Want a fishing adventure in SLO County? Try this new kayak tour

New kayak fishing tours are now offered in Port San Luis, with an experienced guide at the helm.

Outdoor company Pismo Adventures is collaborating with Avila Beach Paddlesports for kayakers to catch all sorts of fish off of Avila Beach.

“It’s within everybody’s reach,” Pismo Adventures owner Michael Muscio told The Tribune. “You don’t have to be some $30,000 boat or something like that.”

Muscio has been a hunter and a fisherman for his entire life, like his father and grandfather before him. Turning his hobby into a full-fledged business was always a “dream” in the back of his mind.

In 2018, he took the leap and opened Pismo Adventures. The business offers hunting and fishing expeditions — both on boat and on kayak — off the Central Coast.

“I noticed I wasn’t getting any younger, so I better just do it,” he said.

Now he’s branching out with a new venture — offering his kayak fishing tours at Port San Luis for the first time. Previously he ran the tours exclusively in Pismo Beach.

Muscio first reached out to Alicia Avina, co-owner of Avila Beach Paddlesports in 2018 to offer guided kayak fishing tours at the port. While the cost was too high to be a vendor then, it decreased over the years, Muscio said.

Now, the collaboration between the two outdoor companies allows Muscio to launch his fishing trips in Port San Luis.

Muscio said with kayak fishing there’s a bit of a “disadvantage” compared to fishing on a boat — but that makes catching trickier fish like rockfish, lingcod, rockcod, sea bass and cabezon more “satisfying.”

“We go out and just start bumping along different submerged reefs that I’ve learned where they’re at over the years, especially the kelp,” he said. “They don’t have a sign that ‘we’re over here’ but you definitely can get it dialed in if you keep moving and keep your eye out.”

He hasn’t received a lot of bites yet from fishing clients willing to take on the challenge at Port San Luis, however.

Muscio said he had close to 100 hunting and fishing clients from Pismo Adventures, and while he has not received a client for guided kayak fishing tours since the collaboration, he is focused on attracting the “one in 10” who want to fish.

“Being a fisherman, I’m nothing if not patient,” he said. “Just because that hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean I pull the fishing pole out of the water.”

The kayak fishing tours are offered as weekend excursions from 7 to 11 a.m. and cost $250, and include an ocean kayak, paddle, fishing rod, tackle and bait and Muscio himself as the guide.

For more information

For more information about the aquatic collaboration, visit Pismo Adventures’ website at pismoadventures.com or call 805-598-6158.