizing why what works works and what doesn’t doesn’t. More often than we as anglers like to admit, when it comes to lure coloration, our confidence is usually based on things that have nothing to do with piscatorial preferences. This is especially true in regards to choosing a surface iron to fish for calico bass. Considering that the bulk of a calico’s diet is comprised of bait fish, like anchovies and sardines, it’s somewhat counter intuitive to fish a jig with lots of reds, yellows and browns. But if you…

We’re about an hour and forty minutes past Fall’s official start as I sit here writing this on Thursday morning but the fish are biting like it’s the middle of summer. The school sized yellowfin tuna that were MIA for most of the year have settled in to bite and the yellowtail at the islands are continuing to cooperate on a regular basis. Throw in a better than average marlin season into the mix and anglers are left with lots of good fishing options for the weekend. I’ve spent most of the last few months leading my reports with the…

Though there are still plenty of fish around, the bluefin bite is not the top news this week as Naval maneuvers at San Clemente Island have kept the fleet away from the Desperation Reef tuna grounds. Several private boats have snuck out to fish the zone despite the closure and reported catching fish there earlier this week, so I expect that bite to pick right back up once the island schedule allows boats to return. In the meantime, there are still some really big bluefin being caught, like this 250-pounder Chris Lilis landed, for boats willing to put in their…

Despite hosting a crowd of boats likely large enough to be seen from space, the bluefin tuna grounds off San Clemente Island continued to kick out fish through Labor Day Weekend and into this week. If you haven’t been to the island in the last few weeks, on any given day there can be fifty sport boats and long range boats, as many yachts and charter boats, like Sauerfish Charters who provided the picture above, and dozens of smaller private boats. Though crowded, the area is holding enough fish that almost every boat is getting shots every day. If you’re…

Just about every serious calico bass fisherman has a few hard baits in their tackle box, but the level of success they experience when using those baits varies greatly. While some people swear by them, others, like myself, have had less than stellar results and just can’t seem to get the hang of using them. This lack of confidence in the presentation usually results in the baits staying in the tackle box when the fishing is tough. In hopes of getting a better handle on hard bait techniques, I spoke with Lucky Craft pro-staffer Chris Lilis and asked for some…

In yet another strange twist in the unpredictable story line that the last two years of fishing have been, this week’s tuna hot spot is the rockfish grounds off San Clemente Island. Desperation Reef, which spends most seasons playing the role of fall back rockfish spot with the occasional side of yellows has become the go to destination for boats from Long Beach to San Diego. With upwards of fifty boats a day getting good scores on quality bluefin and yellowfin, the volume of fish in the zone is really amazing. The Thunderbird out of Davey’s Locker has been on…

There’s been a lot of discussion on our message boards about offshore fishing this week and it seems like the comments fall into one of two categories. The first group are those who say the fishing sucks and are often the same ones who blame the purse seiners for the lack of catchable tuna within skiff range of the coast. To an extent they are correct. There has been a lack of 25-pound and under yellowfin in our local waters, but I don’t think its the purse seiners fault. More realistically is that the crazy weather and water conditions we’ve…

This year being what it is, I’ll be starting my column off with the obligatory, “the big bluefin are still biting” statement, but this week I’m going to shift my focus to other fisheries. Before I do so, let me repeat; the big bluefin are still biting if you go on a boat that’s targeting them. Boats like the Pacific Queen, the New Lo-An and the Success have been fishing them regularly. The photo above show the fish the Success caught on a recent trip, they had five over 200-pounds. If you’re willing to shell out a few more bucks…

What a difference a week makes! At this time last week the bluefin weren’t anywhere to be found and I incorrectly prognosticated that they might be gone for good. Well, for once I’m glad to say that I was wrong. The tuna are still here and the big ones are biting better than ever. After the fish showed up again last Thursday, I decided to take a look around on Friday afternoon. Matt Kotch and I launched out of Dana Point at 1:00 p.m. and saw multiple schools scattered from ten miles inside the 209 all the way to the…

Throwing the weedless in the kelp is hands down my favorite way of targeting calicos, but it wasn’t always. The first time I saw a weedless swimbait fished was while on a trip with Corey Sanden, who had just released his new bait the MC Swimbaits 7-inch weedless. During that trip I watched Sanden catch multiple bass on the bait, but once I got out on my own boat and started throwing it, I felt like I was doing something wrong and just couldn’t build the confidence to make enough casts to figure it out. That pattern continued over the…

For the first time in a long time I won’t be leading my report off with tales of big bluefin being caught in our local waters. While there were some fish caught over the weekend and on Monday, things have changed over the last few days and at least at the time of this writing, on Thursday morning, the fish seem to have gone down or left the areas they’d been biting. The fish have bugged out on us a few times this season, only to return a day or two later, but after talking to a few friends who…