The fishing along most of Southern California improved greatly after the wind stopped hammering our entire coastline. While there’s still some wind forecast for the northern end of the bight through Saturday, there’s zero wind in the forecast, not even in the afternoons, for most of next week.
Hopefully, the stable weather, as well as of coming off the full moon, should not only stabilize the fishing but improve it in some of the areas that are lacking.
One of the areas that aren’t lacking is up at the Channel Islands where boats are catching quality seabass and some boats are reporting limits. Grey Light Sportfishing reported catching limits of quality seabass after putting in a good amount of time driving around watching the sonar to find the right school. As is often the case at this time of year up there, finding them can be the hard part but they’re usually willing to bite once you locate them. There have also been seabass caught at Catalina and along the coast this week with the Patriot out of Newport Landing scoring a few big ones.
There are yellowtail biting at most of the islands as well, with some quality fish coming from Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Nic, Catalina, and Clemente. The fish are biting squid up north but are happy to eat fin bait at the other islands. Speaking of yellowtail, the bite at San Clemente Island was the hardest hit by that last bout of weather. The water along most of the island upwelled and what didn’t drop below 60-degrees got really green and ugly. The water below the island doesn’t look too bad so hopefully things will clean up there soon. The best yellowtail action this week comes from the Coronado Islands where boats are catching fish on the anchor for a change. That means there are also bass, barracuda, and bonito to be caught. If you’re looking for a fun day of fly lining sardines or throwing the surface iron, I’d jump on a full-day boat.
The wind was still blowing out on the tuna grounds as of Wednesday but the fleet relocated the bluefin after having to sit out a few days because of weather. While most of the action is still happening at night, boats are seeing and catching bigger fish. This week I heard reports of fish up to 250-pounds being caught. As has been the trend the last few years, the biggest fish continue to be caught on flying fish flown from a kite. Sauerfish Charters checked in on Wednesday afternoon with quality fish on both a flat fall jig and a flyer on the kite.
This being Memorial Day Weekend, I’d suggest trying to avoid the crowded areas as I’m sure they’ll be a zoo. If you find yourself at a loss as to where to go look for your own fish, I suggest reading back over reports here or on fishdope to see where fish were caught in recent weeks and then compare the SST and Chloro charts to the areas where the boats are currently fishing. I can guarantee you that there are plenty of fish for you to find if you’re willing to head out and look.
Good luck if you’re fishing this weekend!
