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Fall fishing coming together

JIM NIEMIEC

Fall weather has produced some outstanding fishing along the coast

and with the change in the season there have been some pretty windy

conditions in the channel. Marlin fishing continues strong off San

Onofre and at Catalina Island, yellowfin tuna, dorado and yellowtail

are filling gunny sacks for all day boats and the half and

three-quarter day sportfishers running out of Davey’s Locker and

Newport Landing Sportfishing are returning dock side with a mix of

surface and bottom feeders.

Kelp patties in the channel are holding tuna and big Dorado while

San Clemente Island has been kicking out some quality yellowtail in

the 20- to 30-pound class. The Cat Special, operating out of Davey’s

Locker, has been targeting the island and posting some pretty good

scores on mossbacks. The bite has been up and down for tails, but

calico bass and bottom fish are making the trip to the outer island

justifiable.

Not every kelp is holding exotics but when one is located that has

fish it has been a wide-open bite. The water temp off the beach is

nearing the mid-seventies and the water is bright blue, which is a

good indicator of more good fishing ahead. The albacore bite has

really slowed down for the overnight fleet out of Newport but there

is a slight chance that a northerly migration of monster longfins is

still possible. Multi-day boats making runs to the albacore grounds

some 125 miles south of San Diego report good fishing for albies

weighing in the 45- to 50-pound class.

Along the coast half-day boats are picking away at small bonito,

assorted bottom fish, calico bass and a little action on barracuda.

The best fishing has been over shallow water reefs, just outside the

ribbon kelps and some boats are sliding in on schools of boiling fish

just outside the harbor entrance.

Giant squid showed up again this past week but the bite has not

developed into anything special. There are tons of 2- to 5-pound

squid stacked up off Point Loma and they could move within range of

our local sport fleet any day. Local anglers should take care when

carrying ink soaked sacks of squid to their parked cars. Balboa spent

a lot of money improving the appearance of the area around the

Pavilion and the city doesn’t want back dye on the sidewalks or

street.

There were three marlin tournaments held out of Catalina during

the past 10 days. The Master Angler Billfish tournament took place

Sept. 17-18 and there were 59 boats with 240 anglers on board

competing. Marlin fishing was just fair with only a total of 12 fish

released during the tournament. The high angler was BAC member Eric

Grennan and second place honors were presented to Dara Stotesbury of

Balboa. The high boat for the event was the Double Hookup

representing the Harbour Rod and Reel Club.

The Zane Grey Invitational Marlin tournament based out of Avalon

enjoyed tremendous marlin fishing off the west end of the island.

With only 40 boats competing a total of 59 marlin were hooked, 42

billfish were released and only five fish were boated. The winning

team fished aboard Bill McWethy’s 65-foot custom yacht C-Bandit and

walked away with a cash purse of $124,210.00.

This writer covered the 2004 Catalina Classic Marlin tournament

held earlier in the week from the historic Zane Grey Pueblo, a home

that author Zane Grey built back in 1926. It was the perfect setting

to report on the fishing with all the big game fishing memorabilia in

the pueblo. Fishing was very good on day one of the tournament with

lots of released fish, but no qualifying fish meeting the 165-pound

minimum weighed in. Day two saw 10 more fish released and no fish

weighed. For the first time in the 20-year history of the Catalina

Classic, director Harvey Hunnicutt put the tournament into over time.

Of the 89 boats competing in the Classic only six teams did not show

up for day three of competition in which just one big marlin could

win the team up to $300,000. The sportfishers Gambler and La Dulche

Vida both boated big marlin and headed back to the Avalon dock scale.

The fish on the La Dulche Vida weighed in at 174.5 pounds and then

the Gambler backed into the dock to hoist a 187-pound striped marlin

on the scale and took home the first-place cash prize of $295,000.

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