Fishing beat down by storms

Dock Totals Nov 25 – Dec 1: 830 anglers aboard 46 trips out of San Diego landings this past week caught 326 bluefin tuna, 3 yellowfin tuna, 15 skipjack tuna, 333 yellowtail, 150 bonito, 54 calico bass, 36 sand bass, 5 sanddab, 1,486 rockfish, 530 whitefish, 84 sheephead, 10 bocaccio, 1 triggerfish, 1 swordfish, 2 rock crab, and 73 spiny lobster (231 released).

Saltwater: Tough conditions kept a good part of the fleet inshore or off the water from about mid-week on into this past weekend and the counts reflect that. Just in front of the weather front, bluefin tuna fishing was good in numbers, though the average size did drop. On the 26th, Captain Hunter Denette aboard the Poseidon out of H&M Landing called in a report during a one and three-quarter day outing of "epic fishing," with limits of twenty- to forty-pound bluefin tuna for their light load of seven anglers, along with a few yellowfin tuna to seventy pounds, and a swordfish caught on a flat fall jig.

Thursday brought inclement weather and no boats made it out, but two did return from the grounds offshore in the morning: 26 anglers aboard the Aztec out of Seaforth Landing found a few fish willing to bite on a one and three-quarter day run to the Cortez/Tanner area, reporting 19 bluefin tuna at 25 to 60 pounds and one fish weighing 110 pounds, while the New Lo-An had better results on a three-day run, scoring 84 bluefin tuna for the 22 anglers aboard. As the fronts this time of year tend to generate in the northern Pacific and move south and east, the long range vessels going out to Guadalupe Island, relatively close to home at 260 miles south of Point Loma and 150 miles off the Baja coast. did well in mostly good weather through the week. As the winter long range season is gearing up for their 7- to 16-day trips down into tropical waters, the fishing in the northern reaches closer to home has been better than usual, which might speak well of the bluefin fishing hanging in there after this first real winter-like front passes.

The inshore fishing for the local ½ and ¾ day boats resumed after the storm; they had success on calico bass, rockfish and whitefish. The Dolphin ran both ½ day runs on Saturday and reported a total of 87 calicos caught, of which 26 were kept and 61 were released. The Premier called in with 49 rockfish and a handful of sand bass, while the Alicia also had some success hooping inside, reporting 47 lobster released, and 18 lobster and 1 rock crab kept for the ten hoop-netters aboard their twilight run.

Fish Plants: 12/10, Jennings, trout (1,500)