With a new year come new hopes, goals and a fresh season to put time towards.

One of the best ways to ring in the new year is with some time on the water. It’s been a while since an albacore has been caught on the first day of the year, but this season might be the one. The Constitution has a 2 ½-day trip leaving on Dec. 31 that has the lofty goal of getting the first albacore of ’09. Seeing how there was so much small fish around in November, there has to be at least a little bit of fish around somewhere.

John Childers at the Fisheries Research Division at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center is one of the leading authorities on albacore migrations and movements. When we chatted a while back about albacore for the book I am working on, he gave me so much albacore info that I could devote an entire book to the subject. When it comes to that small fish, he said that there is some over wintering that goes on. In other words, the juvenile fish don’t always bend it to the left towards Japan.

The area down below the Lower 500 looks like it might be the place to look for albacore for San Diego/Ensenada boats.

If any area is going to do it for close to home for private boaters, it is going to be the zone from the west wing of the Butterfly on down to the deep water below the Dumper, where the water is still in the 61-62 range. Forget about the Cortez: It’s washed out and cold.

Will anyone be out looking on New Year’s Day is the real question?

Bob Hoose at Berkley was tossing around the idea like he has in years past. Maybe the Prospector will be out there.

As for me, I am planning on fishing Catalina the first few days of the year in hopes of fishing some squid and winter bass fishing on a friend’s private boat.

And who knows, maybe there’s a seabass swimming around somewhere. Stranger things have happened this time of year …