ISO BOAT!

this is sort of a brief run down on the boats out of San Diego.

In terms of rentable dinghies with engines on them, there is a couple places. The first place is Dana Landing, Sea Forth Landing, and another one inside San Diego bay. I know the one out of Dana costs about $60 for a half day and $90 for a full day.

For sport boats, this is a whole different deal. First off there is a couple different landings to pick from. You have Point Loma Sportfishing, Sea Forth Landing, H&M Landing, and Fishermans Landing. To start you have a couple different types of trips. To start with you have your zone 1 boats/ Zone 2 boats. The first one and shortest one is the half day. These boats either a 6-12 and 1-6PM trip or a 8:30AM to 2:30 and 3:00 to 8:30PM trip. Then you have 3/4 day locals, only one of which is run out of Point Loma Sportfishing as one of their daily trips. Next you have a full day, typically either offshore or at the islands fishing for deeper species of rockfish, Yellowtail, and Tuna. After that you have the Overnight trips, day and a half trips, and multi day trips up to 3 and half days. Then you have your zone 3 boats. Then you have your long range boats. They will run up to a maximum of 14 day typically (I think the Intrepid has an endurance of 21?) and are the cream of the crop.

The good and the bad and the ugly. Well for starters the great part of the sport boats is you don’t have to pay or maintain your own boat. On top of that you have an unlimited amount of bait. On the other side a lot of people are not the best fisherman, and there is a lot of ego, and on some trips it turns into an absolute crap show.

 

I would also add the Sportie captains are better then most at finding fish since they do it day in and day out. The bad side is some people don’t want to work together sometimes which is a must on Sportsboats. I would also recommend for a first timer to rent rather then buy, see if this game is for you. Beware though it does it pricey and can be highly addictive!

 

In some cases I would say the best. Ron Baker bottom fishing.. Fred Huber for fishing bass, period. Tony Sotelo offshore..

 

Well, Fat Spottie has the party boat thing covered, so I guess I will chime in on the kayak and SUP thing. Being on a yak or SUP solo is probably a bit less dangerous than diving alone, but still not the safest thing to do. Drunk, angry lobster hooping guys are probably the scariest thing I have encountered on the kayak. That said, I have had run ins with sharks, jellyfish, sea lions, been stung by rays and scorpionfish, etc etc. None were nearly as terrifying as some of the incidents with angry people, many of whom were inebriated, including two incidents when I dove over the side of my yak and swam to the bottom in fear of being run over. With all that, I did absolutely catch a freaking LOAD of fish, numerous world record size calicos and sculpin, huge sheephead , etc, most of them from my late 90s fish n dive.

 

Sport boats are best in the middle of the week. Right now the Tuna bite is good on 1 days boats and even better on over night boats.

 

Sport boats are best in the middle of the week. Right now the Tuna bite is good on 1 days boats and even better on over night boats.

 

Sport boats are best in the middle of the week. Right now the Tuna bite is good on 1 days boats and even better on over night boats.

 

The zone below is is holding a bit cleaner and warmer water.