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:
Well, it’s been a crazy week to say the least. Very busy which has been good.
If the trip is longer than five hours right now, it’s been getting out offshore and targeting this mahi (or dorado). It’s been hard to call this very good fishing, because we’ve never seen anything like this with it. I’d call it unprecedented. Sure, we can compare it with the great yellowtail kelp paddy fishing we associate with El Niño event. It’s been hard to call a 40-50 fish day a down day because we’ve been having banger 150, 200 or 300 fish days.
Live sardines, 25-pound monofilament fishing line and a box of 1 or 1/0 hooks has been the best set-ups. We’re strongly encouraging our fishermen to take what you can immediately consume. It’s been a very steady and good grade of mahi 8-18 pounds, so there is plenty of fish to take home. Would I call taking a 10-fish limit home excessive? Yeah, maybe. Come enjoy the opportunity, come see and have fun with it.
Also, super stoked to see some yellowfin in our zones. We did start to catch some of this fish, and it’s been 8-10 pounds and some 25+ pound fish. It’s been on its own bait, anchovy, but we’re getting strikes on the jigs, casting jigs into foamers and some on bait stops. But I think this is just the beginning on this yellowfin, and there will be more to come.
Props to the bait companies right now for their hard work. Hands down the best bait on the planet Earth with Evringham. This is an easy one to quantify: imagine fishing anything in our zones without live bait right now.
Here are the latest fish counts from Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching:
Sept. 8 – 8 boats, 163 anglers: 580 dorado, 1 bluefin tuna, 7 calico bass, 1 sculpin, 1 sheephead, 75 bass released
Sept. 7 – 10 boats, 165 anglers: 217 dorado, 20 calico bass, 20 sculpin, 138 bass released
Sept. 6 – 7 boats, 172 anglers: 325 dorado, 1 bluefin tuna, 6 calico bass, 4 sheephead, 70 bass released
Sept. 5 – 5 boats, 276 anglers: 93 dorado, 17 sand bass, 2 calico bass, 1 sculpin, 1 whitefish, 1 rockfish, 224 bass released
Sept. 4 – 11 boats, 254 anglers: 542 dorado, 6 yellowtail, 1 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowfin tuna, 42 sculpin, 29 barracuda, 27 calico bass, 25 vermilion rockfish, 15 bonito, 6 sand bass, 2 whitefish, 1 rockfish, 35 bass released
Sept. 3 – 14 boats, 291 anglers: 419 dorado, 1 yellowtail, 59 sculpin, 25 sand bass, 13 whitefish, 7 calico bass, 6 sheephead, 1 vermilion rockfish, 95 bass released
Sept. 2 – 7 boats, 172 anglers: 682 dorado, 4 yellow fin tuna, 6 yellowtail, 2 sculpin, 1 sand bass, 33 calico bass, 10 bass released
So much haul! Perhaps it is contingent on the weather changes and some elemental factors that is why there is so much more fish caught compared to before