Yellowtail caught off Mission Bay Jetty, 2015

Dock Totals June 3 – June 9: 2,863 anglers aboard 123 boats out of San Diego landings this past week caught 96 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowfin tuna, 1,597 yellowtail, 735 calico bass, 53 sand bass, 3,748 rockfish, 363 whitefish, 26 lingcod, 34 bonito, 182 sculpin, 14 sanddab, 21 sheephead, 7 halibut, 90 barracuda, 7 halfmoon, 4 treefish, 18 lizardfish, and 2 black seabass (released).

Saltwater: Aletta, the first hurricane of the Pacific 2018 season, made a left hook and petered out about 700 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas. Though she didn’t amount to much, her effects were enough to beach the pangas along the southern Baja coast, at least for a day or two. Behind her, Bud is gathering himself off of Acapulco and is predicted to be a hurricane and heading west-northwest (southwest of the Baja peninsula) by Thursday.

With hurricane season comes the warm water that gets pushed north, and with the warm water, the bluefin tuna holding on the 62-64 degree breaks should start moving out and north following the cooler water, while yellowfin and dorado start showing along northern Baja and off the San Diego coast with the warm. It is still early, and the water still cool enough to foil Aletta’s northbound plans, but the one yellowfin tuna in the overnight to two-day counts this week is a good sign.

The yellowtail have been only biting sporadically off the Coronado Islands, especially off the south end, and in close to the rocks. They can be a bit picky, refusing irons and big tasty mackerels and sardines and focused on the tender fry they prefer. Still, occasional biters can turn into a wide-open bite at any time and have for some of the boats finding them. Private boaters had some success trolling Rapala CD-14s close in to the rocks when they weren’t biting anything else.

There’s not much more frustrating than watching fish slashing the surface in feeding mode, yet refusing everything offered. That said, as the counts reflect, they were much less finicky than the week previous.

Inside along the kelp beds, the calico bass have been on the chew, eating plastics and jerk baits voraciously when the current is right. The average has been about one legal (14 inches in length) per three fish caught, so about fourteen hundred were released this past week and over seven hundred kept.

Fish Plants: June 15, Santee Lakes, catfish (1,000), Cuyamaca, trout (1,200), June 18, Jennings, catfish (1,000)