Author: Erik Landesfeind

There have definitely been quite a few “fishing firsts” logged over the last few years but something occurred this week that prior to 2015, no one ever would have imagined possible; 200-pound tuna being caught on ¾-day open party trips. While there have only been three to date, a 217.5-pound fish caught aboard the San Diego out of Seaforth Landing, and a massive 249-pounder along with a 223-aboard the Liberty out of Fisherman’s Landing, plenty more are being seen and hooked. The coolest part about these catches is that the bites aren’t coming while trolling a kite, flying a helium…

As crazy and unpredictable as the fishing has been the last four years, a point of consistency has  been the peak lunar cycles bringing the best offshore fishing and the June new moon was no different. Last week’s scratchy bluefin tuna bite started to get more consistent over the weekend and by Monday and Tuesday the bite improved dramatically with an overnight trip on the Liberty  our of Fisherman’s Landing scoring 28 fish for their 25 anglers and the Pacific Queen’s 1 1/2-day trip returning with 61 fish for 34 passengers. Though not as impressive numbers-wise, the score of the…

The deep diving crankbait is one of the most effective baits for targeting calicos and sand bass feeding on suspended bait schools in open water. In this video, Captain Jimmy Decker shows the tackle and presentations that he uses for this application. While this video was filmed at the Newport Pipe, this technique will work around any type of structure as long as the bass are biting in the upper-half of the water column. Earlier in this trip we had big sand bass coming up out of 60-feet of water to bite crankbaits that were running at 10 to 12-feet;…

Looking back on last week’s column, it turns out that I was right on about as many predictions as I was wrong regarding what would and wouldn’t be biting once the weather came down. The good news is that I was correct in guessing that the fishing should continue to improve given a week of stable weather. Better yet, we’ve got at least another full week of stable weather in the forecast and that should warm the water up enough to kick SoCal fishing into summer mode. What’s Different This week’s Navionics Chart may look a lot like the ones…

I’ve held off as long as possible to get this week’s report written in the hopes that any fishing reports might trickle in this Thursday morning as boats venture out for the first time this week. Sadly, the only thing I’ve seen so far was a screenshot of a water temp gauge reading 55.7 degrees, posted by Captain Danny Ericson on the New Del Mar out of Marina Del Rey Sportfishing. I know that there are other boats fishing out of Long Beach and San Pedro but I’m sure that whatever rockfish counts they post later aren’t going to answer…

With seabass biting up north, yellows biting at multiple islands and bluefin tuna biting on our local banks in mid-May, describing this week’s fishing as “excellent” seems like a bit of an understatement. Sadly, by the time you read this on Friday, the wind will have been blowing for a solid 24 hours, with sustained 20 knots at the Channel Islands, San Clemente and Catalina. While the Coronados and the bluefin grounds are forecast to fare better, it’s still likely to be blowing 15+ knots down there all day Thursday and Friday. The even worse news, for everywhere north of…

It’s been another hit-and-miss but overall good week of Spring fishing in Southern California. Starting with the misses, a lack of squid caused  the Santa Rosa Island seabass bite to dry up while a combination of weather, lunar cycle and Naval closures seems to have had a detrimental effect on the yellowtail bite at San Clemente Island. Thankfully the bluefin, which were mostly uncooperative over the weekend, decided to show back up and bite for boats on Wednesday. Rather than dwell on what didn’t bite, let’s check this week’s Navionics Chart to see what is biting. As I mentioned, the…

One of the drawbacks of fishing larger lures for saltwater bass is that most rods aren’t designed to properly store the lure when not in use. While rod blank mounted hook keepers are great when you’re pinning a small swimbait to the rod but don’t stand up as well to a 7-inch long hardbait with two sets of treble hooks. As a result, I’ve gotten into the habit of just attaching the back hook of the bait to the top of the reel but that isn’t a good solution either. While I don’t mind my reels getting a little scratched…

As you might be able to tell by the smiling faces and big bluefin tuna, with the Coronado Islands in the background,the bluefin moved closer to home this week.  This fish was one of eight caught aboard the Liberty on Tuesday. While the fishing is hit and miss, and most of the fish landed by the 3/4-day fleet have been around this size, the boats are regularly encountering the jumbos in the same area. On Thursday the San Diego out of Seaforth Landing reported, “When targeting bluefin, its all about keeping your fingers crossed and hoping you are on the…

It’s been a slower week of fishing in Southern California. While conditions are still good throughout the bight, the Channel Islands seabass went AWOL on Wednesday, the yellowtail bite at the Coronado Islands has gone from limits style fishing to one or two fish per rod and the bluefin bite down south isn’t quite as good as it was. For lack of an obvious culprit, I’m going to go ahead and blame this week’s slower fishing on the fact that we’re coming off the full moon. On a brighter note, some fisheries saw a slight improvement this week, so I’m…

Spring has definitely sprung in Southern California as this week has seen the best fishing of the year. The run up to Friday night’s full moon brought us goof fishing for seabass up north, yellows down south and bluefin in our offshore waters. Before you get too excited, as is often the case, there will be some wind on the backside of the moon with Saturday and Sunday being windy at the outer islands. While the wind will not make for skiff friendly runs at the Channel Islands, the only places I see that might be out of play for…

This is Part 3 in a series on building your own custom rods. If you haven’t already, I suggest checking out the previous installments before watching this video. Part 1 – Getting Started Part 2 – Fitting the Rod and Choosing a Wrap Style Once you’ve purchased your components, decided on your wrap style and measured the rod to fit it to your body style you’re ready to build and that starts with assembling your handle. There are three basic handle styles and from simplest to most involved they are the deckhand style, the standard grip with reel seat and…

Socal Surf Fishing Reports Just as I was mentally preparing myself to write what I thought would be a post wind, gloom and doom forecast, I happened to check Facebook and saw a post from the San Diego, out of Seaforth Landing, sayin, “Captain Matt and the boys have come out of the gates firing. 70 plus yellowtail out of their first stop. Stay tuned.” Definitely good news to receive on any Thursday morning, but all the better coming the day after some of the strongest wind we’ve had this year. While one spot of cooperative yellows isn’t enough to…

Saltwater Hard Bait Fishing During this year’s Fred Hall Show, I had several readers approach me to ask technique specific questions about fisheries I’d recently covered in my articles. As I was waving my hands around or grabbing a bait and fishing rod to better answer their questions, I realized that no matter how thoroughly I explained it in the article, certain information just doesn’t transmit well through the written word. So, in hopes of better explaining some of the nuts and bolts associated with these techniques, I’ve decided to create a video series that will explain the tackle, presentations…

Early Spring Bass Fishing Lures – SoCal Fishing Shows It’s been a promising week of springtime fishing in Southern California. Though small, the seabass bit for at least one boat fishing the Channel Islands, bigger seabass were caught by private boaters at Catalina and along the coast, the yellows bit over the weekend at the Coronado Islands and the bluefin bit withing the long end of San Diego’s 1 1/2-day range. I’d like to say that Spring has finally sprung in Southern California, but next week’s wind forecast has me hedging my bets a bit. While most areas should remain…

It’s been just another week of mostly mediocre fishing for Southern California anglers, but the good news is that it didn’t rain for a change. I may be wrong, but I think this is the longest we’ve gone without rain in the last three months and for that I’m thankful. Looking at the long range weather forecast, we’ve got another rain free week ahead but the northwest wind will be periodically be blowing across the outer islands. Based on that, I’d keep close tabs on the wind forecast if you’re planning a trip to Miguel, Rosa or San Nic. With…

It’s been another week of mixed up SoCal weather but there were still plenty of opportunities for sport boats to get off the dock and load up on quality rockfish, like these nice reds caught aboard the Pacific Dawn. Speaking of weather, the weekend forecast looks good across most of our waters and other than another chance of rain on Thursday all of next week looks good as well. If you’re planning a trip to San Nic, Rosa or Miguel this weekend, I’d take a close look at the wind forecast before you go because while it looks fishable, it’s…

Rockfish Depth Restriction The good news for SoCal anglers is that the California DFW recently opened a lot of new water to rockfishing. Starting on March 1st, anglers were allowed to fish in up to 40 fathoms (240-feet) of water within the Cowcod Conservation Area (CCA) and up to 75 fathoms (450-feet) outside the CCA. The bad news is that the regulations are not as simple as they appear. According to the new restrictions when fishing within the CCA, “take is prohibited seaward of the 40 fathom depth contour (240-feet), as defined in Federal regulations (50 CFR Part 660, Subpart…

As seems to be the theme this year, its been another week of mostly lousy fishing weather across Southern California. The good news is that the fish have been biting during the weather windows and we’ve got a four to five day stretch of offshore conditions before the next storm is supposed to roll in midweek. Windy conditions over the last few days have made for scarce fishing reports, but I’m guessing that little enough will have changed this week that the fish will be biting right where we left them before the last storm. As you can see, rockfish…

With new waters opened for the first time in over 15 years, there were some pretty high expectations riding on this year’s rockfish opener and the fishery didn’t disappoint. If you haven’t been following the rockfish regulation changes, starting on March 1st, anglers were allowed to fish in waters of up to 40 fathoms (240 feet) inside the boundaries of the CCA (Cowcod Conservation Area) and 75 fathoms (450 feet) outside. As has previously been the case, the DFW continued their effort to make the regulations as confusing as possible by making anglers stay within fathom lines related to way…

While this big San Clemente Island calico bass, caught by Jay Jones over the weekend, was definitely a stand out, there were enough bass caught whenever the weather permitted to convince me that if f it ever stops raining, I think  we’re going to see some good late winter fishing. That being said, it’s going to rain again on Saturday, so I doubt that this will be the beginning of the rebound. The good news is that we’ve got the rockfish opener to distract us while we dream of steady surface action. After looking at all the different weather sites…

Fishing Forecast – Good Fishing Weather Socal Well, it’s another week of me not having much to report other than bad weather. Speaking of which, be glad if you skipped fishing over the weekend. I fished a spotted bay bass tournament in Mission Bay on Saturday, which was the nicer weather day of the weekend, and had to battle 20-plus MPH winds all day and a 6-foot tidal swing that resulted current and run off driven water quality more appropriate for the Mississippi River than the ocean. The good news is that I have some good news to share for…

I’ve been around the fishing industry long enough to know better than to speak in absolutes. As quickly as fishing technology advances these days, it’s usually a bad bet to claim things like, “best ever”, “game changer” or the dreaded “the only thing to use”. That being said, after a solid year of using Winn Grip handles on my bass rods, I feel strongly enough to say that (unless some magical new technology emerges) I will never build a bass rod with any other grip again. Before I get into my explanation of why I like these grips, I’m going…

I’d like to start out this week’s report with the disclaimer that I’m running out of ways to describe lousy weather, so I apologize if these reports are starting to sound like a broken record. In fact the weekly rain and associated crap weekend fishing weather has been so reliable lately that I’m beginning to suspect that bad weather may be to 2019 what the yellowtail bite at the 150 was to 2015. If there is a silver lining to this unending stream of storm clouds, it’s that the water temperatures are holding steady in the high fifties, so the…