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UPDATED: July 29, 2026

ORANGE COUNTY — Bonito and coastal yellowtail have arrived, also a few inshore pelagics have been spotted, yellowfin, kelp paddy dorado and yellowtail not far off the coast. The bass bite is excellent and the Newport local boats added in sculpin. Dana Wharf local anglers saw very fast action on calicos and some runs sand bass. Almost all bass were catch and release grade here. A 46-pound yellowtail was landed on a local twilight trip and almost every trip saw an exotic of some sort, yellowtail, dorado, seabass. The New San Mateo managed to round up a pair of dorado and yellows plus some fast bass action on the same trip. Here’s Capt. Brian Woolley’s Dana Wharf Sportfishing report: Fun week of fishing again as water temps stayed steady 71°-72° and things were biting across the board. Local bass fishing was excellent this week with fun flyline action for the calico bass.  Rubber lures worked really well as did some surface lure action with the hard baits and surface iron.  But it was hard to pass on the live bait program.  Lighter line 12-15lb was perfect with light egg sinkers to help with the casting the anchovy. Tons of small bonito around so that was a great addition for the anglers fishing small sniper jigs and chrome lures.  The local yellowtail scene has been in play too.  Smaller 3- to 8-pound fish caught on the live baits in a couple different areas but there have been some absolute tanks around too.  A 55 pounder on a live sardine on twilight trip Friday evening. Some big 20-25-pound fish around as well so don’t just leave the 20-to-40-pound bait rod at home – bring it because there is certainly a time and place for it to come into play. Off the beach we saw some good sign on kelps for the 6 pac guys.  Some nice dorado caught this week aboard the Current and the New San Mateo.  The hot commodity has been the live mackerel.  Flylined baits catching both yellowtail and mahi on the kelps. At San Clemente Island the fury has had more great yellowtail fishing.  Flylined and dropper looped live baits been good on these fishing ranging from 10-30lbs.  The calico bass fishing was great there as it’s been fun fishing in the kelp with plenty of other bottom fish like sheephead and whiteish mixed into their counts. And Catalina has been fair with lots of calico bass action, bonito and some smaller 5- to 8-pound yellowtail on the spots up the back side east end of the island.

SAN DIEGO — The local barracuda bite has been crazy good, along with yellowtail and good bass fishing along the local kelps from the point to La Jolla. This fishing has been so good the local ½-day fleet hasn’t even been looking south for sand bass at all. But a recent tagging trip by the guys at the Phleger Institute fished them just below the border and tagged another 330 sand bass. In addition to the over 500 tags deployed locally, there are many more tagged along the Mexican coast farther south. Keep your eyes open for these tags. There’s a reward offered for the catch location, date and tag number. You can keep or release the fish, leaving the tag. All you need is the number and other info. Take a photo and call the phone number on the tag to turn the info in.

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