Is El Niño giving way to La Niña?

Inshore: The calico catch continues to slide as the rockfish pick up, seemingly early in season after the last two amazing years in the San Diego area inshore fishery. Yellowtail numbers also fell off dramatically, from over 3000 to just 848 in one week. This may be partially due to more ¾-day trips going offshore rather than the Coronado Islands to hunt tuna. Schools of bonito and barracuda are still haunting the outside of the kelp beds in 80 to 120 feet of water.

Outside: Yellowfin numbers dropped again to below 3000 while the bluefin count doubled and dorado slid off a little at well under 200 fish for the week. This, to me, is an indication of a cooling trend, though it may be temporary, it has been predicted to cool back to the normal range for our area this fall as the seas transition from strong El Niño to cooler La Niña conditions. The 2014 and 2015 seasons brought warm-water pelagic species to SoCal waters that are normally found 500 miles south during the summer months. The days of wahoo, shortbill spearfish, blue marlin and opah in U.S. Pacific waters may be over until the next big El Niño develops.

8/21 – 8/27 Dock Totals: 5911 anglers aboard 243 boats out of San Diego landings this past week caught 153 dorado, 627 bluefin tuna, 2,528 yellowfin tuna, 848 (3,230) yellowtail, 660 calico bass, 25 sand bass, 3,315 rockfish, 17 lingcod, 69 sculpin, 964 bonito, 110 barracuda, 120 sheephead, 5 halibut, 1 halfmoon, 65 sanddab, 32 whitefish, 1 bocaccio, 1 mako shark, 10 mackerel and 2 striped marlin (released)

Notable: As I have mentioned before, the albacore have moved their cycle well north over the past years of exceptionally warm bands of water offshore. This past week, anglers out of southern Washington have been catching the white-meat tuna also known as longfin for their pronounced pectoral fins, in numbers equaling 10 or more per rod on full day trips. With the predicted La Niña starting to show herself, we might again see the prized "chicken of the sea" in our area in the coming years.

Fish Plants: 9/2 Santee Lakes, catfish (1000)