San Diego has seen epic tuna catches the past few years

Inshore: For those fishing from the beach, corbina, surfperch and shovelnose are cruising the coastline. If you can find the sand crabs they’re hunting for, you’ll be in the right area. Try alongside the rip currents. A few halibut have been caught in the bay channels, especially in the shade of the bridges. The calico bite is pretty good for those making it out to the jetties. Hoop netters are doing well from the piers for lobster in San Diego Bay and Ocean Beach. Half-day boats are mostly back to the kelp edge and rock-fishing the local bumps while the ¾-day boats are ranging along the 9 Mile Bank or the Coronado Islands, still seeking out local yellowfin tuna and yellowtail with limited success.

Outside: Overnight trips are all tuna-chasing and are good on some trips, not so good on others. Conversely, a little more range has allowed those passengers on 1.5 to 2.5 day trips really good fishing with quite a few boats limiting on dorado and yellowfin while scoring some bluefin and an occasional skipjack in the mix. This past week’s passenger total is down a fifth while the counts have gone up. Yellowfin dropped a bit, but the fish-per-rod average went up. Dorado, yellowtail, bluefin and skipjack numbers all went up dramatically over the week previous. Moon phase, weather as well as a little elbow room for the boats and anglers aboard can make a lot of difference.

9/25 – 10/1 Dock Totals: 3903 anglers aboard 185 boats out of San Diego landings this past week caught 1,083 dorado, 129 bluefin tuna, 5,373 yellowfin tuna, 310 skipjack tuna, 2,334 yellowtail, 172 calico bass, 16 sand bass, 3,480 rockfish, 31 lingcod, 288 bonito, 4 barracuda, 79 sheephead, 60 whitefish, 2 rock sole, 3 rubberlip seaperch and 100 mackerel.

Fish Plants: No plants this week. Last plant, Santee Lakes, 10/1-10/2, catfish, (3,500)