Take a detour from your usual Southern California itinerary to the beautiful city of Oxnard. It is situated between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and just a few miles away from LAX. It is mainly known as a transportation hub and a popular pit stop for people on a Pacific Coast Highway road trip. Don’t just drive through it, though, because this city has plenty to offer. It has miles of white sand beaches, a picturesque downtown area with fascinating architecture, great shopping, and a vibrant atmosphere. Anglers will surely love Oxnard, especially adventurous ones itching to do some deep-sea fishing around the famed Channel Islands, just a few miles away from the city harbor.
Fishing in Oxnard can be excellent and rewarding, whether you’re simply casting from the shores or a boat. If you’d simply like something a little more laid-back, try surf-casting on any of Oxnard’s beaches first. Silver Strand Beach, a local favorite, is on the southernmost part of Oxnard. You can fish directly from the shores or the jetty and catch barred surfperch, corbina, halibut, and calico bass. Another productive surf-fishing destination is Mandalay Beach, where you can target barred surfperch, halibut, corbina, yellow croaker, and spotfin croaker.
If you’re ready for the open waters, head straight to the Channel Islands Harbor, where charters await to take you deep-sea fishing around the Channel Islands. These fishing grounds are highly productive, yielding a wide variety of rockfish species such as blue rockfish, copper rockfish, yellowtail rockfish, halibut, sheepshead, barracuda, yellowtail amberjack, white seabass, lingcod, and salmon. During El Nino, when the waters get warm, anglers can expect to find yellowfin tuna, blue marlin, and wahoo around the islands.
If you’ve got enough time on your hands, book an overnight or a two-day fishing excursion. Your local guide can take you further with more days on the boat, particularly in the outer Channel Islands. The outer islands are productive and can yield record-breaking trophies as they receive less fishing pressure. These areas are home to trophy halibut, lingcod, white seabass, ocean whitefish, and sheepshead.
At Downtown Oxnard, you can learn about the city by doing a self-guided tour, eating some amazing grub, and doing your holiday shopping.
Oxnard loves its city events, and you will love it too!. You can rub elbows with the locals at the weekly farmer’s market or join the resident foodies on First Thursdays. The city also hosts seasonal events like the Summer Concert Series at Heritage Square. And then there’s the big annual California Strawberry Festival every May, a two-day festival that attracts thousands of people from all over the country.