Author: Erik Landesfeind

Regardless of the species targeted, there are some fishermen who’s consistent success makes them stand out from the crowd. Among those who don’t experience the same level of success, it’s easy enough to attribute the track record of these better fishermen to the fact that they’ve been doing it longer or spend more time on the water. Until recently, that argument had been hard to disprove because everyone started fishing at different points in their lives and spent different amounts of time doing it. That all changed when the bluefin tuna showed back up in force off the Southern California…

While the fat lady hasn’t sung yet on our offshore fishing season, you can definitely hear her warming up in the background. It’s been a while since any big bluefin were landed at the outer banks and while there were a few smaller fish caught, the volume just never returned after the last big storm. Down south, the action on the local banks has dried up, save for small kelp paddy yellows and the occasional skipjack. Way down south, the yellowfin bite off Colonet has dropped off significantly as well and while any of those bites could rebound at any…

For as voracious as deep water bass and rockfish can be, anyone that’s spent time fishing them with a big plastic on a lead head can tell you that the bite to hook up ratio is often surprisingly low. While I’d always chalked that up to the fish biting the tail of the bait and not getting the hook, I learned the reality was that the fish were biting the head of the bait, but not getting the hook because it was pointed in the wrong direction. While it takes a little bit of work, you can modify your lead…

Be it due to the weather or a lack of angler participation, our offshore season is starting to feel like it’s winding down. Aside from the bluefin biting out west, it’s been at least a month since there’s been anything worth targeting in US waters. And while there are still a few tuna being caught by full day boats fishing out of San Diego, the big yellowfin scores this week were caught over 100-miles south of San Diego. With the bad news out of the way, let’s take a look at what your fishing options are for the weekend. The…

Well, we had our first dose of strong northwest wind of the season earlier this week, and as expected, it had a negative effect on the fishing. While there hasn’t been enough coverage since the wind to get a handle on exactly what’s happening, looking at the water temperatures offshore, it definitely didn’t do the fishing any favors. While a single wind episode isn’t enough to send the fish packing for good, it certainly signals the beginning of the end for our offshore season. While you might have to settle for targeting rockfish, the good news is that we’ve got…

It’s been a weird week on the water in Southern California, during which anglers had to contend with lightning storms, oil spills, locked down harbors and coastal fishing closures (Fishery Closure Information). I think that this may be the first time in Southern California that boats from multiple harbors found themselves without a dock to return to. Unfortunately, that was the case for many of the boats that fished this week’s War Heroes on the Water tournament, where Monday night left boaters dodging lightning bolts while scrambling to find a slip in an open harbor. Luckily, all of the veterans…

We asked Erik Landesfeind, saltwater bass tournament pro, and all-around avid angler how he uses Gulp! in his home waters. He turned to his good friend Capt. Jimmy Decker to demonstrate one of their favorite techniques with the Gulp! Jerk Shad. “The Gulp! Jerk Shad is one of the most versatile presentations available when targeting all three species of saltwater bass. Be it the 5-inch rigged on a 3/8-ounce Owner Sled Head or the 6-inch rigged on a 1/2-ounce, this completely weedless bait can be fished around eelgrass, kelp, and even boiler rocks. Here Captain Jimmy Decker shares how to…

Just as it seemed that the offshore season was beginning to wind down for San Diego boats, the yellowfin tuna showed up en masse and biting. Boats fishing the inner banks below San Diego this week found good fishing for yellowfin, skipjack and even bluefin tuna. At it’s peak earlier this week, several boats posted limits of quality yellowfin on their full day trips. According to reports, while the schools weren’t always easy to locate, once found, the fish were readily biting the heavy line and captains suggest bringing 40 and 50 pound test for when the bite is on.…

With yellowfin showing back up in the counts and bluefin popping up in new areas, the September full moon proved a good one for tuna fishermen. Better yet, the couple days of wind that cam with the moon will have ended by the time you read this and the weekend forecast looks phenomenal across the entire Southern California bight. So, with less than 10 knots of wind forecast across the outer tuna grounds this weekend, let’s take a look at your fishing options. If you’re looking to catch a trophy bluefin tuna, you’ve got a really good chance of doing…

It’s getting to be that time of year that not every week of fishing is going to be a good one, but we’re still early enough into fall that a down week doesn’t mean that the season is over. That being said, we’re pretty much on the back end of our yearly warm water push, so I wouldn’t expect conditions to improve all that much along the inner banks where the water has dropped in temp and gotten quite off color. While that might not bode well for a local late season yellowfin tuna bite, the bluefin don’t seem to…

While I’ll spare you the details of the mentally exhausting 135-page report entitled, Evaluation of the Feasibility and Costs of Installing Tier 4 Engines and Retrofit Exhaust Aftertreatment on In-Use Commercial Harbor Craft, suffice it to say that the report’s findings are not fishing boat friendly. The report, commissioned by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), points out that the diesel engines used by sport fishing boats need to be replaced because they aren’t clean enough to meet California’s new emissions standards. While upgrading to cleaner-running engines might seem like a good idea, the problem that sport boats face is…

I apologize for missing last week’s column, due to the fact that I was traveling home from nine days of incarceration in upstate New York, and while I suffer the occasional flashback to the stupefying level of boredom I endured during the visit to my in-laws, I’m happy to report that I made it home just in time to kick off my favorite time of the fishing year. I think that Captain Ryan Bostian of the San Diego put it best when he recently referred to the post Labor Day season as the “Local’s Summer”. Whatever you call it, the…

Greetings from the overgrown, and extremely humid, hinterlands of upstate New York. Despite being forced to languish at my wife’s parents house in the hippy infested wasteland that is modern day Woodstock, I’ve kept my finger on the So Cal fishing pulse and am happy to report that things are firing on all cylinders. While the full moon did throw us it’s usual curve ball over the weekend, overall it’s been another good week of fishing across Southern California. Speaking of which, Matt Kotch, Jimmy Decker and I made the run to San Clemente Island on Saturday, despite having sworn…

After spending several weeks tightly grouped along the beach, the big schools of tuna dissipated last week and have spread out into smaller groups of fish in multiple areas. While that’s bad news for all the guys using AIS to chase gang bangs, it’s great news for those of us who like to go out and look for our own fish to catch. With reports of fish coming in from random areas stretching from below the border to Santa Cruz Island, there’s plenty of places to go looking if you’re so inclined. For example, I just spoke to Jimmy Decker…

I’m not sure if it’s the new moon, the amount of bait in the area or the fluctuating water temperatures, but the offshore bite was anything but consistent this week. With one day feast and then next famine, the difference between success and failure this week came down to lucky timing. As an example of that, I fished offshore on Saturday and while I find breezing tuna in a number of areas, I never saw a school that looked like it would bite. My friend Captain Gerry Mahieu was out the same day and fished the same general area, but…

It’s been another really good week of bluefin tuna fishing in US waters. Both private boaters and sport boats got into the action this week from the local banks off Orange County up to Catalina Island. As has been the case, the first day that the main fleet got on these fish was the best before things slowed down due to boat traffic and wind. The good news is that we’ve got good weather in the weekend forecast and enough fish around that anyone willing to drive away from the fleet has a good shot at finding them. Speaking of…

Finding fish is everyone’s top priority when fishing offshore, but being able to stay on top of them is the key to continued success. This video describes the common mistake made by even the most seasoned offshore anglers, driving away from the fish while looking for the fish. If you’re running and gunning on birds or breaking tuna, you can put miles between you and the bite zone in a matter of minutes, so it pays to go back and thoroughly retrace your steps. Once you relocate the fish that had been biting, you can quickly get back to bending…

It’s been another week of good offshore fishing in Southern California and the big news continues to be the bluefin tuna bite. While some days and some zones have been more productive than others, the volume of fish off our coast is just ridiculous. There are fish spread over a hundred-mile expanse from below the Mexican border to well above Catalina and from the beach out to 60 or 70 miles out. Speaking of the beach, a friend sent me a video of a bluefin foamer that someone filmed while sitting on the beach in Huntington, and judging by how…

With bluefin spread from the Channel Islands to below the Mexican border, finding fish to target is easy enough right now that I’m going to forego breaking down this week’s bite zones and instead focus on the different tuna fishing options available to anglers. If you don’t have your own boat and are looking to fish bluefin on a budget, the options are somewhat less limited than they were in recent weeks. The fish that had been biting just a few miles from San Diego have slid up and out, making a full day trip out of San Diego very…

It’s been another great week of fishing for anglers across Southern California and it seems like everything is biting. The boats fishing the Channel Islands are slaying the bass and getting occasional big scores on halibut. Meanwhile, the boats fishing the Dirt Clod were loading up on big seabass and the bruiser yellows were busting tackle at San Clemente Island. Along the coast, the barracuda and bass are biting as well as they have in the last few years and anywhere you look between Catalina and the border, you’ve got a shot at finding foamers of bluefin tuna. With so…

If you caught last week’s column, you read about the bluefin tuna that had moved in along the coast last week. I kept the details vague as it wasn’t my information to share. Now that the cat is out of the bag, we had some small schools of fish move up the beach last week and bite for a few guys and just show for others (myself included) as close as 10 miles off the beach between the 14 Mile Bank and the rigs. While those fish disappeared after a couple of days, another wave of fish followed them up…

It’s been another week of really good tuna fishing really close to home for San Diego anglers. The bluefin schools continued to creep north this week with the fish that were outside the Coronado Islands currently sliding up to and across the border. With fish being caught as close as 20-miles from the point this week, the fleet of sport and private boats targeting these fish could probably be seen from space, but the good news for the gang bang adverse is that there are fish to be found far away from everyone else. Before I get into the details…

I got up this morning and the first thing that I saw on Facebook was that the New Hustler out of Hook’s Landing had posted about catching limits of seabass (69 fish) by 5:30 a.m. at Santa Rosa. Shortly thereafter, I logged onto Fishdope and saw that a bunch of bluefin had popped up in a new area yesterday afternoon. After a couple of cups of coffee, I gave my friend Jimmy Decker a call to see how his bass trip to Point Loma was shaping up. “We’ve been fishing for over an hour and conditions look great but we…

With bluefin tuna biting close to home, it’s almost impossible to not find a fleet sitting in the area that the fish are biting. While most boaters are content to just pull up and join the ever growing mass of boats, those same boaters are the ones who usually go home skunked and frustrated. If you’ve ever found yourself in that situation, this video will give you some ideas about how to get away from the fleet and onto your own fish.Erik Landesfeind The keys to success are identifying what’s happening where the fleet is fishing then figuring out why…