San Diego Saltwater Fishing Blog – El Gato Dos

Fished a 3/4 day with a great group of local guys. It was a bit of a bachelor party for Brock, good luck this Friday man! Had a slow pick of Calico and Sand Bass at Lajolla proper in the A.M., then off to Del Mar to hunt around. Right now up and down the coast there are tons of undersized barracuda. They are eating all the baits before you can get them down to any other fish. Also lots of greenback mackeral as well. We decided to try to catch a few rockfish and on the 2nd drop Mark hooked the pictured Halibut. A real surprise that made the day! Ended up on the anchor catching more rockfish. No sign of Yellowtail today, though some were seen by the other guys.

The Halibut was 39″ which makes it around 25 pounds. A really great fish!

Mark's Halibut

Did another crew trip fishing White Seabass. Left the dock at 5pm, returned the next day around 11am! It was extremely difficult to make live squid, ended up spending 4 hours to make 20 or so pieces. Turned out to be enough. At 5 a.m. Mike Redela hooked the beauty pictured here. It was 49″ long and estimated 45 pounds. Ate a live squid pinned on a glow-in-the dark light jig on #40. Funny thing was Mike caught the fish on a fishing rod of his he traded to me a few years ago. He had never caught a fish on that rod until this one, his first legal and largest White Seabass. Congrats Mike on the fish of a lifetime!

Ran back to back 3/4 day trips Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately the offshore fish are not in our range just yet. So we spent both days at the Cornado Islands. There was a little sign of Yellowtail and Barracuda, but we did not put any on the boat. We fished the bottom and had excellent fishing both days. Friday we did catch a nice Mako shark which we released to fight another day.

White Seabass

Did a little crew trip last night. Got the one pictured, lost one more. Fished 6pm-2am. Long night, but well worth it.

Fishing close to the kelp has it’s dissadvantages. Such as hooking big white seabass and watching them empty all the line on the reel. Yes, and of course it gets hooked on the lightest rig we had out. After a short battle it wrapped us up in the kelp and that was it. At the same time another WSB rolled 15′ behind the boat. Another 30+ pound fish.

Ended the day with 20 legal Calico bass, and a bunch of shorts. Very clean 64 degree water out there right now.

We will be out on 3/4 day trips Thursday and Friday, check back for full reports. I have a good feeling about this week
Capt. Bryan

Wow! What a great A.M. 1/2 day we had yesterday. Took out a great group of guys and nailed the Calico bass. Ended up taking 25 home and tossed back another 15 that were 12-13″ and many, many shorts. Also had a few short barracuda and one dandy Halibut around 10-12 pounds. The water is still cool, at 63.5 but the fish don’t seem to mind.
In other areas, the Coronado Islands are holding large numbers of Yellowtail, but are not really into biting mode yet. A few more degrees and I bet it really goes off down there. Offshore the Albacore, Bluefin and even a few Yellowfin han been in the day 1.5 day counts. The fish are still too far for our 5-5 trip, but any day someone is going to catch one close enough to be in our range. Last year in the later half of June the El Gato had days for tuna in the double digits. Hopefully we can have a repeat of that. We have plenty of great weekends in July and August still open. They are booking quick!!