Weekly fish report

Inshore: Inside and along the kelp, the fishing has been up and down. The reports indicate a good number of ¾-day boats fishing a little further out and looking for tuna and dorado, while the ½-day runs are concentrating on calico bass, sand bass, barracuda and bonito with a few yellowtail in the mix. Sheephead counts are up as they are biting well on shrimp and squid in the kelp. Barracuda counts dropped to 10% of the previous week’s catch.

Outside: It was another busy week for San Diego landings as the fishing offshore is still hot. The number of anglers and boats were about the same, though the counts dropped a little for tuna and dorado. Even so, yellowtail counts nearly doubled for those fish caught on the outside off kelp paddies. A wahoo was picked up just south, and if the warm water holds, we may see a few more of the toothy speedsters show within 1 day range as they did last year.

9/6 - 9/12 Dock Totals: 6,174 anglers aboard 259 boats out of San Diego landings caught 10,466 yellowfin tuna, 452 bluefin tuna, 2,769 yellowtail, 3,487 dorado, 2,989 skipjack tuna, (1,043) 542 calico bass, (272)668 sand bass, 8 lingcod, 23 barracuda, 839 rockfish, 52 sheephead, 2 halibut, (2,824) 657 bonito, 12 whitefish, 1 cabezon, 4 rubberlip seaperch, 7 halfmoon, 2 striped marlin, 1 wahoo and 2 opah.

Freshwater: Most of the area lakes have been pumping out catfish in good numbers. Bass continue to feed off the points and structure in 10-30 feet of water with the drop shot working the best. Look for bluegill and red ear sunfish in the shallows near structure and reeds. The next scheduled catfish plant is 1000 pounds at Santee Lakes on September 18.

Whale watch: There are still some acrobatic humpback whales occasionally putting on a show in the San Diego vicinity, along with sightings of fin whales and large blue whales. Among the sightings this season, tours have also spotted minke whales, bottlenose dolphins, Pacific white-sided dolphins, Risso’s dolphins, mako and hammerhead sharks, flying fish, marlin, sea turtles, schools of tuna, ocean sunfish, cormorants, sea lions, brown boobies and harbor seals.