Every week, Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching provides the Dana Point and San Clemente Times a report on the week’s fishing from Captain Brian Woolley, in addition to the weekly fish count.
Here is Captain Woolley’s report for the past week’s action:
It was a great week of September fishing, both close to home and offshore.
The half-day scene has been on the bass program. Water temperatures have been in the 70- to 72-degree realm and pretty consistent along our stretch of beach. Bass fishing remained fair with some good action some days on the surface with the fly-lined baits. Really just standard bass fishing with artificial stuff like the rubber swim baits and flukes as well as hard baits catching fish. Anglers fishing the bottom with the dropper-looped baits did well too.
But it was the offshore scene that kept the boats on the longer trips busy this week. The three-quarter-day and all-day trips have been fishing the dorado. This fish has been moving around a bit as the water temps have cooled off from that crazy 75-76 degrees last week to a more typical 72-73 degrees. Some shots at open water schools of this mahi, but a majority of the mahi we’re catching has been on kelps. The 25-pound monofilament fished best. We’re telling our guys if you have braid on the reels, you need a long monofilament leader of at least 50 feet, but 100%, the straight monofilament is the way to go with these fish. We did catch some more yellowfin tuna both on the dolphin and on kelps this week too.
Overnight trips on the Fury have been fishing this mahi as well. On their longer trips, they’ve been folding in some good bluefin fishing up west there between the islands and out towards San Clemente Island. Some good spreads of fish in that zone. And the 6-Pac fleet has been all in on the mahi too this week. 6-Pac boats like the Current and the LexSea also had some bluefin tuna in the counts when they made the longer run to the tuna grounds.
Also, some great times were had on the Dana Pride yesterday, as they hosted another Fish for Life trip taking handicapped and developmentally disabled children fishing. Huge smiles and great local fishing action had these anglers excited. Founder Jim Holden does such a great job planning each trip, and all the volunteers involved make such a huge impact on the lives of these kids. We’re stoked Dana Wharf can be a partner with this endeavor.
Super simple report, but it’s been very good fishing and we are excited about this new week.
Here are the lastest fish counts from Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching:
Sept. 22 – 7 boats, 140 anglers: 1 yellowfin tuna, 39 dorado, 19 yellowtail, 1 halibut, 21 bonito, 29 calico bass, 9 sand bass, 3 sheephead, 5 white fish, 177 bass released
Sept. 21 – 4 boats, 87 anglers: 7 bluefin tuna, 2 dorado, 22 yellowtail, 51 calico bass, 1 sand bass, 16 sheephead, 11 white fish, 30 rockfish, 29 bonito, 20 bass released
Sept. 20 – 9 boats, 164 anglers: 34 dorado, 3 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowfin tuna, 14 calico bass, 3 sand bass, 180 bass released
Sept. 19 – 9 boats, 212 anglers: 141 dorado, 10 yellowtail, 3 bluefin tuna, 66 calico bass, 48 bonito, 7 sheephead, 3 whitefish, 85 bass released
Sept. 18 – 57 dorado, 1 yellowtail, 14 bonito, 14 sculpin, 11 calico bass, 2 sand bass, 125 bass released
Sept. 17 – 10 boats, 163 anglers: 89 dorado, 4 bluefin tuna, 12 sand bass, 11 rockfish, 10 calico bass, 7 sculpin, 6 bonito, 3 sheephead, 2 vermilion rockfish, 1 whitefish, 173 bass released
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