Author: Erik Landesfeind

Like many of you, I was left without answers to a lot of my questions during the MLPA establishment process. And the biggest of those was; why would Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, take time out of her busy schedule to head up the Blue Ribbon Task Force? Well, the answer that she wants us to believe is that she was doing her best to be a good steward of California’s natural resources, but like most fishermen I never quite bought that explanation. I had a number of theories regarding Big Oil’s role in the…

With only three weeks left before Labor Day and the unofficial end to the summer fishing season in Southern California, a look at yesterday’s sport boat fish counts has left me scratching my head and asking, “What the hell is going on this year?” Sure, there are plenty of bluefin and yellowtail being reported by the San Diego overnight fleet, but the counts for the rest of the coast are comprised of mostly rockfish. And while these reports don’t paint a pretty picture for sport boat fishermen this weekend, there are still some viable fishing options available to private boaters;…

Saltwater Bass Tagging In November of last year I spoke with Lyall Bellquist, who heads up the Coastal Angler Tagging Cooperative. In the original interview, Bellquist explained the funding behind the study and its goals. So with ten months of tagging trips in the books, I checked back in with him to see how the study was progressing. “So far we’ve tagged approximately 7,000 bass. The majority (around 5,000) being calico bass that were tagged in the San Diego area” Bellquist explained. “We’ve also tagged over 1,500 spotted bay bass in San Diego and Mission Bays and we’re currently working…

SoCal Scene Offshore Private Boat All it takes is a quick look at the www.fishdope.com chart to know that the offshore fishing is heating up. In fact, if you start with the kelp paddy yellowtail in the Catalina Channel and head all the way down to the bluefin bite below the Lower 500, you’re looking at a 160 mile stretch of water that’s holding fish along its entire length. Sure, some areas are holding more fish than others, but those areas are also holding more boats, so if you’re a private boater you might be better off leaving the beaten…

TUA Reports Yellowtail Southern California It looks like things are finally starting to come together in the Southern California Offshore waters. In Orange County, Barry Brightenburg of Always an Adventure Charters caught and released the first local marlin out of Dana Point last week and also caught dorado and yellowtail under kelp paddies. Further south in San Diego, the Seasons caught bluefin, yellowtail and dorado on their first offshore trip of the season and private boaters fishing within 50 miles of the point have been scoring as well. The big news though, is the excellent bluefin tuna fishing that the…

Looking back on the 4th of July weekend, it was pretty much what I expected; crowded launch ramps, lots of private boaters chasing around the sport boat fleet, and huge stretches of coastline left deserted but for the handful of boaters willing to break away from the pack. I understand that I’m probably beginning to sound like a broken record; but if you’re a private boater, who fishes with the fleet, stop it! You’re missing out on some of the best fishing that our coast has to offer. Just take a chance and point your boat in a different direction…

Well, the 4th of July is upon us and that means it’s time for barbeques, fireworks and family fun. It also means that it’s time for crowded launch ramps, overloaded sport boats, congested fishing spots, short tempers and bad behavior. I really wish it weren’t that way, but anytime you combine good weather and biting fish with a holiday weekend that’s just the way things turn out. And despite the fact that, after dealing with this fiasco each year, I swear to myself that I’m NOT fishing on the next 4th of July weekend, I end up doing it again…

Calico Bass Techniques In last week’s column, I broke down the tackle that I use to target calico bass from a private boat. If you missed it, you’ll want to go back and read it before continuing, as I will be referencing that tackle in this week’s column. Like with any fishery, calico fishermen encounter dozens of variables every time they hit the water including. This includes wind, water temperature, color, clarity, feeding patterns and seasons. So rather than focus on the specifics that will get you bit on a specific day, I’d like to focus on the basic techniques…

Over the last week, there were a couple of posts on our message boards that caught my eye. The first asked which low profile bait-caster was best suited for calico bass fishing and the second regarded choosing a weedless swimbait. As expected, both questions received multiple replies and also as expected, most of the replies contradicted one another. I understand that everyone has their favorite brands, but if no one can agree on a clear favorite, their recommendations don’t do a lot to answer the original questions. In hopes of answering those questions, along with a few others that those…

My last couple columns were spent discussing sport boats and their relationship with the private boaters who spend the summer following them around. In response to these columns, I received multiple messages from readers telling me that I was wasting my breath because, “Those private boaters will never learn”. However, I didn’t receive a single comment from anyone admitting to be, or defending, the boaters who followed the fleet. I’m not all that surprised that no one spoke up, I certainly wouldn’t if I were them, but silence doesn’t equate to not caring or wanting to learn, maybe it’s that…

Barracuda Trenches Sport Boat Writing last week’s column brought back a lot of memories from the twenty something years of summertime weekends I’d spent on sport boats. Included therein were enough good memories to get me wondering if I hadn’t been just a little too harsh in my description of just how big of a fiasco those trips can sometimes be. And considering that it’d been almost five years since I’d last set foot on a sport boat during the summer, I decided to leave my boat in the driveway for a change and jump on a half day trip…

Memorial Day weekend usually signals the start of the summertime fishing season in Southern California and this year was no different. And based on the weekend’s fishing reports on our message boards, it looks like this is shaping up to be a banner year of frustration for the weekend warriors. With the summer season only a few days old there were already multiple posts complaining about slow and overcrowded sport boats as well as the excess amount of private boat traffic. The most exasperating of these posts was written by the hapless fisherman who saw that a sport boat had…

Fishing Report Landesfeind Several weeks ago, I predicted that the barracuda would be making their way up our coast by this time. Well, I guess my powers of prognostication were proved lacking once again as those fish still haven’t shown up in any significant numbers. But just because the barracuda are MIA doesn’t mean that there aren’t some other great angling opportunities. Starting out in the Ventura area, there have been scattered seabass catches along the beach over the last few weeks and a fairly consistent bite (weather permitting) at the Channel Islands. The Aloha Spirit out of Channel Islands…

Socal Strategy I’m sure that some of you might be getting tired of reading all of the tournament related columns I’ve been writing of late; but I promise that if you’ll bear with me through yet another one, you might just pick up a few tidbits of info that will give you an edge on your next non-tournament fishing trip. That being said, I want to explain my reasoning behind constantly referring to tournaments when discussing fishing strategies. It’s simple, when fishing a tournament you have to catch fish, regardless of the conditions or whether or not the fish you’re…

Socal Scene Sponsorship Getting sponsored seems to be the goal of almost every aspiring inshore fisherman these days and not a week goes by that I don’t see some mention of sponsorship, be it a list of companies that individuals are “affiliated” with or company logos in the sig line of their message board posts. And especially among the younger guys, I hear the oft-repeated question, “How do I get sponsored?” Well I’m going to answer that question, but before I do I’m going to share several things that all of you aspiring pro-staffers probably aren’t going to like. The…

Sea Bass Fish Report There is no doubt about it, conditions are changing for the better along the coast and the fishing is already showing signs of improvement. Early season barracuda schools are showing up on the beach above Ventura with some giant white seabass in the mix; like the two fifty-pound class fish that Captain Larry Heron on the Calico Hunter (http://calicohuntercharters.com) caught during a coastal charter last weekend. Boats fishing the Channel Islands are also scoring seabass. And while this bite is happening a little too far north for most of us to take advantage of, the early…

MLPA DFW CRAP If you’re a regular reader, you already know that I’m not a big fan of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA). But my problem isn’t with the initial legislation, which was intended to create several small and inexpensive to maintain Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) along our coast. My disgust stems from the fact that the implementation process was hijacked by special interest groups, who used totalitarian tactics to push through their bad science and create the anti-fishing juggernaut that the MLPA has become. But regardless of my feelings, I’d come to accept the fact that the MLPA…

In last week’s column I broke down some of the steps that private boaters can take to increase their chances of encountering luck on any given fishing day. Since I didn’t want to leave out the sport boat fishermen, this week I am going to focus on some simple things that you can do to help increase your odds of getting the lucky bites that can lead to a successful trip. And while these tips are geared more towards sport boat fishermen, there’s no reason why private boaters shouldn’t be able to take away a few lessons as well. The…

When you win a fishing tournament, like my partner Matt Kotch and I did at last weekend’s SWBA “Supremas Shoot Out” in Long Beach, it’s easy to look back on your success and say, “Damn! I am one hell of a fisherman.” And while it might feel good to give yourself that pat on the back, this self-assessment is completely inaccurate. Instead, the comment should sound more like, “Damn! I sure was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and even luckier to have gotten the bites that I needed to win.” But what constitutes luck?…

Surface Iron Yellows In last week’s column, I broke down the rods, reels and jigs that I use for fishing yellowtail on the surface iron. This week, I’d like to take a look at specific surface iron techniques that can give you a distinct advantage over the guys who strictly “chuck and wind” their jigs. But before I get into that, I owe you a report on Monday’s trip with Seasons Sportfishing. After watching the Coronado Islands yellowtail reports fall off throughout last week (and my hopes right along with them), I’d pretty much resigned myself to the fact that…

Yellowtail Tackle Recommendations The yellowtail bite at the Coronado Islands continues to be the only real game in town and although the bite dropped way off over the weekend, it rebounded early in the week and barring any significant weather, should continue in the coming days. One of the indicators of this bite lasting for a while is that the fish are settling in on their regular spots at the islands and are starting to eat the surface iron and fly-lined sardines as well as the yo-yo jigs. So if you’re planning a trip sometime soon, you’re going to want…

The Coronado Islands are starting to kick out consistent yellowtail fishing for private boaters as well as the D-day boats running out of San Diego landings. As is always the case with these early season yellows, the fish haven’t settled in on spots, so the most effective way to target them is to run and gun on sonar schools. While some of these schools have been coming to the surface in response to chum, the majority of them are staying deep, making them prime targets for Yo-Yo jigging. This is a good thing for fishermen because, when it comes to…

Sensory overload is the best way to describe what I was feeling after spending a couple hours walking around the Fred Hall Show in Long Beach last weekend. It seemed like every company in attendance was offering some new lure, rod, reel or gadget, and there were more new boats there than I ever remember seeing in previous years. Add to that all the seminar stages, tackle demonstrations, cooking classes and you get—well, I guess sensory overload pretty much sums it up. As an example of how people like myself can suffer from “show shock,” I saw a nice-looking bay…

Rockfish Tackle Tips Socal Recommendations If there is one positive thing about the 300-foot depth restriction in the new rockfish regulations, it’s that you no longer need to hassle with bulky high-capacity reels to fish effectively. And since you’re no longer making deep drops, there’s no need to fish a multi-hook gangion. In fact, targeting rockfish in shallower water allows you to take the work aspect out of the equation, which in turn makes it more sporting. But even with the new depth restriction, I see a lot of people still fishing with the same bulky tackle they used when…