Author: Joe Sarmiento

I boarded the FURY last Tuesday night (March 1st). The boat was out the previous day on a charter for the opener, so this was their first open party trip of the year. I remember the days of coming down here with my own kids to ride on their Kids Fishing Clinic the half-day trips. I still recognize many of the faces from back then. A lot of the pinheads and deckhands we met on those trips have stayed in the industry and some are even running their own boats now. Capt. Marcus Bailey of the Fury is one of…

By this time next week, the annual rockfishing closure in Southern California will lift, marking the unofficial beginning of the fishing season. My freezer is stocked, so it isn’t a pent-up desire to rockfish that has me excited about the opener.  What does excite me is that a majority of the fleet has been sidelined doing their annual boat maintenance during the closure.  With the closure coming to an end, that means these boats and crews will be back on the water soon meaning a larger area of our waters will be getting explored. While rockfishing trips serve up rockfish for…

Prior to the last El Nino we experienced here in Southern California, sportboat fishing trips down the northern Baja coast to Punta Colonet were billed as “Freezer Filler” trips. The draw for those trips was the opportunity to rockfish in Mexican waters during the annual January/ February closure in California waters. There was always a chance of running into some yellowtail on those trips, but yellowtail wasn’t the focus. When El Nino happened, the character of these trips changed. Winter yellowtail became an expecation, and rockfishing took a backseat. I did my first Punta Colonet charter (and trip) in 2015…

As mentioned in my Fishing Resolutions post a few weeks back, one of my areas of focus for 2022 was to improve my winter bassing game. I’ve had a chance already to fish several bass-focused trips this year. I’ve observed closely how the crew and regulars are rigging up. Those observations and the advice of the crews have led me to make some subtle adjustments. So far, those adjustments are making a positive difference for me. Adapting my rigging to the type of bait available has made the biggest difference. Allow me to explain… The header image is aboard the…

With last week being Christmas, and given the sloppy, stormy weather here in Southern California, I didn’t go out fishing.  I worked on writing assignments and started doing some planning for next year.  As I was going through that mental exercise, high on my fishing agenda were the things that maybe I didn’t do so well at in 2021.  The top of that list has to be… #1: GET BETTER AT FISHING FOR BLUEFIN! Bluefin…it’s not my favorite fish to spend my fishing time on. In years past, I didn’t seem to have all the issues that I’ve had recently…

I got out this week (and I’ll mention it down below), but it’s that time of year to take a look back on the year that was… January 2021 After being in Seattle for the majority of 2020, I was very happy to return to So Cal. I spent the majority of my fishing time doing leadhead and squid bass fishing, but the highlight of January was the annual pilgrimage to Colonet. Unfortunately, the streak of good yellowtail fishing came to an end. But while our trip aboard the Pacific Queen was light on yellows, it was good for a…

I was supposed to go fishing out of Ensenada on Wednesday last week, but I ended up canceling over concerns about the weather. I was looking for an alternative to fill that void, but so many boats are out of the water right now doing their annual maintenance. I was thinking about doing a year-in-review type of post for this week when my buddy Dennis Leung hit me up to head down to San Quintin. I’ve fished San Quintin before, but it’s always been on a boat originating out of San Diego. Dennis has a seafood business with a processing…

I’ve been writing a lot lately about wanting to chase lingcod. Going into this trip, I want to say that I’d only caught two legal lingcod this year, and both barely measured up to make it in the sack. Part of the problem was I hadn’t gone on many rockfishing trips this year. That was largely due to the fact that I wasn’t seeing great counts on lings, so the draw really wasn’t there. Either way, with the year wrapping up, I’ve felt a hole in my 2021 fishing experience, and a desire to resolve it. I got it last…

It’s been a few weeks…so let’s round it up! Local SD I didn’t fish during Thanksgiving week. I was excited though to see that the San Diego had seen a good signal of yellowtail. They were posting some of their fish finder pictures and you could see that there were a lot of fish around. Sooner or later, they were due…right? With the Coronado Islands being largely ignored this year, this yellowtail that they posted on Saturday (Nov. 27th) looked to be of very nice quality. I was thinking about looking to ride with them this week, but when I…

Now is the time of year that the 805 boats who seasonally fish in San Diego, start returning home to fish the Channel Islands to finish out their year. I’ve been dying to fish up north and chase lingcod. To sweeten the pot, I had heard that there was some signal of yellowtail up there the previous week. Live squid was available. AND there was a full moon. My buddy Adrian Cruz had a charter heading out Friday, fishing Saturday (November 20th) on the Endeavor out of Ventura Harbor Sportfishing. I was absolutely in. Owner/operator Tucker McCombs was out taking…

For the last few years now, I’ve led a sponsored trip with T-Bird Sportfishing out of Point Loma Sportfishing in San Diego in November as my last offshore trip of the season. This year’s sponsor was Fishing Syndicate who provided giveaways and raffle prizes for the anglers and crew. Each trip has taken on it’s own distinctive character. Last year’s trip was all about the cow bluefin tuna caught mostly on the kite (3 of 4). This year’s trip was all about one-on-one battles with 100+ pound class bluefin hooked on heavy jigs and sinker rigs. Some ended happily. Most…

In keeping with the local theme of last week’s post, Sportboat Roundup – Local Focus, my plan this week was to stay close to home…just do it down here in San Diego. I had two trips planned going into the week, and came out of it going on three. All the trips were within the constraints of a day trip leaving out of San Diego. Each trip produced fish, but in uniquely different ways. Looking back on the combined outcome of these three trips, I’m excited to tell you about the wide variety of legit fishing opportunities you could choose…

If an angler is good on a local boat, they’re good anywhere. I’ve heard that said often. I used to think it was just local guys compensating for the fact they can’t or don’t fish longer trips. But over the years, as I’ve gotten to know a lot of local regulars, then had an opportunity to fish with them in other areas or on longer trips…I kind of agree. When I started fishing here in Southern California, my home boat was the half-day boat out of Marina del Rey, the New Del Mar (picture below). I learned a lot of…

Castro’s Fishing Place is a spot that I’ve been hearing about almost since I first started fishing in Southern California. I’ve been meaning to go for awhile, but something else always came up. I finally made tangible plans last year and booked to go in August with Ron Owens’ group, the So Cal Sportfishing Club. I had to cancel though because I was still stuck in Seattle. I finally got my opportunity to go last week, and despite less than ideal conditions, I’m really happy I got to go. I wrote in last week’s Sportboat Roundup about how some of…

I tried to fish this week from shore…not a lot of luck doing it unfortunately. The water was pretty cold and turned over from the last storm we had. My go to spots didn’t produce for me. The captains and crews are telling me the same conditions affected fishing out on the water. That said, fish are still getting caught. It’s been two weeks since my last roundup, so it’s a good time to update what’s going on out there. The San Diego Full Day I titled this section The San Diego…because they seem to be the only full day…

I was supposed to go to Gonzaga Bay last week. I’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks now. My buddy, Chris Fierro, invited me to go with his group of kayak fishing buddies. Although I can (kinda sorta) kayak, I don’t have a ton of confidence in my skills. Last year, I got myself into a hairy situation when I tried to kayak fish the Cliff Lingcod spot up in Washington State. I tried to kayak fish while visiting Loreto a few years back. I overturned the kayak, couldn’t get back in, and had to backstroke it towing…

Putting together a roundup of the sportboat-related fishing action was the role I filled when I first joined BD Outdoors in 2015. Over the years, and especially with 2020 being such a curveball, I got away from that weekly reporting aspect. Starting this week, I’m going to start trying to do a roundup on a more regular basis, while still bringing you all my first person accounts of the fishing I’m doing. San Diego Full-Day Boats I mentioned in my last article how I rode full day on the Malahini and it was pretty dry for our trip. The good…

I mentioned in my last post how I had a full-day offshore trip scheduled on the Malahini. I ended up going up early and getting in a day on San Diego Bay. SD Bay Halibut Hunting I got out with my buddy John Anjard on his 18-foot aluminum skiff last Thursday (Sept. 23rd). He told me prior to the trip that the halibut fishing was getting really good and that I should plan on coming out. I was coming up anyway for the Malahini trip, and the timing coincided with John’s days off from work. Let’s get after it! John…

It’s good to have a relationship with a local boat. Sometimes just getting in an easy 1/2 or 3/4 day of fishing is what you need and want. When I lived in LA, I enjoyed riding the New Del Mar, City of Long Beach, Enterprise, Native Sun, Spitfire etc. It’s not that easy for me anymore to jump on one of those boats. After getting back from Bay of Los Angeles though, an easy, local day of fishing was what I wanted. I fished a couple months back with Mara’s Sportfishing out of Punta Banda (south of downtown Ensenada). Last…

Bahia de Los Angeles or Bay of LA (BoLA for short) is a small, remote fishing village located on the Sea of Cortez side of Northern Baja Mexico. I had the pleasure of going out there for the first time in September 2019, and just returned from 3 days fishing there (September 6-8) on a guided trip with Baja Fishing Convoys. Early Sunday morning (Sept. 5th) BFC picked up the other 5 anglers at Brown Field in San Diego, and then they scooped me up at my place in Rosarito. We drove all day in one of their big passenger…

None of us go out thinking, “This trip isn’t going to go well.” There are many times that I may go out without high expectations. I just need to get out for my sanity. That said, I always hold out hope that something awesome could happen. Trips don’t always meet our hopes or expectations though. So what do you do when the fishing isn’t great? You only have a handful of choices… Change your approachChange your fishingChange your venueAdjust your expectationsCall it and try again another time These are the choices that I faced this week when the catching didn’t…

When I was in the Pacific Northwest last year developing tennis elbow from jigging for salmon everyday, I vowed to myself that I’d get in as much island fishing as possible when I returned to Southern California. I just love poking around our islands, fishing the kelp lines for bass with the possibility of a yellow or white seabass rolling through to make the day that much more exciting. In my opinion, achieving an inshore slam of bass, bonito, barracuda and yellowtail is the height of summer fishing in So Cal. With football season on the horizon, I can definitely…

I didn’t fish this week. I got back from Seattle on Thursday night, and I’ve just been happy to be back home for a bit. So I’m going to have to reach back into my blogger bag of tricks and draw on something I learned when I first started So Cal Salty…do a list post. There are many reasons why fishing is so important to me. Here are my Top 10. 10. Anyone Can Learn How To Fish I fished a lot as a kid and a teenager when I was growing up in Washington State. My dad used to…

My very first sportboat caught fish was a salmon. I was 10 years old. Up to that point, I’d only caught fish from the pier or shore. It was my first opportunity to fish from a boat. It was magical. The fish was a 12-pound silver salmon (aka coho), and that was it. I was hooked for life. I didn’t get a lot of salmon opportunities after that first time until last year. Spending as much time as I did in the Pacific Northwest in 2020, I exceeded my combined salmon catch for my whole previous life. It was really…