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How to Prep for a San Diego Deep Sea Fishing Trip

Pete Gray, President of LetsTalkHookUp.com, gives tips on how to get the most out of your San Diego deep sea fishing vacation.

If you’re looking for an adventurous getaway with built-in social distancing, then San Diego deep sea fishing might be the perfect trip for you. But before you get out on the water and have all the fun in the Cali sun, you’ll need to be prepared.

Pete Gray, President of LetsTalkHookUp.com, was a guest recently on YurView’s Creative Living and showed us what we need to know before heading out on the boat. Watch the video above, or take a look at the full transcription we’ve provided. (lightly edited for clarity)

San Diego deep sea fishing
San Diego deep sea fishing

San Diego Landings

Pete Gray (00:02) – San Diego is a great place for deep sea fishing because it’s home of the largest sportfishing fleet in the world. You can go on a half-day trip, a full-day trip, multi-day trip, all the way up to 18 days to catch tuna and wahoo or just locally here to catch yellowtail.

When booking a deep sea fishing excursion out of San Diego, there are several resources. And of course, the San Diego landings have great web pages – seaforthlanding.com, fishermanslanding.com and pointlomasportfishing.com are the perfect resources to book your next fishing vacation out of San Diego.

Fishing License

PG (00:38) – What you need to do before you go out fishing is of course, you’ll have to obtain a California fishing license or a Mexican fishing license, depending on where the trip goes.

Tackle

And then get set up with tackle. All the landings have all the tackle for rental, and they’ll give you all the guidance on the boat to catching a lot of fish here in San Diego.

PG (00:58) – Alright, let’s say you’re going out on a full-day boat. You’re gonna go out, get your tackle at the landing. They’ll set you all up with that. You’ll get on the boat, generally with about 36 other people. And then you’ll head out to sea.

Weather

Hopefully you pick the right day. I use windy.com to predict the wind conditions. That’s a good way to make sure that you go out on the right day so it’s not too rough. And then you’ll just go out and follow the guidance of the deckhands on the boat. They’ll fully guide you. They’ll tie your knots.

Bait

You’ll get live bait at the bait receiver, live sardines generally. And you’ll go off to the fishing grounds, come back on a full day trip that afternoon/early evening. And hopefully with a lot of fish to take home.

San Diego deep sea fishing

What to Wear

PG (01:42) – What you should wear out on the water when you’re fishing here in San Diego – layers. And that’s the key because you’re probably not going to get very wet because you’re going to go out on a nice day. But just be prepared for layers because it can get pretty cool on the water.

You know, summertime is always the best from I would say – June through September. But prime months actually in San Diego – September and October are probably the two prime months. Best water conditions and probably the most abundance of fish.

So as far as taking your fish home, they’ll fillet the fish for you on the boat and put it into a package for you. Or you can use one of the local processors like Fisherman’s Processing  that’ll vacuum seal and freeze your fish so you can put it in your cooler. And take it home and eat it.

For more info, go to LetsTalkHookUp.com.

Catch Pete’s regular segment each Friday on Kaplan and Crew Tonight, airing on YurView California. Or watch the show on YurView Sports’ YouTube channel.