Author: Erik Landesfeind

In last week’s column, Trolling for Dummies, I covered the basics of choosing, rigging and positioning trolling lures in your spread. For part two of the series, I met up with Capt. Jimmy Decker, a professional guide and expert offshore angler, and asked him to explain the tackle and techniques that he uses when trolling from a private boat. Whether trolling from a client’s yacht or on his 24-foot Everglades center console, Decker likes to keep his tackle simple. His trolling gear is made up of four Penn International VS12 two-speed reels full of 30-pound high-vis yellow monofilament and mounted…

Socal Scene Trolling – Trolling For Dummies In last week’s So Cal Scene, I touched upon the subject of trolling while discussing fishing kelp paddies. Apparently I should’ve spent a little more time on the subject as I’ve received several emails from readers with questions like, “What colors and brands of lures should I use?” “How exactly should I set up my trolling spread?” and “How do I go about trolling that spread?” My honest answer to most of them was, “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” So, over the weekend I met up with a couple of…

Offshore Private Boat Tactics Offshore fishing is still the main attraction in Southern California and with more tuna, dorado and marlin pushing into U.S. waters and getting closer to the beach every day, the action has moved well within range of most private boaters. I haven’t taken my boat offshore yet this season, but I’ve been getting my offshore fix by listening to the VHF while fishing calico bass along the coast. The offshore fish are there, but they are getting a ton of pressure from private boaters and only a small percentage of those boats are catching fish. The…

For the first time in what seems like forever, Southern California’s summertime offshore fishery is once again firing on all cylinders. Kelp paddies holding yellowtail and dorado can be found as far north as Dana Point and the variety of species to be caught, along with the volume of fish in the schools, increases the farther south you go. Over the last few weeks, the best way to take advantage of this bite has been to jump on a San Diego-based sport boat, where trips ranging from three-quarter day to one-and-a-half day (or longer) have been consistently catching yellowtail, dorado,…

The environmentalists scored a big victory on Wednesday when the Fish and Game Commission President Dan Richards was voted out at their meeting in Ventura. In February, Richards, who’s an outspoken proponent of fishing and hunting, fell out of favor with California’s environmental overlords when Western Outdoor News published a photo of him bear-hugging a mountain lion he killed during a legal hunt in Idaho. Animal rights groups in California, where mountain lions are protected, saw the photo as a slap in the face and led a witch hunt that pressured the Commission into changing its rules to remove Richards…

It’s shaping up to be one of those years for us California fishermen. First came the MLPAs, which took away many of our favorite coastal and island fishing spots and now the Mexican government is making it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to fish the Coronado Islands and the Mexican coastline. Loosing these prime zones is tough enough on its own, but when you add in the offshore winds and repeated coastal upwelling we’ve been plagued with this year, the situation looks pretty bleak. But even with the deck stacked against us, there have been periods of amazing fishing to…

If the tuna don’t bite wide open all summer long and within 10 miles of Point Loma, it’s because the damned seiners caught them all — and something needs to be done! If massive schools of sand bass don’t materialize like clockwork on the flats each summer, it’s because the sport boats have decimated the population — and something needs to be done! Basically, any time the fish aren’t biting fishermen tend to blame someone else, and something needs to be done! This constant rush to declare a fishing emergency and then demand that something be done about it is…

Fishing Bluefin Tuna Techniques In last week’s column, I broke down the tackle you’ll need to successfully target the bluefin tuna that are biting in range of 1.5-day trips out of San Diego. Although the bite has been improving, it’s far from wide-open fishing. For the most part it’s been a typical bluefin bite with boats stopping on sonar marks and making long drifts while scratching away at the fish. Lots of guys use the “long soak” technique when fishing this way. The captain meters fish and stops the boat, the deckhand throws some bait and anglers cast their baits…

With a huge spread of bluefin tuna south of the border and the wind that’s been clobbering the offshore scene over the last few weeks finally backing off, conditions look like they are improving and so is the bluefin tuna bite. The biggest concentration of fish is still below the range of the day-and-a-half trips, but with scattered fish caught well up into one-day range, I expect these fish will continue to move up the line. If the weather holds, we may be seeing the beginning of the 2012 California tuna season. Boats fishing 150-plus miles south have been encountering…

Socal Scene California Fishing Seasonal Changes A hot topic of discussion on the BD message boards was sparked by the question, “What happened to our promising looking season?” Taken at face value, this question is easy to answer. Offshore winds coupled with large tidal movements from the approaching full moon caused more upwelling along the Southern California coast and further cooled the inshore waters, which had been as warm as 68 degrees a couple of weeks ago, to as low as the mid 50s. But when you look at the implied question, “What’s going to happen next?” there is no…

Things were looking pretty good this time last week — the tuna were starting to show offshore, the sand bass and barracuda were arriving at the local spawning grounds and the islands were pumping out consistent scores of white sea bass and yellowtail. But the excellent summer conditions that were developing hit the brakes over the weekend when offshore weather coupled with coastal upwellings set the whole thing back a few weeks. The weather offshore has died down, but the severe temperature drops along the coast are going to take a while to clear up. I fished out of Long…

With the limit on California white sea bass jumping from one fish to three fish per angler on Saturday, everyone had high hopes for big scores of fish along the beach. But as usual, the sea bass bite took a dump over the weekend and we’ll have to wait and see if it recovers during the week. Luckily, the sand bass and barracuda have arrived at the spawning grounds off Huntington Beach in force. This early season bite on mixed fish is the best it’s been in a few years and all signs point to this being an excellent sand…

The white sea bass bite continues to make news on the local Southern California fishing scene and it seems like every time an area is beginning to dry up, another one is just getting started. With areas of fish popping up all the way from Ventura to San Diego and at all of the islands, there are just too many variables for me to predict when and where these big fish are going to bite this weekend. The crew at FishDope.com is staying on top of the bite with daily reports and GPS coordinates. Log on to get up-to-the-minute info…

With the bad weather that came through Southern California late last week, it looked like the fishing over Memorial Day weekend was going to be a bust. But once the worst of the weather blew past, the fish started biting better than they did before the wind showed up. The fishing is really starting to come together from the Channel Islands on down to Mexican waters. The barracuda, which had all but disappeared after their initial onslaught, have returned. Although the fishing isn’t wide open, boats are catching plenty of fish and the bite could go full speed at any…

“Are you sure it’s safe?” my wife asked me when I told her my plans to take us down to San Quintin, Mexico. “I heard that they’re kidnapping people down there.” “In San Quintin?” I asked. “One of the women I work with is Mexican and she said that she heard about it from her friend in Mexico.” Not exactly a reliable source I thought. After assuring Rachel that to the best of my knowledge there had been no recent kidnappings in that part of Baja, I called a friend to invite him along. The first thing out of his…

With stable 60-plus degree water covering much of the So Cal Bight, the fishing has been getting better each week as more species join in on the action. Last week’s news was that the white sea bass bit at the islands and while the offshore weather knocked down the counts mid-week, the fish are there and the bite should continue to improve in the coming weeks. The big news this week is the arrival of the barracuda. Although there haven’t been any huge scores as of yet, I believe that the big spread of fish from San Diego to Santa…

The white sea bass fishing finally started up at Catalina last Friday. Several six-pack charter boats caught limits as did some of the private boaters fishing the east end on the backside of the island. The bad news is that the fish didn’t bite again over the weekend, probably due to the amount of boat pressure that the island saw. Now that we’re coming out of the full-moon cycle, I’d imagine that the fish will settle in and start to bite regularly. The other thing about coming out of the full moon is that whatever squid there is at the…

The little weather system that pushed through last week didn’t do much to hamper the improving Southern California water conditions. It did leave some residual wind and swell offshore, but this week has seen water temps as high as the mid-60s in the Huntington Beach area, which has me thinking that the barracuda are going to show up soon. In the meantime, it’s nothing but rockfish for the local sport boats during the daytime trips. However, the few twilight trips have consistently scored sand bass on squid. This whole “bass not biting for the sport boats during the day” thing…

Springtime is in the air and the few days of stable weather that we had last week were enough to get the fish biting. The minor weather system that moved through this week may set us back a little again, but there is no question in my mind — fishing is going to continue to improve from this point forward. Sand Bass and Calico Bass Fishing Is On Starting to the north, the sand bass and calico bass have started biting in Santa Monica Bay, along the Palos Verdes Coast and down through the Horseshoe Kelp, Huntington Beach and Newport…

The Long Beach Grand Prix was held last weekend and we all know what that means. What’s that? You don’t know what that means? It means that the barracuda are going to start biting soon. It may take a month or more for them to show up en masse, but they will start trickling into the counts soon. In preparation of the season, I took a quick trip to Sav-On Tackle to restock my surface iron collection. I had planned on only picking up a handful of jigs, but as I stood before the multi-colored wall of awesomeness, I found…

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about tournament fishing for spotted bay bass, but you don’t need to be a tournament fisherman to be able to enjoy the fishery. Spotties are the most easily accessible bass in our So Cal waters and since they live in harbors and bays, they can be a great fallback option if the weather keeps you from making it out of the harbor. Most guys use some variation of freshwater bass tackle to target spotties, but you can get by with the same tackle you use for…

I had one goal in mind as I sat waiting for the start of the Salt Water Bass Anglers Border Town Brawl tournament. I wanted to be the first boat to fish a particular section of riprap located in the north end of San Diego Bay. We were the eleventh boat out of the starting gate, but some of the faster boats passed us up during the eight-mile run to our spot. It seemed like the entire 69-boat field was ahead of us and heading for our spot. By the time we reached the marina we planned to fish, there…

This upcoming weekend I’ll be fishing in the Salt Water Bass Anglers (SWBA) Tournament Series “Border Town Brawl.” It’s a spotted bay bass event that takes place in San Diego Bay. Teams have eight hours to fish the waters of San Diego Bay and Mission Bay with the goal of catching the heaviest five-fish bag. This is the second of the six tournaments that comprise the SWBA season and after our dismal 54th place finish in the Newport Harbor event, my partner Matt Kotch and I need to do really well in this one if we’re going to have any…

If you’re heading down to the Fred Hall Show in Del Mar, California, this weekend, do yourself a favor and stop by the Seeker Rods booth. Darin Dohi, Seeker’s general manager, has made some changes to the company’s product line that are definitely worth checking out. I had a chance to pull on a few of the new rods during the Long Beach Fred Hall Show and I was seriously impressed. “Seeker Rods has been around for more than 20 years and has built a reputation for producing a quality product,” Darin said. “But to stay competitive in the rod…