Dorado (aka mahi-mahi or dolphin fish)

Inshore: Half-day boats are fishing in tight for calico and sand bass, rockfish, sheephead and a few yellowtail while a good number of the ¾ day boats are fishing a little further out and looking for tuna and dorado. Yellowtail have been sighted eating bait from just behind the surf and out to the offshore banks and islands. Another historic catch was reported. A verified 45.6-pound yellowtail was caught from Mission Beach Jetty on Monday the 14th.

Outside: The fishing offshore is still heating up. There were 500 fewer anglers out last week from San Diego landings, yet the yellowfin tuna count was 5,000 fish higher than the previous week. Yellowtail counts nearly doubled for the second week in a row. Having fallen off by 60% the previous week, the dorado catch picked back up toward the weekend. Also notable last week were the eight wahoo and nine shortbill spearfish caught within one- and two-day range of Point Loma.

9/13 - 9/19 Dock Totals: 5,804 anglers aboard 244 boats out of San Diego landings caught 15,591 yellowfin tuna, 1154 bluefin tuna, ,228 yellowtail, 3133 dorado, 1103 skipjack tuna, 665 calico bass, 529 sand bass, 79 barracuda, 635 rockfish, 39 sheephead, 3 halibut, 1,186 bonito, 1 whitefish, 2 sculpin, 9 shortbill spearfish, 8 wahoo and 1 bigeye tuna.

Freshwater: No real change here, though folks are holding their breath in hopes of a strong rainy season and winter snow to replenish the local reservoirs. With water levels so low and the fishing very concentrated, we may see a challenging year of freshwater fishing if the forecasts come to fruition and top off the area lakes. It may take some time for the stocks of nonplanted species such as largemouth bass and redear sunfish to recover from this past year’s pressure.

Whale watch: You don’t always have to be on the water to see remarkable activity in the ocean, though it is always better first-hand. Today’s technology allows us to be there even if shore-bound by responsibility and unable to get out there. Take a whale-watch trip through the internet, for instance, and you might see a recent post of a humpback whale leaping and landing right next to a kayak and blasting the (thankfully unharmed) occupants with the belly flop of all belly flops and another of a pod of orca curiously inspecting and aggressively following a small fishing skiff about five miles off the San Diego coast.