A handful of bigeye show

Inshore: Half-day boats are fishing inside again with the occasional extended trip looking for those yellowfin tuna in close. A few yellowtail and white seabass are being caught off Point Loma and the La Jolla kelp beds, though most of those are showing up in the private boat and kayak counts. Calico bass, sheephead and smaller rockfish are still biting well on the local bumps and edges while whitefish are being found on the flats just off the edges of the reefs in 80 to 120 feet of water.

Outside: A handful of bigeye tuna and one skipjack was reported by the Success out of Point Loma Landing on a 2.5-day trip but, other than that, it’s been all about the yellowfin tuna. These fish are being caught in bunches when schools are found, mostly down south outside the Coronados, the 302, 182 and even a few up on the lower 9 mile bank for the extended ¾ day runs. The dorado have seemed to move out, though when the yellowfin schools are around in mass we usually see a few more around than the counts reflect for this past week. Yellowtail are still biting bait and surface irons off the Coronado Islands and occasionally outside on structure or under drifting kelp paddies.

9/11 – 9/17 Dock Totals: 4969 anglers aboard 216 boats out of San Diego landings this past week caught 2 dorado, 140 bluefin tuna, 7,376 yellowfin tuna, 5 bigeye tuna, 1 skipjack tuna, 982 yellowtail, 29 calico bass, 15 sand bass, 3,132 rockfish, 19 lingcod, 134 bonito, 17 sheephead, 3 halibut, 171 whitefish, 5 bocaccio, 33 mackerel and 1 striped marlin.

Notable: Now in its second year as the James Lebowitz Memorial, the 16th annual kayak fishing tournament running out of La Jolla was a success again with many entrants scoring on the good yellowtail action that was on for the event. In recent years, a big white seabass has been the usual winner of the Labor Day tournament that began in 2001, but this year it was a 25 pound, 8 ounce forktail that took top honors. A nice 24 pound halibut came in second place, edging out the third place fish, another yellowtail at 23 pounds, 8 ounces. With 75 entrants this year, the kayak angling community raised over $4,376 for autism related causes.

Fish Plants: 9/23 Santee Lakes, catfish (1,000)