SOCAL SALT REPORTS

SALT UPDATE: San Diego albies out west, Morro Bay albacore rumors highlight offshore scene BY BRANDON HAYWARD/WON Staff Writer Published: Jul 27, 2010

Print This Article Email This Article Digg This Article

SOUTH CAL SALT REPORTS Albacore action shifts back out west SAN DIEGO — The up-and-down grind that is this year’s albacore season has shown some signs of being on an upswing coming off this full moon, as boats were able to get back on the albacore to the south west of San Diego. “I think we got back on top of that fish that we were on down the beach. We lost track of it for a few days, but now we are back on it inside the Dumping Grounds,” reported Eclipse captain Rick Podolak on a call with WON Monday morning after pulling into Seaforth Sportfishing from a 1 ½-day trip with 85 albacore. “The bulk of the fish are around 90 to 92 miles, and the leading edge is right around 85 miles, so it’s right on the edge of one-day range,” added Podolak. “We pretty much had limit-style fishing. It was with the trend this year that it was biting best in the afternoon. There are finally some water edges around, so the fish are not just swimming around in generic water with nothing to stop them or keep them.” He added that the water was from 64.5 to 65 degrees in the new albacore zone. In addition to the albacore out by the Dumper, the long range fleet has had albacore and bluefin action in the 30 Block. Perhaps the best news is that the Mexican seiner fleet is done fishing bluefin tuna this season. Sources close to WON said that the “catch and kill” seiners have closed up shop and are sitting in Ensenada or moved on to looking for yellowfin and/or skipjack way down below the Ridge. The live capture fishery that puts bluefin in pens essentially set their own quota, and are done for the season. Hopefully this bodes well for a good bluefin season. In the meantime, the albacore counts are good enough to make 1 ½-day and 2-day trips good to great ones right now. With that said, overnight fishing has been virtually non-existent. Scores on the overnight front ranged from 2 to 9 albacore per boat over the weekend. To show how bad the overnight scene has been, the First String had the best overnight score of the season so far on Saturday when it had 9 albacore on its overnight trip out of H&M Landing. Other overnight trips have ended up fishing sand bass below the border in order to put something on the boat. Some great counts came out of the weekend for the boats on trips from 1 1/2 days on up. The Apollo out of Fisherman’s Landing finished up a 2-day trip Sunday with 154 albacore. Still, there were some down count for boats not in the zone. The Pacific Queen had a dorado on its 2-day trip over the weekend(as did a 2 ½-day trip on the Pegasus earlier in the week), but the trip on the Queen over the weekend only had 15 albacore to go with it. The Ultra had limits of albacore for its 6 anglers on its 1 ½-day on Sunday, and the Condor had 70 albacore for 35 anglers. The Prowler’s 1 ½-day that fished Saturday was good for 40 albacore and 6 yellowtail. H&M Landing’s highliner on Sunday was the Tracer. IT returned with 160 albacore for 8 anglers. The Relentless was back from a 2-day of its own Sunday with 33 albacore and a yellowtail for 17 anglers. WORD OF ALBACORE ON DAVIDSON Rockfish rule on the Central Coast MORRO BAY — With summer hitting its midway mark, now is the time where thoughts (and dreams) shift to albacore on the Central Coast. So what’s the word on albacore? “I heard there have been some fish out by the Davidson for boats out of Moss Landing,” reported Michele Leary, owner of Central Coast Sportfishing and the boats Rita G. While the 70 plus mile run to the Davidson is not one that Leary — or any other operators on the Central Coast — plan on making any time soon, there is always hope this time of year that the albacore push in tight to Morro Bay this season. The rockfishing has been good, especially for the longer trips and the shorter, half-day trips that go the distance. “Some of the other boats have been running out of my landing lately. The Fiesta ran out of here today (Sunday) and they had really good fishing up at White Rock,” added Leary. The trip on the Fiesta was good for 84 reds, 33 bolina, 13 asssorted rockfish and 2 lingcod. A local trip on the Rita G Saturday was a sundowner (twilight) that had 104 rockfish for 13 anglers at Constantine. “The weather has been really nice, which has made it easier to run around and fish a little bit further on the shorter trips… the weather is supposed to be good all week this week,” said Leary. The great weather meant that Virg’s was able to get an overnight out on Sunday. A whopping 76 anglers showed up for the trip on the Admiral, and they were rewarded with 570 reds, 100 rockfish, 60 copper rockfish, 30 salmon grouper and 10 lingcod. The local fishing has been good as well, as seen by a half-day trip on the Harbor Pathfinder the same day being good for 228 rockfish, 45 reds, 5 coppers, 12 brown rockfish and 2 lingcod. Good weather allowed Patriot Sportfishing to get both its boats out on long range trips on Sunday. Both the Pacific Horizon and Patriot ended up with limits on rockfish, with the 35 anglers on the Pacific Horizon scoring 202 bolina, 35 reds, 105 assorted rockfish and 8 cabezon. The Patriot was also on a long range trip, and its 39 passengers nailed 222 bolina, 74 reds, 90 assorted rockfish and 5 lingcod.