South Saltwater Fish Report
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UPDATED: October 10, 2025
VENTURA/OXNARD — The deep water rockfish transition opened up the Hidden Reef and wide-open deep water quality for the ¾-day boats like the Gentleman out of CISCO’s. Over the weekend westerly winds ruled the outer waters keeping the overnight boats dockside. However, the expectation is a return to fishing those whitefish and sheephead in the shallows, with deep water rockfish on tap afterward. That’s what happened aboard the local boats starting October 1, with big whitefish scores topped by plenty of deep water rockfish. Aboard the Speed Twin on the 2nd they had 31 guests bag 176 whitefish before going deep for 305 rockfish and 7 lings. At Ventura Harbor Sportfishing the Pacific Eagle fished Saturday with 17 anglers on a full-day run and bagged 2 sheephead and 108 whitefish before hitting the rockfish waters for 130 of them and a ling. While the results are less than bag limits of either, the totals are coming out at an average of over 14-fish-per-rod! While water conditions appeared favorable and there were bonito in the catches for those fishing surface stuff, it appeared the excellent bass bite had dropped off some. Along the beaches anglers landed a mix of barred surf perch and spotfin, while those fishing the Ventura area beaches continued to pick off a few striped bass from 6 to 9 pounds fishing the hard baits. Local hoop netters did well for lobster during the opener, then as the swell died things slowed a bit.
SANTA MONICA BAY — With the opening of the deep water rockfish zones the fleet focus shifted very little here. The Betty-O took to the deep waters and anglers pulled up solid bags of the bigger deep-cods, 180 for 21 anglers Saturday. But for the rest of the fleet the focus remained apparently wide-open sculpin fishing and plenty of additional whitefish. Those 5-fish limits on the tasty scorpions for every angler aboard were a given. Topped off and looking for something more put plenty of whitefish on the hooks and even a few bass in the bag.
LONG BEACH/SAN PEDRO — Starting with the local results, it looked like a split decision was made in the wheelhouse here too, either deep for rockfish or shallow spots for whitefish, sheephead and a shot for halibut. The AM run on the Monte Carlo fished whitefish, getting 135 for 19 anglers and a sheephead. The PM run fished cods with 45 folks and got 225 plus a bunch of tasty dabs. The ¾-day on the Native Sun netted 5 halibut, 121 whitefish, 17 sheephead and a few sculpin too. Out of Long Beach Sportfishing the Ahra Ahn ran targeting dabs with 15 anglers getting 2,200 of the tasty flatfish. Meanwhile the choice aboard the Victory was deepwater rockfish for their 17 folks – limits for all was the result. The Enterprise out of Pierpoint Landing did the rockfish thing and had full limits, all anglers on all runs. Other local results out of L.A. Waterfront had lobsters on the line. They’d started their evening hoop-net runs and it kicked off with hoopers hauling heaps of bugs, 136 Friday night aboard the Gail Force. Just 16 kept though. The night before they had 23 keepers for 10 hoopers. Turning to the full-day island runs the Sport King had a bunch of bonito – average 2.5 per angler – 1.5 per rod on the calico, and a few barracuda plus 2 yellowtail. That was pretty representative of the Catalina Island results. 22nd Street Landing based Pursuit turned in 9 yellows on a recent run, along with 30-some each of calico, barracuda and bonito and a few bottom biters, for 22 anglers. Turning to the 1.5-day and longer runs, the L.A. Long Beach fleet fished a mix of opportunities, including offshore bluefin, outer island yellowtail and bottom stuff. Out of Long Beach Sportfishing at Birth 55 the Eldorado took 24 anglers on a 2 dayer who scored 66 bluefin tuna and 39 yellowtail plus whitefish, sheephead and even a halibut. From San Pedro the Freedom and Amigo joined the offshore fleet for tuna and aboard the latter, they had nearly boat limits of rockfish as well as 22 tuna and a handful of yellows on a 1.5-day. The private boaters did very well on the lobsters at the opener, with a long period swell helping to shake them out of their holes. By far the top producing net design continues to be the “type-2s” the Ambush by Promar.
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