Yellowtail anglers enjoy a double hookup off Catalina Island.
California is an angler’s paradise. How could this not be the case in a state that covers nearly 159,000 square miles, has 2,674 square miles of inland water, and spans 3,400 miles of shoreline? California leads all of the states in numbers of licensed anglers, with more than 2 million, and it’s small wonder. With thousands of lakes, and with people on the eastern boundary only 220 miles from the ocean, there is a plentiful and accessible array of fishing opportunities in the Golden State, almost all of them available year-round.
Near the Mexican border, anglers can experience sizzling saltwater action not only in the ocean, but also at an inland waterway, the Salton Sea. San Diego’s city lake chain is home to world-class double-digit-size largemouth bass, and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Catalina Island and other offshore areas provide enviable opportunities for a variety of species, particularly yellowtail and huge white seabass. At nearby tiny Irvine Lake, trout anglers catch more trophy rainbows than anywhere else in the state.
Along the central coast, diversity in the salt extends from schools of albacore tuna to king and silver salmon, and in freshwater, from numerous bass lakes to trout streams. Farther inland, some of the finest mountain trout fishing in the country exists on both slopes of the majestic High Sierra.
Fishing is equally varied in Northern California. Large waterways like the Sacramento River Delta and San Francisco Bay yield striped bass, sharks, and sturgeon, while freshwater sites range from large Lakes Tahoe and Shasta to numerous small lakes and wild trout streams and rivers.
Getting a handle on the breadth of California’s fisheries is a challenge, but separating the state angling opportunities into three broad segments—trout and salmon, warmwater/bass, and coastal and offshore fishing in saltwater—makes that challenge less daunting.
