Anglers hope for reversal

This hasn’t been one of the better summer fishing seasons for the

Newport party boat fleet and things are also starting off very slow

for private yachts trying to catch marlin or any of the pelagics that

traditionally show up in local waters by late August. Cold water,

much of which is off-color and extends clear out past the 43 Fathom

spot, isn’t showing much promise of making a quick turnaround. The

seas did lay down after a strong northwesterly blew through earlier

in the week, but yellowfin tuna, dorado and yellowtail are all

stacked up some 85 miles below Point Loma, and these schools of

prized species are not showing any signs of moving up the line.

Albacore all but vanished off the radar screen a couple of weeks

ago and very few longfins have been caught recently. It seems the

albies just decided to migrate to areas outside of normal fishing

grounds and not many boats are making runs west to try and catch just

a few albacore. Even the multi-day boats out of San Diego-based

landings are not reporting any albacore. There have been scattered

catches made out of Morro Bay but the fish up north haven’t settled

into a biting mood yet and sportboats are having to make runs of up

to 60 miles out to sea to find albacore.

Big schools of yellowfin tuna are holding under floating kelp

along the coast of Baja California and when the right patty is found

the bite is wide open on tuna in the 12- to 20-pound class with some

decent sized dorado also being hooked. Mixed in with the yellowfin

are bigeye tuna and if these bigger class tuna start showing up in

respectable numbers it could save what, to date, has been pretty

dismal fishing for the one-day fleet.

Local anglers are patiently waiting for yellowtail to move into

channel waters and provide good fishing on the kelps. With colder

water in place the tails that are being seen are not in a feeding

mood in reachable waters for boats departing out of Newport. There is

plenty of bait in the water. It’s going to take a fast moving warm

water current to turn the forktail fishery around.

Marlin fishing is very slow with only a few fish being spotted

around high spots in the channel. The sea temperature remains on the

cool side and it will have to jump up into the low 70s before the

spikebill action comes alive. Private yachts trolled through

traditional marlin grounds during the week and only reported seeing

tailers that wouldn’t hit fast trolled jigs or even jump on a live

mackerel.

Along the coast fishing is rated as just fair for sand bass and

assorted bottom fish. The red tide is still around but it hasn’t

affected local fishing all that much. Some of the better bass catches

have been coming in about 45 feet of water off the Huntington Beach

Flats and some of the artificial reefs are starting to produce some

respectable dock counts for half- and three-quarter day runs out to

the fishing grounds.

Meanwhile, the dove season opener looks good. Dove hunters should

enjoy a pretty good opening day of mourning dove shooting down in

Imperial Valley, out in the High Desert and over all along the

Colorado River. There was an excellent hatch of dove this summer and

big flights of birds are winging through traditional flyways.

Thundershowers and an abundance of native food crops have scattered

the birds and last week’s storms finally triggered a migration of

some dove down into Mexico.

The season opens on Sept. 1 and the daily bag limit is 10 birds.

Wing shooters who won’t be able to take off for opening day should

still find good shooting at the Wister Wildlife Refuge and Desert

Wildlife Unlimited dove plots located between Niland and Brawley

where ample food, water and roosting trees are holding good numbers

of mourning dove along with a few whitewing. A CWA Imperial Valley

Dove luncheon will be held Sept. 3 at the Imperial Valley Expo in

Imperial City for those hunting in the valley starting 11 a.m. For

more information on this fundraiser and the $15 per plate New York

steak luncheon phone (760) 359-0200.