BY MERIT McCREA
SAN CLEMENTE – This past week saw SSTs hit 80 degrees on the front side of San Clemente island while temps to 78 or 79 were all along the SoCal Coast from Oceanside to Newport. Boats were finding fishable numbers of dorado and yellowtail on kelps as far north as Santa Cruz Island. Then Saturday the Sum Fun out of Dana Wharf Sportfishing found a pile of 30- to 40-pound-class yellowfin tuna in local waters, landing 43 for their 26 anglers.
The boat’s captain Brian Woolley reported “Yesterday I had the Sum Fun on an all day charter and we had very good stop and go fishing on some dolphin for some good mixed grade yellowfin and a skipjack sample. Yellowfin went 10 to 40 pounds, and the 25-30-pound mono with hooks capable of fishing an anchovy properly was an easy bite. Colt sniper jigs got bites as well on both the long casts and the yo-yo type of retrieve from down in the water column. The first few stops on the pod of dolphin were good, but the skiff traffic got pretty hectic and made it tricky unfortunately. But it was a good show and the fish were aggressively hungry. Looking forward to seeing this fish continue to fill in.”
Capt. Woolley also noted “The local yellowtail fishing has been great , it’s been very crowded since it’s close to home. Nice grade of yellowtail as this fish had been averaging 15 to 25 pounds. Flyline sardines has been the best bet but we’ve had fish caught on the dropper loops with torpedo sinkers , surface iron and yoyo jigs. 25- up to 40-pound line has been the best when the fish have really wanted to bite. And we’ve been seeing this grade of yellowtail in a couple zones but it appears to be spread out in a couple different areas so the 1/2 day boats and the 3/4 day boats have had shots at it this week. The local bass fishing has been good too with plenty of fish on the live baits, both anchovy and sardine. Rubber lures and hard surface lures like a SP Minnow or ColtSniper jerk baits got plenty of bites too. The Fury fished a couple 2 day trips this week. They fished Clemente and had some good bass fishing along with plenty of bottom fish like sheephead and whitefish. A few yellows in their counts too. They did also fish offshore and found some of that small yellowfin on a kelp and had a little go around with that stuff.”
