BY MERIT McCREA
CHANNEL ISLANDS – As the growing El Niño outpaces the sea temperature by day of any on record some unusual critters flooded into the Bight, inclluding dorado all the way into the Northern Channel Islands area, yellowtail spotted cruising within local harbors, and a flood of micro yellowfin tuna the size more typically seen only south of Cabo San Lucas.
The first word of these tiny tuna came from the Ocean Odyssey fishing south of San Diego, but by week’s end there were reports of masses of them far into U.S. waters – between the islands and coast.
A couple of wahoo were landed by 1-day boats fishing out of San Diego, the first aboard the boat Horizon.
Satellite imagery shows purple-blue warm waters throughout the Bight with SSTs edging close to 80˚F in some areas. As of Saturday the night bluefin bite had moved close to San Nicolas Island and with it a mix of a few larger yellowfin tuna. It was strictly limits fishing for bluefin over the weekend.
One-day boats out of Channel Islands Sportfishing saw a few dorado and plenty of yellowtail and bluefin all the way into their zone as well.
