(left): A solid yellowfin tuna caught aboard the Royal Polaris long-range run off of southern Baja.
(right): Quality yellowtail fishing at the Coronado Islands for the full-day fleet, including this happy angler’s solid fish caught while fishing aboard the Malihini.

Dock Totals 10/6 – 10/12: 2928 anglers aboard 143 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 1687 bluefin tuna (up to 195 pounds), 47 bocaccio, 35 bonito, 8 calico bass, 5 halibut, 65 lingcod, 48 rock crab, 6786 rockfish, 3 rock sole, 39 sand bass, 14 sanddab, 481 sculpin, 123 sheephead, 152 spiny lobster (259 released), 893 whitefish, 1 white seabass, 17 yellowfin tuna, and 740 yellowtail.

Saltwater: The bluefin tuna catch highlights what was another solid week for the San Diego fleet during what has been an odd fishing season off the west coast. While Atlantic hurricanes have been thumping the Gulf Coast and southeastern states, the hurricane season off Baja has been pretty much a no-show to this point. Generally, the storms down south form off the Mexican mainland far to the south, then make their way north and west, sometimes skirting Cabo before heading out west toward Hawaii, sometimes hooking north along or across Baja. 

Those storms that push more north than west bring warmer water with them. Without any storms pushing water up into the northern stretches along the Baja coast, the pelagic species we often see tend to show little within three-day range of Point Loma. The last two seasons featured warmer water and storms pushing north, as one begets the other. We saw record numbers of dorado and a solid yellowfin bite. The warmer the water along southern Baja’s Pacific coast, the stronger the odds of a storm moving up rather than west, and with it, more warm water. This year has been fairly cool along the coast, with water temps averaging between 64 and 66 degrees at most of the offshore spots where we usually see more yellowfin and dorado in late summer and fall. 

Pelagic species, those that live in open ocean in the upper part of the water column, tend to follow their desired temperature range during annual migrations. That and the baitfish they forage upon. Baitfish are sensitive to temperature breaks where warm and cooler currents collide, and a drop as small as a couple degrees can act as a wall, stacking them along the warm side of the difference. This is why knowing water temperatures can be advantageous to the angler. 

NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center has positioned buoys off our coast north of the border, and one can check the conditions per buoy before heading out. Terrafin, TempBreak, and FishTrack are three subscriber websites where anglers can get more accurate information for the fishing areas along Baja and southern California. They do offer some basic charts without subscribing. 

With the cooler year, a few albacore were caught, but again it was just a tease. Albacore shifted their migration pattern seemingly permanently a couple decades ago and are now mostly caught within 50 miles of the coast centering on the area near Westport on the Washington/Oregon border. This is due to the warming trend in our area pushing the average Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) in the summer well above the 60 to 66-degree range they favor.

Some species are more adapted to a wider range in SSTs, like bluefin tuna with their endothermic system that basically makes them warm blooded. Bluefin migrate over to the eastern Pacific from off Japan through some very chilly water in a northern arc, then settle in off our coast for a few years until they reach spawning age when they return to the western Pacific. This year with its cooler SSTs has had little effect on them, and this is why we are still seeing good numbers. We even had a little flurry of striped marlin action within a day’s ride of Point Loma, but stripers, too, can handle a wider range of temps from 67 degrees to 77 degrees. 

Yellowfin tuna and dorado have been absent for the most part, with very few yellowfin caught and practically no dorado at all within three-day range for the fleet. Yellowfin prefer 64 to 88 degrees, mostly to the high side of that and we see more of them when the water is in the 68 degrees and up into the 70s for extended periods. Dorado like bathwater temps and will be more prevalent if there is very warm water in the mid-70s and up into the 80s. Yellowtail, however, start biting well in 64-degree water and will still be around in the low 70s, so, even though their numbers have been lower than average, there has been some solid action on good-sized yellowtail but no swarms of the small 5 to 10-pounders we often see during warmer years.

Outside of the phenomenal bluefin fishing, another bonus from the cooler trends this year has been a decent white seabass and halibut bite. White seabass can handle a broad range from 46 to 75-degrees but spend most of their time within a narrow temperature gap between 55 and 61-degrees and are more found in the mid-water column near structure and kelp beds, while California halibut prefer water around 60 to 65-degrees in the lower part of the water column. Given the offshore and nearshore SSTs, we can see why the counts this year favor bluefin, yellowtail, white seabass, and halibut and an overall lack of yellowfin and dorado. 

South of Cedros Island is a different story. As the coastal kelps along the Vizcaino Peninsula midway down Baja give way to warmer semi-tropical biospheres, there has been some excellent yellowfin action, and once south to the ridges off Bahia Magdelena, wahoo fishing has been off the hook for the long-range fleet working the area, so trip lengths of at least five to eight days is recommended if wanting to catch those warmer water species this season. For bluefin and yellowtail, they have still been biting well as close as the Coronado Islands for full-day boats, and 1.5 to 3-day boats have been finding larger bluefin way out west past San Clemente Island at the Cherry Bank this past week. Whether the beach, bay, lake, or offshore, they’re out there so go out and get ‘em!