BY MERIT McCREA
It’s the off-season for the partyboat fleet, but which boats are fishing and for what? Starting in the north, it remains pretty quiet. However the 4-pack Sunny Day out of Patriots in Avila is trying to get folks together for a consistent halibut bite that has continued to go on. In Morro Bay the Black Pearl was back from the boat yard looking great.
Out of Santa Barbara their newest youngest captain, Mathew Diamond, has run his first trip as skipper and loaded his anglers up on whitefish aboard the Stardust. In the past few days it’s been the Coral Sea running an island ¾-day trip during the weather windows. Just 13 anglers limited out on those nice ocean whitefish and added a dozen big halibut fishing them with the flukes.
Kind of on the same track the Gentleman and Speed Twin are running as demand and weather indicates. Whitefish were the top catch with some decent bass numbers, but when sand dabs were the target the numbers came in at over 200 per angler. The Gent was out post-rain and scored limits of whitefish plus some bass and a pile of perch for 15 anglers.
Also out since last week’s wet weather was the Marina Del Rey fleet with 3 boats off the docks Sunday, and again lots of ocean whitefish, looking at 5 to 7 per angler on those, but the Spitfire looking to sculpin instead for numbers with just short of limits on those plus more than a bass per angler.
The Redondo Special is also fishing, Redondo Beach Sportfishing. The ocean whitefish boom was their producer as well, around 5 per rod, plus a few bass to boot.
From the San Pedro and Long Beach area the local runs were the ones for the most part once again but 22nd Street did have the Pursuit out on the water at the island Saturday, in addition to both the ½-day Monte Carlo and ¾-day Native Sun offering fishing. On the coast the sculpin and whitefish competed for anglers attention while at the island the perch were the catch of the day. The stand-out catch was a monster halibut aboard the Native Sun however – and the boat is once again targeting those local flatfish for a good potion of the day on their trips. Capt. Aaron Graham posted a pic of Captain Gabe’s 42.9-pound beast.
If you want the best table-fare bang for your buck, it’s sand dabbing aboard the Ahra Ahn out of Long Beach Sportfishing. While you might be able to find this delicacy at the Newport Dory market for $8/lb you could catch them yourself instead and anglers averaged catches of between 120 and nearly 200 dabs each.
From Long Beach it’s down to Newport Bay for the next partyboat opportunity on the water. The Newport Landing location was booking runs aboard the Aggressor and the Patriot, both local fishing again. These boats were switch-hitting between sculpin and whitefish. Even after the stormy weather the bite was good on those, nearly 8 per rod on the white sea-fish and for the ¾-day runs, like limits on those rattlesnakes too
Never to be held back by the off-season, Dana Wharf Sportfishing had boats out on the water every day that wasn’t storming. The old local bass bite took and temporary hit following the stormy weather as local waters needed a little settling time. But for the ¾-day anglers sculpin kept the rod tips hopping. This landing is one you could just show up to in the AM and count on a boat trip going out, so long as your hat didn’t blow off your head in the wind.
Their drift trips aboard the Clemente turned in another whopper flatfish with a 26 pounder recorded. It is now the top February fish in the Dana Wharf Halibut Tournament.
Out of Mission Bay everyone’s wanting to know if the recent great bonito bite was still on in local waters following the rainy weather. The answer is yes. The New Seaforth put on 45 bones Sunday to go with almost 200 whitefish on a ½-day.
Out of San Diego Bay all three landings had local boats fishing over the weekend after the rain and boom! The sand bass are biting! We were seeing 3 keepers per-rod on some trips and 2-per-rod standard. The second most noteworthy catch was sculpin in similar numbers in the bags. All three landings had ½-day trips fishing. However, H&M also had a Mexican waters ¾-day aboard the Malihini on-line which Sunday put on close to 9 fish per angler with a combination of 2-per on the reds and mostly other rockfish with a few whitefish, some sheephead and sculpin filling out the rest. Also in the catch were 7 lings, so if you’re Jonesing for cods on a local run, H&M is your landing.
No trips ran this past weekend but these landings also have Colonet trips available fishing 1.5-day over the weekend departing Friday evening. The sure bet on these runs has been loads of big reds and other rockfish, and outstanding lingcod fishing. But the big hope always is for those yo-yo yellowtail to join the fray.
