Catalina Island Fishing: Three Ways to Do It, and the Nine MPAs That Decide What You Keep

Three ways to fish Catalina, and they are not the same trip

Catalina is a destination, not a port in the way Long Beach or Dana Point are. Boats come to it. That single fact shapes every decision you make about the day — whether you buy a seat on a mainland boat and spend a large part of the trip running, or take the ferry across and fish from the island itself.

Pick the route before you pick the price, because the routes answer different questions. The party boat gets you over deep water and island kelp with a crew that fishes it weekly. The ferry gets a family onto the water for a fraction of the money, with no minimum age and no license. A local boat out of Avalon puts you on island structure without the run, and costs the most per head unless you fill the boat.

• Mainland party boat — a 3/4-day, full-day or overnight seat out of San Pedro, Long Beach or Dana Point, $103.50 to $279.45 per person on published September 2026 schedules.
• Ferry across, fish from shore — about an hour from Long Beach or San Pedro, $99 round trip for an adult, then free pier fishing in Avalon with no license required.
• Charter or rent at Avalon — a six-pack sport fisher from $500 for two hours, or a 16-foot skiff from $80 an hour, both off the Green Pleasure Pier.

Route one: the party boat from the mainland

Most people who fish Catalina do it from a mainland landing, and the run is the reason these trips are priced the way they are. Dana Wharf tells passengers on its all-day limited-load trip to expect "a 2.5 - 3 hour boat ride out to Catalina Island or offshore whenever conditions permit," on a schedule that runs 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. You are buying six or seven hours of fishing wrapped in five or six hours of travel.

That is also why a cheap coastal half day is not a Catalina trip, whatever the island photos on a landing's website suggest. On 22nd Street Landing's own schedule for September 25, 2026, the Monte Carlo's AM half day is described as a "Coastal half-day fishing experience" at $70.38, while the Pursuit's "Full Day Limited Load Catalina Island Freelance" on the same page, the same morning, at the same landing, was $129.38. The island costs roughly double the coast.

Two words on those schedules are worth decoding. "Freelance" means the captain decides on the day where the boat goes — Long Beach Sportfishing lists the El Patron as a "Full Day Island Freelance" that departs "heading to Catalina Island/Freelance," which is honest shorthand for the island unless the offshore water is better. "Limited load" means the passenger cap is cut well below a half-day boat's 80: the Pursuit takes 38, the Native Sun 42, and the El Patron is capped at 21 anglers.

• The ticket buys the seat and the bait, nothing else. Long Beach Sportfishing states that fares do not include licenses, rental gear or tackle, and lists a one-day license at $21.09, a rod rental at $25 and tackle at roughly $8 to $12.
• Bring cash. Long Beach Sportfishing's boats are cash only aboard; the landing itself takes cards, and parking there is free.
• No ice chests and no outside food or drink on the big boats at either landing — each carries a full galley. The six-pack boats are the exception.
• Dana Wharf's 14-passenger New San Mateo is priced separately at $312.70 to $524.70, and children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult on the all-day trip.

Route two: the ferry, the Green Pleasure Pier and the Cabrillo Mole

If the goal is to fish Catalina cheaply, or to fish it with young kids, the ferry deserves more consideration than it usually gets. Catalina Express runs to Avalon from Long Beach, San Pedro and Dana Point; its own schedule page puts the Long Beach and San Pedro crossings at approximately one hour and Dana Point at approximately one hour thirty minutes, with Long Beach departures starting at 6:00 a.m. on the summer 2026 timetable.

Round-trip fares are published with the island wharfage fee and tax broken out: $89.00 plus $10.00 for an adult aged 12 to 54, a total of $99.00; $80.00 plus $10.00 for a senior 55 and over; $68.50 plus $10.00 for a child aged 2 to 11; and $10.00 for an infant under 2, who otherwise rides free.

Take your rod, but pack it properly. Catalina Express classes a fishing pole as a restricted non-luggage item that must be enclosed in a carry case, carried at the passenger's own risk on a space-available basis, and it requires a baggage waiver obtained at the ticket window or from a gate agent. Turning up at the gate with a loose two-piece rod is how people end up fishing with a rental.

The payoff is on the other side. CDFW does not require a sport fishing license to fish from a public pier in ocean waters, and the exemption has no age attached to it — the island's tourism authority states it flatly for the Green Pleasure Pier: "Pier fishing does not require a license for any age." If you want a license anyway, or you are fishing from a boat, Avalon sells them at Catalina Coastal Tours at 205 Crescent Avenue and at Joe's Tackle Box on the Green Pleasure Pier.

The Cabrillo Mole, where the ferry lands, is the island's other legal shore spot — and it exists as a written exception inside a marine protected area. Lover's Cove SMCA otherwise bans all take; CDFW's regulation for it allows "Recreational take by hook-and-line from Cabrillo Mole only." Step off the Mole and onto the cove and you are in a closed area.

• The pier exemption covers the license, not the report card. CDFW requires a report card from every person fishing for spiny lobster, sturgeon, abalone, steelhead or Klamath-system salmon, "including any person who is not required to have a sport fishing license, such as a child who is under 16 years of age, a person who is fishing from a public pier."
• The City of Avalon runs a Kids Fishing Derby on summer Wednesday mornings from 7 to 9 a.m., open to ages 3 to 16 with prizes; participants bring their own equipment.

Route three: your own boat out of Avalon

Chartering or renting at the island removes the run entirely. The RedRum, run by Catalina Coastal Tours, is a 24-foot sport fisher taking one to six anglers for up to seven hours, and its published ladder runs $500 for two hours, $750 for three, $1,000 for four, $1,250 for five, $1,500 for six and $1,750 for seven. The rate covers the captain and fishing guide, rods and reels, bait, soda and water, ice and the 7 percent harbor tax; the captain fillets your fish, and you meet the boat at the very end of the Green Pier at the End Float. Every angler aboard needs a valid California license, which is the difference between this and the pier.

Cheaper again, and far more work, is driving yourself. Joe's Rent A Boat at Locker 46 on the Pleasure Pier rents 16-foot skiffs that hold up to six people: $80 an hour, $240 for four hours or $400 for eight with a 15 hp motor, and $90, $270 and $450 on the 20 hp boats. You must be 21 to rent one, with a credit card deposit and proof of age.

Run the arithmetic before you decide. A six-hour charter on the RedRum at $1,500 is $250 a head with six aboard — roughly double a mainland full-day seat, for a day with no long run at either end and island water the whole time. With three aboard it is $500 each and the party boat wins on money alone. Our guide to what a California charter costs has the wider comparison, and the deciding factor is usually how many people you are bringing.

Nine marine protected areas ring the island, and no two allow the same thing

This is the part of a Catalina trip that no booking page explains. California's marine protected area network placed nine MPAs around Santa Catalina Island. Three of them are closed to all take. The other six each carve out a different and very specific list of what you may take and by what method, and those lists sit directly on the water people want to fish — Big Fisherman's Cove, Ship Rock, Isthmus Reef, Farnsworth Bank, the Avalon dive park and nearly three miles of coast northwest of Two Harbors.

One worked example shows how sharp the edges are. Blue Cavern Offshore SMCA contains Isthmus Reef and Ship Rock. Recreational take there is limited to market squid on a hand-held dip net, pelagic finfish by hook-and-line or spearfishing, and white seabass by spearfishing only. CDFW's list of pelagic finfish for that rule names the tunas, yellowtail, Pacific bonito, barracudas, billfishes, dorado, northern anchovy, Pacific herring, jack and Pacific mackerel, Pacific sardine, salmon, blue, salmon, mako and thresher sharks, and swordfish. A yellowtail on a flylined sardine is legal. A calico bass, a rockfish, a lingcod or a halibut off the same rail is not, because none of them are pelagic finfish.

• Three of the nine — Long Point SMR, Blue Cavern Onshore and Casino Point — are closed to all recreational take, full stop.
• Two of them allow white seabass only to spearfishers, which is easy to misread as an open season for rod-and-reel anglers.
• Lobster is the sharpest split on the island: legal in Cat Harbor SMCA, flatly prohibited a few miles up the coast in Arrow Point to Lion Head Point SMCA. Our California lobster season guide covers the statewide rules that apply outside the MPAs.
• Long Point SMR protects a notable spawning aggregation of giant sea bass in late summer. That fish is no-take statewide in any case, and CDFW notes its populations have been recovering since fishing for them was banned in the 1980s.

Two traps in the research: Bird Rock, and the passport question

Search Catalina fishing rules and you will run straight into "Bird Rock State Marine Conservation Area." It is not a current name. CDFW's own approved summary of MPA regulations lists the Catalina Island area now called Blue Cavern Offshore SMCA with the parenthetical "Formerly known as Bird Rock," and CDFW's site no longer carries a standalone Bird Rock MPA page. If an article or a forum post hands you Bird Rock rules, check them against the Blue Cavern Offshore line in the table above before you keep a fish.

The second trap runs the other way. Catalina is California, so a trip there never leaves United States waters. There is no Mexican fishing permit, no FMM and no passport in the paperwork — a California sport fishing license is the whole document list. That is the opposite of a San Diego offshore run toward the Coronado Islands, where the permit question is the first thing to settle; we cover that separately in the Mexican fishing license guide.

What the island gives up, and when

Catalina holds the full Southern California inshore set. Calico bass live in the kelp year-round, and the island's kelp is a large part of why the boats that reach it out-catch the coastal half-day boats on that species. Rockfish, sheephead, whitefish and lingcod sit on the reefs. Halibut work the sand. Barracuda and Pacific bonito show through the warm months, and yellowtail and white seabass are the two fish people actually make the trip for. Davey's Locker, which runs Catalina trips out of Newport Beach, tells customers white seabass are found around the squid nests off the island and that early morning is the window.

Seasonality here is mostly statewide rather than Catalina-specific. The groundfish calendar — rockfish, lingcod, cabezon — is the hard constraint, and CDFW sets it for the whole Southern California management area, not for the island. Yellowtail are broadly a spring-through-fall fish in this water. Our California fishing seasons guide lays out the full calendar and the bag and size limits guide has the numbers by species, so neither is repeated here.

One more thing worth knowing about this particular island: it has been a sportfishing destination for well over a century. The Tuna Club of Avalon, still on the waterfront today, gives its own founding year as 1898. The tackle and the boats have changed completely. The kelp line has not moved.

Licenses, and the two fish to leave alone

Anyone 16 or older needs a California sport fishing license to fish from a boat at Catalina, whether that boat left San Pedro or the Green Pier. CDFW's 2026 fees are $21.09 for a one-day license and $32.40 for a two-day, and both are exempt from the Ocean Enhancement Validation that otherwise applies in ocean waters south of Point Arguello. Every mainland landing sells them at check-in, and both Avalon shops named above sell them on the island. Our fishing license guide walks through the charter-specific detail.

Two fish you will see and must not keep. The garibaldi — the bright orange fish hanging in the kelp all around Avalon, and California's state marine fish — is listed by CDFW as no-take, and the island's tourism authority specifically warns pier anglers to stay clear of them. The giant (black) sea bass is also listed no-take; at Catalina you are most likely to see one at Long Point or in the Avalon coves, which are inside closed MPAs in any case.