Brody Mahomed

Our Fishing Photo Contest winner of two half-day passes provided by the San Diego Sportfishing Council is Brody Mahomed with his 14.8-pound dorado caught on live bait while fishing aboard the Success in Mexican waters. Congratulations Brody!

Fish Pix Win Fish Tix!

Submit your best fishing photo and every 2 weeks we’ll pick our favorite and run it in this column. Winner will also receive 2 half-day passes plus rod and reel rental ($65–$75 value each) for a sport fishing trip courtesy of the San Diego Sportfishing Council.

Contest details

Dock Totals 11/27 – 12/10: 624 anglers aboard 45 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past two weeks caught 250 bluefin tuna (to 213 pounds), 16 bonito, 48 calico bass, 1 halibut, 1 lingcod, 19 perch, 2,057 rockfish, 54 sand bass, 42 sanddab, 279 sculpin, 172 sheephead, 28 spiny lobster (52 released), 4 triggerfish, and 313 whitefish.

Saltwater: With cooling water and very slow surface action, local boats have been mostly targeting rockfish over the past couple of weeks. Blustery winter conditions offshore has limited the amount of trips out to Tanner Bank, where the bluefin bite has been very good for those who have been able to make the 120-mile run. As the first major cold front slid down the coast and kept boats in their slips, the usual question was how long would those fish remain, as the water temps are already below 58 degrees in the area.

Though the weather windows are getting narrower as the year draws to an end, I’m sure at least a few boats out of landings from San Diego to Los Angeles will attempt a run out past San Clemente Island to check. If the bluefin have moved on or don’t bite, rockfish, whitefish, lingcod, and sheephead are always around the banks. That option will go away on the first day of the new year when groundfish will be closed in California waters through February. For that reason, and given the distance out to Tanner Bank, most of the boats that were targeting bluefin will shift their focus to south of the border by January first.

The Coronado Islands and high spots down the coast to off Ensenada has basically turned from a wide-open yellowtail bite to straight bottom fish with a few bonito mixed in. San Martin Island and the banks off of San Quintin is the northern-most area still producing yellowtail, and that will probably fade by the end of the year. The best bet for any surface action until spring will be the southern half of the Baja Peninsula, both in the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez.

As fishing slows for the fleet, action in the surf has been heating up, with surf perch, spotfin croaker, and occasional halibut biting for anglers working the beaches from the sand. The other usual target, sand bass on the flats between Point Loma and Imperial Beach, have been slow to go so far, though I expect that bite to improve as we move into January. Overall, 2022 has been a standout year for San Diego anglers, with big bluefin tuna biting well in numbers and proximity rarely seen in recent decades, and the massive schools of dorado showing north of the border all the way up to the banks off southern Oregon. Even so, the year is winding down with the final weeks’ counts indicating much more normal fishing as fall fades to winter.

Freshwater: Trout have been biting well on mini-jigs, rooster tails, and Powerbait at Santee Lakes after their season opener in November. Poway, Jennings, and Dixon are the next best lower elevation choices for trout as their first winter plants are settling in. The only lake that holds trout year-round in San Diego County, Lake Cuyamaca, stocked 4000 pounds of rainbow trout from Mt. Lassen hatchery on December 9. A good portion of those fish were chunky 3-to-6-pound units, so if you’re thinking about catching a limit for the smoker, don’t overlook Cuyamaca.

Catfish have also been biting, giving trout anglers an occasional surprise, as the stocked channel catfish will certainly inhale a ball of Powerbait or a fly-lined nightcrawler. Catfish typically prefer warmer water and generally bite best from late summer into fall but will feed any time of year in Southern California. And they seem to turn on and bite as the lakes begin their winter trout stocking, so tossing a chunk of mackerel out if the trout bite is slow is not a bad idea.

Whether on the open ocean, beach, lake, or bay, they’re out there, so go get ‘em!

Notable catches:

11/28 – The New Lo-An 3-day trip with 18 anglers aboard called in with 67 bluefin tuna in the hold.

12/3 – 19 anglers aboard the Sea Watch afternoon half-day trip caught 77 rockfish, 13 sculpin, 48 whitefish, and 17 sheephead.

12/5 – The Cortez returned to the dock with 150 rockfish and 47 bluefin tuna for the 15 anglers aboard their 2.5-day trip.

12/8 – 13 anglers aboard the Daiwa Pacific morning half-day run had good local bottom fishing resulting in 92 rockfish, 2 sheephead, 1 sculpin, and 1 halibut caught.

12/10 – The Dolphin called in with 41 rockfish, 6 sculpin, 6 whitefish, 4 sheephead, and 4 sand bass for 11 anglers aboard their afternoon half-day run.

Fish Plants: 12/15 – Lake Poway, trout (2,000), 12/16 – Santee Lakes, lakes 4, 5, 6, 7, trout (NA), 12/26 – Lake Jennings, trout (1,500)