Capt. Steve Lassley

Capt. Steve Lassley grew up fishing swordfish, rock cod and albacore commercially. He bought his first fishing boat at age 17 and has made a living fishing ever since. He has more than 20 first-place tournament wins to his credit, and is approaching $7 million in winnings. "Most of us guys spent our whole lives trying to be as undercover as we could about where we were and what we were catching," he says. "It's time people heard about not just what I did but what some of the best fishermen did, captains whose work ethic and accomplishments I respect — people that most guys have never even heard of." He's logged thousands and thousands of days fishing California and Mexico waters, and is now fishing Hawaii as well. He was one of the first captains operating out of Mag Bay, exploring this fertile area for months at a time. In his “As I See It” column, a BD Outdoors exclusive, he shares many of the things he has learned over the years. Steve heads up Team Bad Company, one of the West Coast's top tournament crews.

Articles: 18

Capt. Steve Lassley Articles

Big Sword In Five Minutes

World Record Swordfish Caught In Five Minutes Editor’s Note:The crew of the Bad Company just got to experience an epic fishing moment recently. Boat owner and angler Anthony Hsieh pitched a bait to a tailing sword and fought a quick epic battle to land it in …

harpoon video

Video of Harpooning Swords in the old Days

Watch this classic video of some amazing swordfish harpoon action put together by Capt. Steve Lassley and the crew of the Mirage while commercial swordfishing on the West Coast in 1999. Capt. Steve said ” I think we were 23 for 27 over that two …

Percentage Points

Over the years I have been given a number of great opportunities to run a number of very good commercial fishing and tournament fishing operations dating back to the 1970’s. So many come to mind — Agitator, Dorsal, Unreel, High Gross, Ab Seas, Hana Pa’a, …

Fishing Reports

2012: Fishing Year in Review

I guess 2012 was a pretty good year overall. The fish pretty much did exactly what they were supposed to do in this condition, well sort of. The Browning newsletter kind of called it back in April — a wannabe El Niño. I think the …

harpoon swords

Fishing Reports

Early Season Magic

First a quick fish report. I’m in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, right now and by the looks of things here, this El Niño is really going to happen. The water has already pushed way around the corner and up into the Pacific. August could be …

offshore fish

Fishing Reports

Team Bad Company Springtime Fishing

We just finished up our spring mission and as always, it was action packed. The swordfish didn’t show up like last year, at least not on the surface, so I switched gears and started fishing all of the stones — all of ‘em — stuff …

harpoon swords

The Unknowns – Lassley Reading Water To Find Fish

Where do they come from, where are they going and do they move with the water? These three questions plague my thoughts and dreams (aka nightmares) more than any others. When you’re fishing on a daily basis, whether it’s commercial fishing, chartering or whatever, you’ve …

offshore fishing

offshore fishing

Another Successful Delivery | Cabo Delivery Lassley

After putting the boat back in shape we made plans for a quick delivery to Cabo. The amount of work was staggering. The crew included myself, Eliseo Herrera, Erik Carmack (the captain from Shannon Rose) and Kyle Kritz. I had invited some others to go …

Boat Maintenance

The One Constantant Change! | Capt. Steve Lassley Changes

I honestly don’t even know where to begin. So much has happened since my last article. I was fully planning on getting all caught up as soon as I got home at the end of the tournament season — remember, we rebuilt a main in …

steve bad company

steve bad company

Boat Maintenance

Good Days, Bad Days – Boat Maintenance and Engine Work

When I first thought about writing this column I sent out a request, asking readers what they wanted to hear about. One of the things that came up more than once was to write about some of the struggles we face, not just the fun …

fishing tips

Whatever It Takes

I gotta tell ya, missing the Catalina tournaments gets harder every year. Several people made comments to me, saying things like, “Well you can be glad you weren’t here this year.” And all I can think is really? I mean really? I love those tournaments …

Marlin Tournament Time!

I can feel it in the air — it’s that time of year again. If you love fishing tournaments, then September in California is like Christmas to a little kid. The anticipation, the check in, the shotgun starts — all of it — what an …

Marlin Caught Off Southern California!

Like everybody else who enjoys marlin fishing here in Southern California, I’ve been kinda holdin’ my breath about the marlin season. I know earlier I said that it was gonna be more of a normal season as far as the billfish went, and we’d have …

offshore fishing

Boating Fishing Lures

Maximize Your Fishing Time

We put up a forum post a bit back, asking our readers what kind of stuff they wanted to hear about in this column. The responses varied quite a bit. I got a lot of requests for sword stuff, SST chart reading, tips and techniques, …

socal offshore

2011 Fishing Season Prediction

I keep getting asked to make a 2011 fishing season prediction. Everybody that knows me knows the answer: “I’ll let you know what kinda season it’s going to be in November.” Certainly we are in a cold-water trend. Wait a minute… I need to rephrase …

offshore socal

Anticipation – Capt. Steve Lassley Talks Fishing Southern California

First off, a quick fishing report… Cabo is still biting, and it’s what I would consider very good fishing. On Bad Company we have fished nine days now and released 47 striped marlin and two sailfish while primarily hunting for swordfish. We spotted 10 swordfish, …

swordfishing

Chasing Swordfish in Cabo

It took us a full three-and-a-half days to prepare the boat after the delivery to Cabo from California. The trip down was uneventful, too rough to fish but okay for travelling. Based on what I saw, it actually looks like the local season may be …

steve bad company

steve bad company

Into the Light – Capt. Steve Lassley

Hello, I’m Capt. Steve Lassley. When the guys from Bloodydecks and I first started talking about me writing a column for the new website, we discussed all of the different scenarios. I told them that personally, I don’t really like writing the how-to articles. Most …

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