Dock Totals 7/20 – 7/26: 4376 anglers aboard 175 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 101 barracuda, 1 black seabass (released), 3764 bluefin tuna (to 240 pounds), 11 bonito, 2 cabezon, 1009 calico bass, 9 halibut, 19 lingcod, 1 opah, 2090 rockfish, 1 rock sole, 903 sand bass, 6 sanddab, 995 sculpin, 75 sheephead, 632 whitefish, 4 white seabass, 5 yellowfin tuna, and 2555 yellowtail.
Saltwater: The yellowfin tuna still haven’t shown up in numbers since a few were caught a couple weeks back, but they are out there. The Pacific Dawn did report one 90-pound yellowfin on a recent outing; that’s a big one up here, far from the waters off the southern Baja peninsula where they are normally found. Conversely, bluefin tuna have been metered deep as well as popping up in foamers on the surface from off the northern Baja Peninsula up to the Channel Islands.
Much of the bluefin caught off the boiling schools has been in the 20- to 50-pound range, but there have still been some larger units reported to well over 200 pounds. Most of the daytime catch is still in the smaller range and up on the surface; during nighttime fishing, deeper is more productive for the larger units. Night fishing has still been mostly deep jigging on heavier gear, while the daytime bite higher in the water column has benefitted from a more varied approach, including live bait fly-lined or on a dropper loop, jigs, kited bait or artificials, and poppers casted into boiling spots…