Author: Erik Landesfeind

Well, it looks like my white sea bass prediction last week came true… Well, sort of. The Dreamer, out of Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach, California, caught a fish at Catalina and rumor has it that a couple of private boats connected as well. But that was the extent of the bite, if that even qualifies as a bite, and with some serious weather forecast to hit this weekend, it may be a while before anglers catch any more sea bass. Along the beach, there’s been some bass, halibut and small threshers biting, but it’s far from anything that can…

I was 11 years old the first time my dad took me to the Fred Hall Show in Long Beach, California. Almost 30 years has passed since then, but I still remember that day like it was yesterday. We spent the morning looking around, but most of the booths were filled with freshwater bass gear and didn’t really interest us as we were saltwater fishermen. But I’d passed up a fishing trip to attend the show and I wanted to make the most of it, so I asked my dad if I could watch a seminar before we headed home.…

With the Long Beach Fred Hall Show less than two weeks away, it’s time to start prepping your tackle for the white sea bass bite that should be kicking off soon at our local islands. Every few years, one of the six-pack boats will score some sea bass right around Fred Hall time, and I’m betting that it’s going to happen again this year. There’s a full moon on March 8th and a new moon on the 22nd. I’m guessing the sea bass will show up around one of those two lunar phases (probably the new moon). Even if I’m…

I’ve been following the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) dog-and-pony show since it first came to town. I attended meetings, perused reports and read countless internet arguments about its pros and cons. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I truly realized just how convoluted the whole thing actually is. While reading an argument about it on BD’s message board, I came across a question that I can’t believe I’d never asked myself: “Which particular species of marine life are they actually trying to protect?” This may sound like a simple question, but after all that I’ve seen over the last…

Whenever I go out to the garage to grab some tackle for a sand bass trip, I always end up with eight to 10 rods, a dozen overstuffed Plano trays and a 15-pound bag of swimbaits. I’m not exaggerating. I actually weighed the bag the other day and it came in at a whopping 15 pounds (needless to say, I was disgusted with myself). I’ve got issues with being a tackle junkie. For the purposes of this article, I’ve narrowed my horde down to a reasonable three rods and 10 lures that you should have onboard the next time you…

It’s amazing just how many excuses I can come up with when I don’t feel like getting out of bed to go fishing on a cold morning. Why even bother? It’s too damn cold and the fishing is going to suck, I’ll tell myself. I bet that the boat won’t even have enough passengers to run today… This was went through my mind as I lay in bed listening to the alarm clock beep. Eventually, my wife rolled over and said, “If you aren’t getting up, at least turn off your alarm.” I turned it off and got out of…

With the new visa requirements officially in place, a one-day fishing trip to Mexico just got a lot more expensive. The visa, which will cost anglers approximately $30 per trip, is required for anyone fishing within 24 miles of the Mexican coastline, and the message boards have been abuzz with complaints and proclamations like, “I’m selling my boat and never spending another dime in Mexico!” The reality is that the vast majority of anglers are just going to suck it up and pay for the visa. The first of many visas that I plan on buying this year will be…

I first fished for rock cod trip when I was 10 years old and I’ve been in love with the fishery ever since. At some point over the last 30 years, people stopped calling them “rock cod” and started calling them “rockfish,” but I don’t care what they call them, they are still one of my favorite species. I got serious about fishing rock cod, sorry rockfish, in the early 90s when my friends and I fished them commercially at the Cherry Banks, approximately 100 miles off the coast of Long Beach, California. To a bunch of kids in our…

Like many people, I spend way too much time perusing the fish reports on the BD fishing forums. What can I say? It’s addicting. I’ve repeatedly tried to break myself of the habit, but the withdrawals are just too painful. I’ll find myself sitting at my desk trying to work, but unable to focus on it because I’m wondering about some random thing, like whether or not the trout bit at Irvine Lake yesterday. Before I know it, I’m logging in to find out. The really sick part is that I don’t even like trout fishing! I just like knowing…

We all need to learn how to cast a surface iron, or maybe even re-learn. The way people fish surface iron has changed more in the last 10 years than the previous 40 years combined. Much of that has to do with the advancements in the rods and reels we use to fish iron. The days of casting with a big, bulky reel spooled up with monofilament and clamped onto a 10-foot fiberglass jig stick are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Despite the tackle changes and improvements, many anglers still cling to the notion that if you’re not…