(left): Nice school-grade bluefin tuna caught by angler ‘Tess’ while fishing west of San Clemente Island aboard the Ocean Odyssey.
(right): Kei Vang being towed by a marlin off Dana Point, Ca. It was a long day and memory of a lifetime.

Dock Totals 8/4– 8/10: 4903 anglers aboard 200 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 1 albacore, 115 barracuda, 2 black seabass (released), 2940 bluefin tuna (up to 270 pounds), 171 bonito, 1 cabezon, 743 calico bass, 102 dorado, 12 halibut, 15 lingcod, 1176 rockfish, 2769 sand bass, 60 sanddab, 73 sculpin, 32 sheephead, 74 whitefish, 2 white seabass, 4 yellowfin tuna, and 2020 yellowtail.

Saltwater: It was just another great week for the fleet. My totals are the reported 1/2 to 3-day counts from the five main landings out of San Diego, which are Oceanside, H&M, Seaforth, Point Loma, and Fisherman's. It is obviously not the complete total, as some boats do not report counts, and of course, there is the long-range fleet doing trips longer than 3 days. Still, it is a fair weekly representation of what is going on out there. Then there's the private boater fleet, shore-based anglers, kayak anglers, and even some hard core jetski anglers. So really, a consistent sampling of sportfishing is what I give here, and have been giving weekly for ten years now. I total fish caught and kept and not those released — unless they are a standout species.

This past week, sand bass numbers dropped by two-thirds to a less jaw-dropping number as the nearly 7000 caught mostly by half and three quarter runs the week previous, while dorado numbers tripled but are still far short of the record numbers we saw in the mid-August to mid-September period in 2022, when we had over 30,000 dorado landed in just four weeks. Many of those fish were caught north of the border, where there is a ten-per-angler limit, as opposed to the two-per-angler limit in Mexican waters.

Lots of boats have been heading west for bluefin rather than south, as it seems the bulk of those fish are now spread from around San Clemente Island to the Cortez and Tanner Banks area. A few albacore have been mixed in with the bluefin. Some decent white seabass fishing has been reported by boats fishing near San Clemente, Catalina, and the Coronado islands, and yellowtail have been chewing it up from southern California down to just past midpoint of the Baja peninsula. 

Last Sunday, a report of a kayak angler being towed 20 miles out after hooking a marlin on a trolled sardine had social media buzzing with references to Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Kei Vang and friends kayaked out of Dana Point on Saturday, August 3rd, with the hope of catching some decent fish. Then Kei hooked up on something big and fast, and next thing he knew, he was taking the sleigh ride of a lifetime on his Hobie pedal-driven kayak. 

As Kei reports: “A few of us kayakers launched out of Dana Point at 6 am in search of tuna. We pedaled 6.5 miles to the canyon, where I caught tuna a few years ago. Once we got to the area, we trolled around with live sardines we got from the bait barge. There was no sign of life. No bird or fish activities at all. We continued to search for fish trolling with our heavy gear with no luck. 

"We were about eight miles out at about 10 am. I decided to switch out one of the rod setups to a lighter one. It was a Moon's Custom Rod built with a Rainshadow RCLB79ML, paired with a Daiwa Saltiga 20HA. It was a smaller reel, with 50lb J-Braid and 30lb J-fluorocarbon leader.

Within 10 minutes, my MCR went bendo, then I heard a splash about 150 feet away. It was a marlin, jumping and trying to shake the hook! I got a marlin on. The marlin jumped about eight times and almost spooled me. I had to button down my drag and chase it down, trying to gain line back. While pedaling as fast as I could, I was able to get most of the line back. The fight was on.

"The marlin was towing me straight out from land. Minutes passed, then hours passed. The whole time, two of my good friends, Tommy and Nasko, never left my side. They pedaled out following me, making sure I was gonna be ok. It never stopped until it was 5.5 hours later and 11 miles from where I hooked it. We were then about 20 miles out, literally not too far from the 209 Bank. The marlin got tired and was just circling around while I was fighting it. I was able to get it near the kayak multiple times and finally saw how big this fish was. It was as long as my Hobie outback and there was no way we were going to gaff that thing and haul it back 20 miles home. I asked Tommy and Nasko to get some photos and videos of the fight. By then it was about 4:15 pm and we made the decision to just cut the line and free it instead of killing such a magnificent fish.”

Not quite the harrowing adventure of Hemingway’s fictional Santiago, but certainly a story that will not be soon forgotten in the kayak angling community. Kei had hooked another marlin off Dana Point last year, but that fish broke off after 15 minutes. There have been several marlin fought from kayaks since the advent of the modern rotomolded fishing Sit-on-Top kayak. The first one I remember was in the late 1990s when kayak fishing pioneer Jim Sammons was dragged nine miles after hooking a marlin a mile off Scripps Pier. 

Wherever they are biting, go out and get ‘em!