The summer fishing season is rolling along in fine style with good fishing to be found offshore, at the local islands and along the coast. Southern California anglers have a lot of good choices to select from in choosing what to target on their next fishing adventure.
Bluefin tuna continue to attract most of the attention on the offshore fishing grounds but there are also yellowfin tuna, yellowtail, striped marlin and a few dorado around in our local offshore waters. Bluefin tuna have been biting best in the region to the northwest of the West End of San Clemente Island with the regions of the 499 Spot and the Snail Bank being the best in recent days. The fish keep moving closer to the back side of Catalina Island with there being a couple of reports about lots of spots of breaking bluefin being seen this morning in the area between the 499 Spot and the Farnsworth Bank.
The bluefin tuna have been mixed in size and have been running from 15 to 260 pounds. The bluefin fishing can be hit or miss with part of the hit or miss nature of the bite being that some of the best bluefin bites on the bigger sized fish are often found during the dark. There are also bluefin biting during daylight hours but the best bites often tend to be found during the dark.
The bluefin they have been biting on a variety of baits and jigs with sardines, frozen flying fish, California Flyers, knife jigs, Colt Snipers and trolled Nomad Madmac jigs being the top baits and lures. Anglers have been encouraged to include within the tackle that they bring a 25 pound test outfit and a 40 pound test outfit for flylining live baits and a rail rod outfit spooled with at least 100 pound test line for fishing the sinker rigged sardines, the sinker rigged frozen flying fish, the kite fished baits and the knife jigs. One of the ways to help target the bigger bluefin is to use the frozen flying fish for bait. The bigger sized bluefin tend to bite better on the bigger sized bait.
The other zone where a few of the 20 to 40 pound bluefin have been biting has been around some of the local offshore banks below and outside of Los Coronado Islands such as the 224 Spot, 302 Spot, 230 Spot, 371 Bank, 425 Bank and 475 Knuckle. There has also been some pretty good fishing for kelp-paddy yellowtail and an occasional dorado being found around these banks as well. There are also some pretty good numbers of yellowtail and a few dorado biting as you go further down to fish the offshore waters outside of Ensenada, Punta Colnett and San Martin Island.
There have been a few 30 to 80 pound yellowfin tuna biting in the Orange County and north San Diego County areas with small spots of breaking fish and meter marks that are found with porpoise producing an occasional yellowfin on sardines or trolled Rapalas. The productive zones have been in the region of the 312 Spot and 267 Spot as well as 3 to 5 miles off the coast between San Onofre and South Laguna Beach.
Striped marlin fishing has been hit or miss with an occasional day of good fishing found between what can be several days of scratchy fishing. Last Thursday was one of the good days when very good marlin fishing was found 1 to 3 miles off Catalina between Avalon and Church Rock. There was one boat that had 5 or 6 marlin releases on Thursday.
To show the erratic nature of the recent marlin fishing, Thursday’s hot day of marlin fishing in 71 degree water was followed by a 4 degree drop in water temperature and on Friday boats were fishing in 67 degree water and found the marlin fishing to have turned slow. The marlin bite has picked up a bit the past two days with Sunday seeing scattered marlin action found around the 14 Mile Bank, outside of Goat Harbor, outside of Long Point and the area 1 to 3 miles off Catalina Island ranging from Avalon over to Church Rock.
There have been some tailers and jumpers showing along with an occasional sleeper or feeder. Most of the marlin hookups are coming on fish that are raised on the troll and are then hooked on a trolling jig or a drop-back live mackerel bait.
The surface fishing at Los Coronado Islands has been very good with a mix of yellowtail, calico bass and barracuda biting. The Coronados have also produced an occasional bluefin tuna or white seabass incidental to the fishing for yellowtail. In addition, the bottom fishing for a variety of rockfish species remains excellent and there has also been a chance at a halibut. As an example of the recent fishing, Mission Belle out of Point Loma Sportfishing had 29 anglers on a full day trip catch 134 yellowtail, 5 calico bass, 7 sculpin and 16 barracuda.
Good areas for surface fishing have been the weather side of North Island, Pukey Point, the lee side of North Island, the area to the north of the Middle Grounds Islands, the area to the south of the Middle Grounds Islands and the Lighthouse at the south tip of South Island. If you want to try for a halibut, a productive zone has been drifting the sandy bottom areas along the lee side of South Island.
Try surface iron, yo-yo iron and flylined or dropper loop fished sardines for the yellowtail with surface iron and flylined sardines also being good choices for barracuda. A private boater might also want to try slow trolling nose hooked sardines for yellowtail, barracuda and white seabass. Anchovies have been great baits for the calico bass. Good choices for surface iron for barracuda, yellowtail or white seabass include Salas 7X lights and Tady 45’s in blue and white, sardine or mint colors.
Private boater John Carroll of Huachinango reported about a recent trip to Los Coronado Islands. Carrol had his friends Justen and Heather Brown aboard and they caught all the yellowtail they wanted on sardines and were back at the dock by 11:30 AM. They had this hot fishing along the middle part of the weather side of North Island and also to the north of the Middle Grounds Islands. They caught 11 yellowtail in a short amount of fishing time and Carroll reported that 10 of their yellowtail were in the 14 to 20 pound range. The eleventh yellowtail topped off their morning of fishing in style with Heather Brown catching a whopper 26 pound yellowtail! Congratulations Heather!
The bottom fishing remains very good around the Coronado Islands and the best areas for the mixed bag bottom fishing have been to the northwest, north and northeast of North Island in 25 to 60 fathoms. Also productive has been the rockfish fishing on the Mexico side of the border at the lower end of the 9 Mile Bank.
As an ongoing reminder, Southern California anglers need to take note that between July 1 and September 30 that the take of “Nearshore” rockfish species, “Shelf” rockfish species, “Slope” rockfish species and lingcod may not be taken seaward of the 50 Fathom Rockfish Conservation Area Boundary Line. The 50 Fathom Rockfish Conservation Area Boundary Line is a series of connected waypoints as defined in Federal regulations (50 CFR Part 660, Subpart C). You can view the specifics of the regulations regarding this seasonal closure in detail at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife website at wildlife.ca.gov.
A great new development in the fishing along the San Diego County coast is the resurgence of an old fashioned, traditional run of sand bass off Imperial Beach. A summer time sand bass run off Imperial Beach used to happen most every year but it has not been happening in recent years until now. This is a run on schooled up sand bass that are found by locating meter marks, sonar marks or spots of working birds out in the 15 to 20 fathom depths off Imperial Beach. Once the schools of sand bass are located anglers either drift or anchor on the schools of sand bass. The bite has been red hot and in recent days anglers have been enjoying near limit to limit sand bass fishing. Anchovies have been working best for bait and plastics can also produce some fun sand bass fishing.
As an example of the recent fishing, here are some fish counts from Sunday’s fishing. Daily Double out of Point Loma Sportfishing had a morning half-day trip with 35 anglers catch 1 rockfish and their limits of 175 sand bass. On their afternoon trip, 28 anglers caught their limits of 140 sand bass. H&M Landing had Premier out on a full day trip with 32 anglers who caught 1 sculpin and their limits of 160 sand bass. Fisherman’s Landing had Dolphin out on a morning half day trip with 52 anglers who caught 214 sand bass. On their afternoon trip, they had 46 anglers catch 220 sand bass. Seaforth Sportfishing had New Seaforth out on a morning half day trip with 47 anglers catch 152 sand bass and 2 rockfish. On their afternoon trip, 51 anglers caught their limits of 255 sand bass.
La Jolla remains the best bet for a chance at a coastal yellowtail and has also been good for calico bass, a few barracuda, an assortment of bottom fish species and a chance at a yellowtail or white seabass. There has been some squid available to catch for bait at night off Pacific Beach and off the upper end of La Jolla and there have been a few white seabass biting at night on the live squid. There has also been a chance at yellowtail while fishing off the upper end of La Jolla and around the outskirts of the MLPA closure area at the lower end of La Jolla.
A recent report from a private boater was of catching 6 yellowtail on slow trolled mackerel. Productive baits for yellowtail have been sardines, mackerel and squid. In addition to the live baits, yellowtail and barracuda have also been biting on surface iron with good choices for surface iron including Tady 45 and Salas 7X light jigs in blue and white, mint and sardine colors.
The calico bass fishing along the San Diego County coast has been affected by some areas of cool and off color water that have been moving around some of the kelp bed areas. Looking for kelp bed areas to fish where you find your warmest and cleanest water with a steady downhill current flow will maximize the chances of getting a good calico bass bite going. The current best bite calico bass area has been the kelp at the upper end of La Jolla.
Going further up the San Diego County coast, there has been good fishing for a mix of calico bass, sand bass, rockfish, sculpin, sheephead and whitefish along with an occasional bonus halibut while fishing kelp bed and hard bottom areas off Del Mar, Solana Beach, Leucadia, South Carlsbad and the Barn.
There have also been a few halibut biting along the San Diego County coast. Productive halibut areas include San Diego Bay, Mission Bay, the sandy bottom next to the structure of the Imperial Beach Pipeline, the sandy bottom areas adjacent to hard bottom spots outside of the Imperial Beach Pier, the sandy bottom adjacent to the Yukon Shipwreck and adjacent to the sunken NEL Tower off Mission Beach, South Ponto Beach, the sandy bottom next to the Buccaneer Pipeline and the sandy bottom next to the artificial reefs outside of Oceanside.
The Southern California summer fishing season is what we look forward to each year and this summer season is in full swing and offering some great choices in what to target on your next fishing trip be it offshore, at the local islands or along the coast. I hope you can take advantage of the summer season. Take the time to enjoy all the summer has to offer by getting out on the water and doing as much fishing as possible! Keep on fishing and I hope to see you out on the water sometime soon!
Bob Vanian is the voice, writer and researcher of the San Diego-based internet fish report service called 976-Bite which can be found at www.976bite.com. Vanian also provides anglers with a personal fish report service over the telephone at (619) 226-8218. He always welcomes your fish reports at that same phone number or at bob976bite@aol.com.
