Author: Joe Sarmiento

When I first arrived in Southern California in the 90’s, I was one of those once or twice a year type guys.  I was busy getting established in my career and starting a family, so fishing wasn’t a priority.  It wasn’t until my son Jacob got the fishing bug that I started going on a more regular basis.  I quickly learned that there was a lot I didn’t know and set about wanting to learn how to be a better fisherman. During that time, the three of us (myself, Jake and his sister Juliana) became regulars on our local half…

For the last several weeks now you may have noticed a little pattern…with my articles and with the fishing conditions.  I write about the big wins of the week, then tell you to temper your expectations for the weekend because the conditions don’t support a lot of optimism. Well get ready,  We finally have a break in that pattern! 805 Seabass Update Last Sunday morning I made the drive up to Ventura to ride the Island Spirit out of Ventura Sportfishing.  Capt. Jeff Bunde was at the helm.  My intel told me that there might be a small window of opportunity…

Hey Salties, the windy weekend theme of Spring continues.  I’m supposed to go Sunday on the Island Spirit out of Ventura Sportfishing.  Hopefully I can get in on the white seabass and yellowtail that’s been hot up there.  Based on this weekend’s May gray marine forecast though, I’m not holding my breath that I’ll actually get to go. It was bumpy a lot of this week and the counts reflected it.  There were some hopeful signs though.  My fortunate colleague, Erik Landesfeind, is in Florida on some fishing press junket so I’ll give you a quick rundown of the week’s highlights. Up…

This is what happened this week in the SoCal fishing scene… That Anacapa Island white seabass bite kicked back in.  More people caught 100+-pound bluefin on San Diego-based boats.  Several boats fishing our “local islands” got limits of yellowtail this week (right) and the grade of fish is improving.  And to top it all off, the first yellowfin of the year were caught inside of 100-miles from San Diego (top).  Oh yeah, and another opah. Nothing but good things happening on the SoCal fishing grounds… And the wind is killing our weekend fishing plans Again!  Gosh dang, this year has been the…

The title of this article is not something I’d ever thought I would say.  I’ve come to know bluefin as one of the most finicky fish we catch…especially doing it from a big sportboat.  For all the great successes we’ve enjoyed as a community in recent years, I know guys that went out 10 times for them last year and came up empty.  Many of you had to go multiple times to get them.  So to ever call them a ‘best bet’? Let me give you some context.  I had a reader inquire this week, “Joe, I’m coming in from Colorado and…

This weekend I won’t be fishing.  It’s a daddy weekend, my custody weekend.  So unless my daughter gets a wild hair and feels like getting salty, I’ll be at home on the sidelines.  This doesn’t mean I stop thinking about fishing though.  Quite the contrary…  I get hit up more to give recommendations on where I would be going if I was fishing! Thankfully, there are some good choices out there.  In my opinion, for the best sportfishing options now, it comes down to your preferences…bluefin tuna vs. white seabass. Go South For Bluefin Tuna For weeks now SD-based boats, on trips…

I’m on a nice roll.  It’s lucky to experience this sort of fishing success at all, but to be on that first big yellowtail hit in US waters a couple weeks ago, then next trip out have the day I had on Monday is pretty remarkable.  Up top you see the results of our day and a half trip aboard Fortune Sportfishing that returned early Tuesday morning…full boat + crew limits on the seabass. When it comes to white seabass, I’ve come to a conclusion.  Last year’s miniscule bite window only reaffirmed my belief. When the bite is on, drop what you’re doing and go fishing! Vacation…

Wow, what a difference a month makes!  A month ago, I was talking about how with the rockfish opener there would be more boats going out. With rockfish to fall back on, it would lead to boats going out to look at spots that might’ve sat dormant for awhile.  Who knew what those searches might uncover. Maybe even ghosts? What we’ve found are offshore and island yellowtail with some signal that there might be some action off the beach again.  Bluefin tuna up to over 100-pounds have reappeared.  But what I’m most excited about, with live squid back in play, so…

Sometimes everything aligns and things just work out… I wrote last week about how sometimes you just got to go fishing, regardless of what may be happening with the counts.  I say this all the time, but my thoughts were that this year in particular, we’ve had such up and down conditions that it’s hard to get any sort of consistent bite going.  Therefore, if you can, just go and maybe you get lucky. Well…I got lucky! You never know, unless you go.  I did and was fortunate enough to be on the boat that had the first big yellowtail…

Monday I took a day off and went fishing… What was driving me to fish on Monday?  Where’s the hot bite? No “hot bite” per se.  I just stayed local and hit the 3/4-day boat out of Marina del Rey, the Spitfire.  Capt. John Corzell got us on a very respectable rockfish bite.  It was easy limits for everyone on the boat, but no hint of gamefish and only one lingcod. There are definitely some signs of life going on.  The San Diego had a decent pop of yellows last Saturday.  Capt. Ryan Bostian is still the man.  He found some fish that wanted to play a…

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know I love to go up and fish the northern SoCal boats…Oxnard, Ventura, and Santa Barbara all have excellent sportfishing options and I try to get up as much as possible. The cornerstone of winter fishing action is going down to Colonet.  Unlike in years past though, the rockfishing (other than the first couple weekends of the year) were slow to non-existent this year.  That deficiency would maybe answer the question as to why I’m seeing a renewed interest in rockfishing locally in this young season.  If rockfishing is what you want…

I don’t know about you, but these last 2 months have been brutal for me when it comes to fishing.  The local scene hasn’t been great shakes other than some sparse bass and halibut days that I observed from the sidelines.  I had my failed Colonet trip in January.  The boat (The Dominator) did well with 70+ yellows, but I personally sucked and skunked on them.  Two bumps that didn’t convert and that was that. Failing to plan, is planning to FAIL! In between all these crazy storms, while hunting for that ever elusive legal halibut from the sand, I’ve had time to…

We are now in February!  January was a tough month for being salty.  January is traditionally a slow month anyway, but record rain and lots of wind made it tough to get on the water.  I was scheduled to go to Colonet on the Pacific Queen on the 20th and the trip ended up getting cancelled due to weather.  Since then, I’ve had a few less than exciting surf excursions and that’s about it. Lots of boats are still in the yard doing their annual maintenance and upgrades, but I’m seeing some encouraging things as we turn the corner toward the…

Back when catching bluefin tuna during the winter months wasn’t a thing, the staple of our fishing this time of year was centered around leadhead and squid bass fishing. NO MYSTERY TO THE SETUP…LEADHEADS AND SQUID A lot of my early fishing here in Southern California was in Santa Monica Bay aboard the New Del Mar on halfies and twilights fishing for bass.  There are a lot of artificial reefs in SMB that are a perfect habitat for sand bass.  Seemingly simple, I’d marvel at how some guys had a knack for it, while I struggled to find a biter. Over…

Colonet Yellowtail Strategy I had the good fortune this last weekend (Jan. 6-8) of getting invited out by owner/operator, Capt. Frank D’Anna (top left), to fish on his boat, The Dominator out of Point Loma Sportfishing for Colonet Yellowtail.  Capt. Trevor Fried ran the trip.  It was a day and a half trip headed down to Punta Colonet targetting yellowtail. Prior to last weekend, a couple boats had ventured down.  This last weekend though was kind of the opening of the “Colonet Yellowtail Season” with several boats heading south along the Baja Norte coastline to fish this winter hot spot. Unfortunately for me,…

Top 10 Game Fish In Southern California Happy New Year Salties! When I first started my So Cal Salty blog, December of 2010, I created a list of the Top 10 game fish in Southern California.  Part of my motivation in creating the list was the blogging seminar that I attended prior to starting SCS said that readers loved lists…especially debating the merits or fallacies of said list. My other motivation was that I noticed a lot of the people I fished with tended to fish their home boat and nothing else.  There are a handful of boats where if…

It’s been a busier than usual holiday season for me.  Now that Christmas time is over, I can finally kick back and reflect.  My colleague, Erik Landesfeind, beat me to the punch and wrote an ode to the 2016 fishing season.  It was historic! The last few years that we’ve experienced here have been epic.  No one knows for sure what next season holds, but it’s fair to say that it won’t be anything like 2016.  I’m sure there will be some hot bites for us to enjoy.  I just think we’ll look back fondly at the last few years…

Amazingly enough, those bluefin are still around.  A couple 805 deckhands I know, Sonny Haendiges (right) and Ricky Lewis saw a weather window earlier in the week.  They took out a skiff to the Tanner and limited out by 9:30 am! Less and less open party sportboats are going out as conditions deteriorate outside.  To be determined how things look like after this next storm.  As of this writing though, there were rides to be found if you still wanted to go. Hopefully, all of you read my last article and chimed in so we can enjoy bluefin fishing in the…

Recreational Bluefin Fishery – Bluefin Tuna Season It’s ironic that in this year of 2016, when we had a HISTORIC bluefin fishing season (still going actually), our opportunity to even fish for this species in US waters is now being threatened. Yet that is exactly what is happening NOW! If it feels like it’s always recreational fishing that gets the short end of the stick in these sort of discussions, it’s because there doesn’t seem to be the same organized, unified voice that speaks out for our interests vs. say commercial fishing interests. On June 20th, the National Marine Fisheries…

We’re awfully spoiled here in SoCal. Here it is post-Thanksgiving and we’re still catching tuna. Setting aside the El Nino fishing anomaly, we’re still pretty lucky. If you do happen to be a freshwater guy, there’s trophy largemouth fishing to be had in Southern California. For those of us that call the ocean our fishy place, there’s a huge range of diversity in species, styles, and ecosystems to learn. In terms of weather, shorts and t-shirts are the norm…except at times in the Winter and Spring. I was rudely reminded of this fact this weekend, during my annual Ling-a-palooza trip on…

Yes, I know.  I said I was done tuna fishing for the year.  But dang, when it’s as good as it was this last weekend, it’s hard to not want to go again.  I had two friends catch personal best fish this weekend over 100-pounds!  It’s far from wide open, but the opportunity is very good.  Who knows what next year will bring? You might be saying to yourself… “C’mon Joe.  I was happy to cast away Tuna Tenseness for Rockfish Relaxation.” Well maybe not exactly like that, but I was right there with you.  Now, I’m thinking about hopping…

Despite this last heroic hurrah of tuna fishing, I think everyone can agree that El Nino is finally coming to an end.  In matters regarding weather, I defer to my buddy Chris Dunn, the Fishing Weatherman (right). In an article Chris penned back in early June, he shared a NOAA Sea Surface Temperature graph predicting a precipitous drop…plunging us into the La Nina side of the spectrum imminently. Clearly that hasn’t happened In fact, when I rode on the Pacific Islander this weekend, crewmember Bryan Duncan shared with me that they encountered yellowfin tuna on the way back to Oxnard…

Before I even get into the topic I wanted to write about, I have to acknowledge that hands down, the best fishing going on right now in SoCal is the tuna bite on the overnight and longer trips. Here it is almost Halloween and it isn’t just the fact that we’re catching tuna… but the fishing is good! Both the grade and quantity of fish caught this week was astonishing. If you were wondering whether or not it is worth it, yes it is.  If for whatever reason you didn’t get yours this year, or you’d like to top off…

I was under the impression that Friday, October 21st was the first day of Winter.  I was wrong.  It’s December 21st.  It would’ve made for a better story if it was officially Winter, but whatever. It’s late in the year and we’re still catching tuna. There seem to be two main areas of action…around San Clemente, so accessible on the overnight boats, and then an area NE of there (see Fishdope for more specifics) that I’m seeing 3/4-day boats out of Dana and Newport get into a little bit.  You really want the extra time that an overnight or longer trip offers though.…