Pierpoint Landing

Worst customer service! We reserved our spots on the boat 3 days prior with our groupons. We showed up an hour early like we were asked, however when we arrived we were told that the boat wouldn’t be leaving the harbor unless 10 people (paying full price, without groupons) showed up to fish and there were only 8 people so far. End of story, we waited for an hour just to be told that the trip was cancelled unless we wanted to pay the difference (45 dollars each) to make 10 people on the boat.
Lesson learned: go to Daveys locker in Newport. Better service and I’m sure they won’t cancel just to make 90 dollars.

This place has mixed reviews and I really don’t get why. Our first time was in the summer of 2010 and went on a double date. The crew were really helpful and nice. They helped us everytime we needed their assistance. If you have an attitude obviously they are not going to be that much of a help. My friend’s dad fishes alot and he told us to tip them before we started fishing. Each of us caught barracudas so it was worth it and quite an experience!
The second time around was this past weekend. I took my dad for his birthday along with other family members. Once again, Southern Cal never disappoints. Not to mention their amazing freshly made burgers :) The women are friendly and the deckhands were useful as usual. We didn’t even tip them in the beginning. We tipped them after the trip. My family was having hard time adjusting to a different kind of fishing pole. Since we were fishing for rockfishes, we weren’t used to those kind of poles. One of the crew was kind enough to lend me his own since mine was broken. That being said, that’s why I’m giving this place 4 stars because the pole rentals are in horrible conditions. However, the workers in the office were extremely helpful as well but they really need to fix those rods. If you want to have a good time without fixing your pole every 10 minutes, then invest in your own. Other than that, we had an amazing time and caught 18 fishes in total. We’re definitely going back this summer. Thank you, Southern Cal!

Boarded the Southern Cal pm boat on a Saturday afternoon. It was little Jazzy’s first time fishing on a boat. She did great pulling on some nice cod. The fish were all small today, but it was pretty plentiful. Almost instantaneous bites after the Captain dropped anchor.
Timeline:
12:30pm — push off the dock
1:30pm — found the first spot — catch a few
2:30pm — find the next spot — catch a few
3:30pm — try for some surface fish like yellowtail and barracuda — only 2 barracuda caught
6:00pm — back at the dock
Deckhands and cook were great. Really helpful with the tangles and birds nests that happen when fishing. Really quick at helping you remove the fish and place it in your numbered gunny sack.
Parking — $ 3 lets gets you parking in the Pierpoint lot. They have spots #1 to #21. If these are filled, they have a lot that is across the street.
Will definitely be back!

Fished a ¾ day trip on the Victory today. Price was right, up until we went out. Stopped at the bait station on the way out to get mackerel. Then proceeded to fish for mackerel for the next three hours! I thought what is the point of this when we just got bait… then overheard the skipper ask a deck hand how he looked on bait, «we should be good for tomorrow» is the response I heard come from the deck hand.
Gee, must be nice to have the previous charter fish three hours for bait so that you don’t have to stock up on the next trip.
Take my advice, either save your money for San Diego or Redondo who’s actually putting in work, or fish the half day at pierpoint. I’m sure the half day wouldn’t be allowed to waste 3 hours of your fish time to make you fish for bait.

Seriously?
How late does late have to be in order for the crew to recognize they’ve wasted our time and basically screwed passengers out of our ½ day fishing trip? Who makes you run back and forth to put a parking token in lots that are located blocks away? Thanks to our dear friend Chale for inviting us to go out on this beautiful Monday morning and use up the Groupon coupons he had. Hubby and I hadn’t been to Pierpoint Landing in a long while and these reviews were troublesome as we do not recall ever having to suffer what our fellow Unilocaler’s were reporting.
This morning– all doubt was removed and I am feeling the pain and frustration of our 1-​star Unilocalers. We too experienced the rip-​off/​poor job at Pierpoint Landing, and the boat, Southern California. We met our friend at the landing (5:40 a.m.), the line was out the door, our friend was inside getting the tickets squared, etc. The girl behind the counter, after taking our $$$ for our one-​day license and parking, she asked my hubby what stall # he parked in. She then gave him a parking token stating he needed to put it in the machine… that was odd, as we’ve never had to do that before.
Our journey on the Southern California started 10 minutes after our original departure time of 6:30a.m.
We were informed there were only a few anchovies (bait fish) in the tank, and there was not enough for everyone, and therefore, we’d have to go and catch our own… how crazy is that???
You want me to catch my own bait fish???
Whatever happened to going to the bait barge and buying a few scoops? It couldn’t be that difficult… well, apparently it was. We wasted another ½ hour at the bait barge and watched smaller, private boats get a few scoops and be on their way. Our boat captain was in no rush to get bait on-​board, and even had us drop our lines (a few times while just idling at the bait barge) and watching the seals and birds compete for any potential bait that people might have reeled in.
Finally, we move on from the bait barge to that big rig-​looking-​thing out in the ocean. We drop our lines a few times and then off we go to the double-​rig-​looking-​thing. It’s already after 8am and all we’ve accomplished at this point were a stop at the bait barge and then off to those other contraptions in the ocean… not my idea of an exciting day of fishing!
It was so darn crowded, we had just enough elbow room to barely get our poles in the water without hooking the next person’s hat off their head. Then the skipper dude announced over the loud speaker that we all had to move to the right side of the boat in order to catch the Bonita fish… no one was supposed to fish off the left side of the boat– everyone needed to be on the right side. How horrible, how crowded and how many lines got tangled, tied up and just irritated many people.
Captain then moves along further, and eats up more of our fishing time, when finally we stop and were directed to lower our lines down 20 feet only… some folks hooked a few fish, but again, because of the overcrowded boat, the rough waves and perhaps lack of communication from the crew to the patrons on the boat– lines were being crossed into a messy tangle. By the time 10:30 came around, I’m handing out home made snacks and goodies (I usually pack plenty of grub and snacks for these outings).
We enjoyed turkey sandwiches, avocado chips, cut apples and good, refreshing water. Closer to 11a.m. hubby is needing something else to snack on, so I reach into my lunch bag/​picnic basket and pull out a nice chilled banana. Hubby gobbled that up with no problem, and then I offered Chale a banana, he said yes, and before he could finish it, he was approached by a man, who I believe was a deckhand, later found out his name is Butch. He approached Chale very quickly and asked him to discard the peel into the water because it was bad luck or something.
At that same moment, another passenger was telling hubby that some crew members are so deeply rooted in this superstition, that he claimed they would have put us off the boat. Really??? A good ol’ banana would cause us to be put off the boat? Seems the more important concern would be how to have a boat full of bait and to give us passengers a true ½ day trip instead of a 2-​hour trip of fishing.
It’s some sort of superstition that dates back to a long time ago where fishermen used to transport bananas… they would have bugs and rats and spiders inside of the bundles that would come out and bite the fisherman or the rats carried diseases that killed them.
Fast forward 2015– get a clue fishing crew! Is there a superstition that would yield bountiful hours of fishing as well as plenty of fish for the passengers?
I would appreciate a voucher for all the fish we didn’t catch due to farting around fishing for bait. Our time was wasted aimlessly meandering from spot to spot and then making a fast-​dash back to Long Beach.
Somebody pass me a banana!

I came here with a group of friends after purchasing their groupon deal. Yahoo has it for a lil cheaper by the way. Anyways, the deal we’ve purchased was $ 27 for half day. When I got there I paid roughly $ 15 for the days fishing license and $ 12 to rent the fishing rod. And once you get on the boat they tell you EVERYONE has purchase a sack for $ 2, and they emphasize EVERYONE MUST HAVE ONE! There was so many people on the boat, they didn’t even have enough hooks to hold up EVERYONES must purchased brown sakes. And no, not everyone needs to purchase this empty sake, if you don’t catch anything to take home why would you even need that sake anyways?
The boat was super crowded, they tried jamming as many people on the boat as they can. There is really no point of even asking them what the maximum amount of people they allow on the boats. Fishing with that many people on a boat always mean tangled rods. If that was only thing that can happen to me, wouldn’t that have been great. They rented a broken rod to me. The drag on the rod was messed up. Besides enjoying the sun and watching all my friends catch something, I couldn’t do anything else.
When we got back, I told them about my rod. They compensated me by giving me 2 bags of ice (value of $ 10) to give to my friend to ice his fish on the way home. I can’t comprehend how that was their way of compensating the amount of money I spent… by giving my friend ice… for my friends fish? I mean of course he could have given me ice instead, but I didn’t catch anything, I couldnt! I didn’t have the energy to complain and listen to their explanation. Also, my friends were happy about their catch, I didn’t want to ruin that. But I did tell them, I’d be back to leave a Unilocal review!

Read Xin P.‘s review, it summed up our whole experience well.
A complete waste of time. Advertised that bait included when in fact you have to pay $ 4 per hook to fish for your own bait which took most of the time. Then they kept moving the boat the rest of the time– can’t fish, just riding along. The full boat load of about 50 people caught 2 fish total. As a extra add-​on to this this experience… rude unhelpful crew. Never going back.

Worst sea fishing trip ever and possibly been scammed, courtesy of Peirpoint landing.
When we pay all that money to go out sea fishing, live baits are expected to be provided by the boat. Not in this boat. Instead of the boat filling up with live bait, the boat ordered customers to purchase over priced string of 5 hooks at their shop for almost $ 5 each pack to catch our own bait.
Than the boat docked at its normal live bait filling station, literally touching the filling ponds. Than had the customers ‘fish’ for our own bait using the overpriced hooks we were forced to purchase at its shop.
The boat claim there is no bait in the filling station yet we were fishing right next to the filling station. The boat/​filling station could have easily netted a ton of live bait without having to force customer to buy their overpriced hooks to ‘fish’ for our own bait.
If the boat genuinely dont have any live bait, and needed customers to get out own bait, a honest business would’ve given these cheap string of hooks to the customers for free, or at the very least at a discounted price, but no, the shop charged us full price for it. I was shocked when they told me i have to buy their hooks my own bait.
Long story short, we ended up with little amount of live bait because we have to catch them ourselves. With the limited amount of live bait, the deck hand couldn’t toss them out to initially attract fish. By the end of the ½ day trip, the entire boat of 40 plus pissed off customers only caught two fish. We wasted a lot of time trying to catch bait, than a lot time circling for a fishing spot. The boat left dock around 1pm and returned around 6pm. I would say we spend no more than 1 hour of actual fishing. I’m not kidding.
I definitely smelling something fishy (and I’m not talking about the 2 measly fish the whole boat caught) about the whole no live bait situation in the filling stations to force customers to buy their overpriced hooks to catch our own bait right next the the filling stations.
Also, to any potential customers, go on Groupon first to look for a deal before paying full price, especially for peirpoint. Luckily I got this trip on groupon. I didnt pay the full price, so it sorta eased the horrible experience a little.
Groupon also has a lot of deal for other boats and locations, check those out as well.
Search for ‘Fishing’ in groupon and you’ll see many other good deals there.

This review is on the ¾ day Victory boat.
I went 3 times in the last 3 weeks and all have been a bad experience so far. Since, I enjoy just going out to the ocean, this rating is not about how good/​bad the fishing was. People were catching fish for sure, but the service has been negative.
1^st Trip: Pierpoint has a summer promotion, which 15 y/​o or younger are free with a purchase of an adult ticket. However, I was charged full price for my daughter during this trip.
2^nd Trip: The deckhand cut most of my line that I couldn’t fish anymore. I asked for a rain check and was told «No» because there was fish to catch. Obviously didn’t care that they cut my line and it didn’t even register in their mind that you can’t catch the fish without lines. Unfortunately, I only had one rod/​reel that day. The captain and crew failed to minimize the amount of tangled lines by not providing instructions to anglers.
3^rd Trip: Spent all morning fishing for bait, retuned to dock to drop off a guy who had a stroke (I hope he’s okay), fish for more bait until 11:00 am, there was a fight on the boat, and spent plenty of time just riding the boat. In addition, people got rain checks that were given in secret despite them catching fish. I didn’t understand that part! Caught a barely legal barracuda and that was it that it. Great fishing stories though!

This was our second trip out overnight on the toronado and I had to write a second review because the crew is the most hard working, nicest guys there are. We also had over 80 bluefin and yellowfin tuna for 37 anglers. Keving, Murdock and Captain Johnny will make you feel like a part of the family and help you any way they can. They go way above and beyond their jobs to make sure you catch, are comfy and even give a number of fish away to guarantee every goes home with a fish. Can’t say enough about them and their prices are so much lower than the surrounding sportfishing places. Go here over the other places, you will be stoked you did.

What almost became a disastrous trip had a tremendous turn around for us. We purchased a groupon and let me just say if you’re coming from out of town GROUPON rates are the LOWEST priority on their totem pole. Plan accordingly and just pay full price. They ask you to book and mention your groupon so they can PURGE your spot if a walk in that will be paying FULL price can take your place despite your reservation, which is exactly what happened. Which I get it, business is business but MENTION IT.
We called and reserved as requested and were told by TWO different people at TWO different times to arrive 45 minutes early we even called the night before to confirm. We arrived ONE HOUR prior and when we got there we find out the boat left. Everyone that worked there scrambled looking around like it there wasn’t shit to be done about it. It was a moment of superior disappointment we drove to California JUST for this trip. OUR NAMES were even ON the clip board in their hand along with my phone number!!!
After a back and forth battle, we begged for an alternative solution, another boat? another time? anything and were finally able to pull it out of them to send us to another landing. They did give us passes to it which we are grateful for. Thank you!
As for the experience itself. Amazing. We boarded the ENTERPRISE BOAT at a later time 6:30pm-12:30AM which was blessing in disguise as it was a lot less people on there, only about 30 or so. We were able to see the sunset. The Scene was surreal. The Crew was awesome and super helpful. Nick, the deckhand is great and such a hard worker! He Helped us with EVERYTHING and everyone was so fast and efficient with untangling our lines, unhooking our fish, cutting up the bait for us and setting up our poles. I want to say no one on our boat came up empty handed! everyone caught fish! All in all a great trip, if you can get passed the boarding issues.

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE VICTORY
I’d like to start by saying that Pier point over-​books their boat. I was a deckhand for quite some time out of Marina Del Rey while I was going to college, I know how it is. However these deckhands were more concerned with catching their own fish than actually helping their customers. They must have had 4 deckhands and an additional 4 pinheads. They were ALL fishing, amongst an already sold out boat
These deckhands are rude and will mock and talk poorly about people fishing on the boat. I know this because I had the pleasure of fishing next to one. Let’s also talk about the «click» (regulars who fish the boat) these were the only people getting gaffs from deckhands, and getting help when tangled.
If you plan on using live bait, plan on loosing 300 yards by getting tangled with the other 30 people staked on the stern of the boat.
The overall experience was poor. If you plan on fishing, fish with a real crew and look otherwise. Long Beach had plenty of boats so don’t worry options are not limited.
This captain runs a terrible crew. Unfortunately buddy, your crew will work according to your standards and your standards are definitely not high.

Had a great time. Didn’t catch much, one sand bass. But it was delicious .and sometimes you catch a bunch and sometimes you don’t. But just being out on the water fishing is the best :0) these guys were very communicative. And very friendly from the cashiers in the office to the deckhands to the chef earl !! And the captain was always on the speaker telling you what he was doing. I hate it when there is no communication. Unfortunately the boat had a problem so we came in a bit early BUT they gave us all raincheck passes which was very nice. I look forward going again. The only thing that sucks is there are a lot of beginners on the half day boats so be prepared to breathe and practice your patience skills when it comes to line tangles lol :0) see ya guys soon!

AMAZON LOCAL, GROUPON, ETC USERS BEWARE!
I first found this place through Groupon and really enjoyed my time on their boats… people are fun and crew are great! Out of principle I will not use them after I redeem all my certificates.
Today, after two years of using these certificates they pulled some nonsense and ALL OF A SUDDEN started requiring 12 notice in order to use the certificate. Total B.S. especially since there were only 17 people on the boat. I wouldn’t be bothered if they always enforced this rule… oh well!
My recommendation is that you go to Long Beach Sportsfishing… comparable pricing and far fewer people on the boat!
Good luck and good fishing!

Been on two trips this month, one ½ day on So Cal and a ¾ day on Victory. Both trips were excellent. But we had to rent equipment which we found to be subpar — we kept losing bait on the cast and the reels were worn out and didn’t unspool properly so there were snags and tangles before our lines even hit the water… needless to say everyone around us caught fish but us. I’ve call and complained about the gear and and asked about a refund or credit to a future trip. I’ll repost if I get satisfaction. Meanwhile, I’d say both boats are good experiences, especially Capt Mike on Victory. I’ll be going out again right now children fish free… BUT BRING YOUR OWN GEAR — DO NOT RENT — if you want to catch fish. Good fishing to ya’all.
PS. Kevin called promptly and offered my a refund credit of $ 15 on my next two trips on Victory. I’m satisfied on that score… Good luck to you.

Terrible, terrible customer service.
I wanted to book a fishing trip for my husband through this company and the representative over the phone was so extremely rude and for no apparent reason. Went a little like this…
Pierpoint Rep: «Pierpoint»
Me: «Hi, how are you?»
PR: «Fine»
Me: «Haha, great… well I’m doing okay myself.»
–At this point I’m thinking that maybe he is having a rough morning? Anyways, it continues…
Me: «I wanted to see if you had openings for your half day fishing trips this Saturday.»
PR: «Yehp»
–This is where I decided not to waste my breath anymore and HUNG UP on the representative. I can’t with some people. I just refuse to tell you how to do your job. It’s easy really, I’m trying to give you my money. Smh…

2^nd review but for a different boat that I’ve never been on. Read the reviews about the Toronado but still took my chances cuz of the bluefins being local, which is not heard of on an overnight.
35 people and 6 fish landed for the trip. To be honest it’s fishing u idiots not catching!!! If you don’t bring the proper gear, don’t know how to fish, expect catching rather than fishing then don’t go fishing especially without doing proper research for pelagic fish. I wasn’t one of those that landed fish but the crew was still cool and accommodating.
The captain moves after a few minutes because the fish aren’t biting. If the captain didn’t want to waste fuel he would just stay at the one spot even if there weren’t any bites. As for the cramming on one side of the boat, it’s because the way the current and wind run… resulting in the «tuna shuffle».
Remember people it’s a numbers game. If the boat doesn’t produce then they don’t make much money. So why would the boat do that to themselves!!!
But I’ll admit the parking sucks, should be strictly for the fishing boat patrons and employees.

Let me first say that if you want a pleasant fishing experience then look elsewhere. It’s not even worth it at half price on this old boat. The captain is clueless to finding fish. The half day trip was supposed to be focusing on mostly finding yellowtail and instead was wasted leaving late and going bottom fishing and only stopping for yellowtail for about 20 minutes in seal infested area (good luck pulling the yellowtail).
Live bait was so limited to use, and it felt like the captain was low on bait or was just trying to save money on gas and bait. What a waist of my precious time. I will not be coming back until they fix these problems.

Parking is complicated and they don’t know how to communicate it ahead of arrival to most new customers. I hear people in line complain about parking all the time.
For ladies, this can be a really fun date activity. Do bring a water proof windbreaker, hat, sunglasses, water bottles, and put on SPF 50+ lotion; plus bring other clothing to change into in case you get splattered by fish blood, seagull poop, or sardine scales.
The Pierpoint location, however, is awesome being right next to the Aquarium of the Pac and near all of the restaurants at the marina and across from the Queen Mary.
The boat crews were helpful, more helpful if you tip them, and some personalities can be rough around the edges. While I Hate to stereotype, what do you expect on a fishing boat, isummer camp environment?
The actual fishing have good days and bad days depending on the weather and moon phase. Catching yellowtail can be difficult for beginners. Having fun is the whole point so even if it is a bad day it is still fun to go out. Like other poster said, it would be nice for the boat operator to arrange a fish for those newbies who didn’t catch any…

If you go fishing, To park the car you gotta go inside get the token, you gotta get in line to get token, then run back with all your sh t. Get in line, buy pass. If you come with a friend you drop him or her off at the red zone, sidewalk he stands there @the car and unload stuff, and you still have to go inside get inline for parking token thats way the fu k across the way. Now your running back to catch boat or get in line again for bag, drinks or something. Why cant we just pay at the stupid gate for parking? Sell token at gate? Park free?
Wtf?