The new boat in the fleet at Fisherman’s Landing, the Tradition is open for business

Dock Totals 8/11– 8/17: 4740 anglers aboard 207 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 369 barracuda, 4779 bluefin tuna (up to 150 pounds), 272 bonito, 2 cabezon, 3296 calico bass, 17 dorado, 8 halibut, 1 leopard shark, 8 lingcod, 1183 rockfish, 1490 sand bass, 2 sanddab, 140 sculpin, 115 sheephead, 1 triggerfish, 232 whitefish, 53 white seabass, 5 yellowfin tuna, and 4643 yellowtail.

Saltwater: White seabass have been biting very well along the coast of Southern California and Baja, with an epic bite in the San Quintin area highlighting the panga reports. Some of the San Diego boats working along the Baja coast are getting into them, with about 1 out of every 3 caught being legal. And Yellowtail and bluefin numbers more than doubled from the week previous. Yellowtail have been biting everywhere, from off San Clemente Island, the Coronados, to kelp paddies outside and throughout the coastal banks along northern Baja. The majority of the bluefin bite is still around San Clemente Island out to the Cortez and Tanner banks, with most of the fish in the 40- to 60-pound range and some up to 150 pounds or so.

Calico bass numbers shot up, quadrupling the previous week’s count. Add three times that for released shorts and breeders to the number kept, and that is some excellent fishing for "checker bass." Most of these fish are from the kelp edges along the coast and nearshore islands of Baja while boats are searching for white seabass and yellowtail, with the rest being caught on the half-day runs fishing off La Jolla and Point Loma. Regardless of target area and species, late summer into fall is a great time to hop on a sportboat and get out there, and this season is shaping up to be epic. 

Speaking of sportboats, Fisherman’s Landing has added a new boat to their fleet. Captains Chuck Taft and Trevor Fried of the Tradition are ready to take you fishing with overnight, 1.5 day and 2-day trips. The Tradition was originally built in 1957 and is 60 feet long with a 20-foot beam. Loads will be limited to 25 anglers per trip, and she is available for scheduled open party trips as well as charter opportunities. Purchased in June, the Tradition has gone through major upgrades, including the galley, fish hold refrigeration, and new state of the art electronics in the wheelhouse. 

San Diego Rod and Reel Club will be holding their Big Fish Tournament benefitting their ‘We Take Kids Fishing’ program this Saturday, August 24. Mandatory captain’s meetings will be held on Friday from 5pm to 7pm at two locations; The Wave near Shelter Island Boat Ramp and at the official IGFA weigh station in Oceanside. Folks can enter at either captain’s meeting or online up to the day of the tournament. Entry fee is $200, and the purse will be awarded for the top 2 heaviest fish in each category: offshore category for tuna, yellowtail and dorado, and inshore category for sand bass, calico bass, spotted bay bass, halibut, white seabass, bonito or barracuda.

Lia ‘Yeezy’ Lao with her rare 26-inch striped bass caught from a San Diego beach

Though normally targeted along the coast near San Fransisco or in some southern California lakes, striped bass do occasionally show up along the beach and in harbors or estuaries. A migratory fish that can survive in fresh, brackish, and salt water, stripers will swim up river from ocean estuaries seasonally or randomly, spawning and returning to the sea and forage along the coast. Striped bass are not natural to California, but were one of the first species introduced for fishing in the San Fransisco Estuary in 1879. In more recent years, from 1978 through 1980, California Fish and Game stocked thousands of striped bass in Newport, Huntington and Long Beach harbors.

Most of those caught in our area will be from lakes where stocked populations have taken hold, like Lake Skinner. Along the coast in San Diego County, catches are rare, though in the past few weeks I have heard of a handful of stripers caught from the surf here. One avid surf angler, Lia ‘Yeezy’ Lao caught a nice striper this week from the beach. Yeezy, like many who post their catches on social media, will not give up her "honey hole," but she fishes primarily along San Diego beaches, often posting up some impressive catches to online fishing groups.

This time, Yeezy was targeting surf species like barred surf perch, corbina, and spotfin croaker with a pair of sand crabs on a C-rig when the 26-inch striper bit. Not the common bait when fishing for a species that likes to school up on baitfish like threadfin shad in the lakes and anchovies in the ocean, but then, catching a striper in San Diego also uncommon. Other recent reports of striped bass include a few caught on beaches from Torrey Pines north to Oceanside just inside the harbor. Be like Yeezy. Wherever they are biting, go out and get ‘em!