Newport Landing Sportfishing — Local services in Newport Beach

I have been fishing on shared charter boats for nearly a decade, and this company provided the worst experience imaginable.

The issues began right from the start. The day before the charter, I called Newport Landing to inquire about the fishing plans and bait. They informed me we would be rock fishing with live bait. Since it was a limited load boat, I thought it would be ideal for myself and my younger sister.

When we arrived at Newport Landing, we were told our charter had been outsourced to Davey’s Locker. This was surprising and concerning. Despite my reservations, we proceeded since we had driven two hours to get there. Once on the boat, I was informed that we were not targeting rockfish but sculpin instead. Although initially disappointed, I decided to remain open-minded. After an hour and a half, we reached our fishing destination. When I asked for live bait, I was told there was none available, only squid. They assured us that live bait would be used later for rockfish. Another hour and a half passed, and everyone on the boat started complaining. The captain then relocated us and said we could now use live bait.

However, the ration of live bait was astonishing—only one sardine per angler for the entire trip. Having been on hundreds of charter boats, I had never heard of a bait limit. The reason became clear when I saw the bait tank: there were only two dozen bait fish for the 20+ anglers on board.

I can tolerate switching boats, changing target species, and different bait options. However, the final straw was observing the deckhands fishing instead of assisting the anglers. Worse, they were placing the fish they caught into people’s gunny sacks without their knowledge, which is illegal. It is against the law to help another angler with their limit. They also charged per fish filleted, presumably to generate extra revenue for themselves.

I reported the situation to the manager, David. His response was, “If fish were placed in your bag to fill out your limit, it’s done simply as a gesture of goodwill so our passengers can take more than their catch home when they aren’t experiencing the same success as other anglers on board.” This practice is...

Very unimpressed with the full day fishing trip on the Patriot. I have been on multiple trips out of newport to include, 1/2 day, 3/4 day and twilight trips. This was THE worst trip I have been on out of the bunch. First of all when I purchased the trip online it was for a “limited capacity” all day trip limited to 22 people according to thier website. When we showed up this morning there was 38 people on the boat. This is a smaller boat than others that launch from this landing and they have the same capacity. Second, and this sometime happens, it is fishing, the whole boat only caught 3 fish that day. I understand the captain can not control the fish but instead of maybe going after another species to get some fish on board we drove around most of the trip looking for one species. I’m no expert on being a boat captain, but we all pay ALOT of money for these trips and to go home after these very long days and be sent home with nothing is no good. Lastly, there was not enough crew on the boat to run this trip successfully. This may be due to being short staffed, but again lots of our money goes into making this a successful trip and not having the crew to run the boat makes things difficult. There was only 2 deckhands on the boat and one was also the cook, there was lots of times the bait tanks had not been filled and when you’re targeting bluefin tuna you have to act fast to get the bait out in the water. The ONLY reason I am leaving 2 stars is that the boat is very clean and well maintained and the staff on and off the boat are very pleasant. If you plan on doing this trip do not be suprised if the boat has more people than advertised and depending on the season you may be stuck chasing just one species of fish, no matter the success rate for the boat catching...

I honestly have to say that our group of six spent $720 on boat fare and $80 on parking fees to go fishing off Catalina Island. It seems the captain might have been inexperienced. We boarded the boat at 6 AM and after a three-and-a-half-hour journey, we started our first attempt at fishing around 10 AM. At the first fishing spot, there weren’t any bites at all. Then, after an hour, the captain had us move to a new spot. Each time we dropped our lines, the boat would spin in place, causing everyone’s lines to tangle. By the time the deckhand untangled your line, the captain was already moving to another spot. Whenever we got a bite, the captain would promptly change locations. Moreover, no one could understand what he was saying over the radio. I've been fishing in the waters near Los Angeles for ten years and never have I had such an indescribable experience on a boat. By 2 PM, the captain announced it was time to head back. On this 3/4 day fishing trip, we only actually fished for two hours and spent seven and a half hours traveling. Our group caught only six small fish in total. When I asked the deckhand to fillet two of them, he demanded a $6 tip despite already receiving $120 in tips from us. Additionally, there was a drunk person on board cursing at every passing yacht. It was truly a disastrous experience, and I will never return in my lifetime. I have never left such a bad review on Google for a business, but this time is an exception. I am...