Outdoors : OUTDOOR NOTES : Spring Session Starts With Schools of Fish
There’s nothing subtle about the spring fishing season.
Yellowtail have moved to within range of San Diego’s fleet and are actively feeding under the kelp paddies south of Point Loma. Thresher sharks are unusually abundant off the Orange County coast, where an occasional salmon also is still being caught. And barracuda have invaded the Santa Monica Bay.
“It’s history; forget the cod,” said skipper Ray Sobieck of the Producer, which has been fishing successfully for yellowtail the past several days. “The yellows have arrived, or they have returned.”
Sobieck’s Producer became the first to make a significant catch of the powerful swimmers last Friday. His passengers returned with 65, transforming a fleet that for months has been fishing the depths for rock cod into one that is scouring the surface for highly-prized yellowtail.
On Sunday, 139 fishermen aboard six boats returned with 306 yellowtail. It seems that wherever a floating paddy of kelp lies, there is a hungry school of the hearty jacks.
“Each day there is a substantial count in a different area,” Sobieck said. “I know that we have a substantial supply of yellowtail on our hands.”
Most of the yellowtail--averaging between six and 17 pounds--are being taken about 40 miles south of Point Loma, but there have been reports of scattered catches from the south end of San Clemente Island to Ensenada.
Up the coast, thresher sharks provided big-game opportunities for those who were on the waters off Newport Beach and Dana Point over the weekend.
At least 25 sharks were hooked aboard commercial sportfishers on Saturday and several more were reportedly encountered by fishermen aboard private boats.
“The one we got Saturday was the first we put on our boat in 10 years,” said Jim Watts, co-owner of Newport Landing and skipper of the Reveille. “We had another one and when it was hooked it jumped, and it looked like it was approaching 100 pounds.
“The other day we hooked a couple and saw a few other ones while we were salmon fishing right out in front of Newport . . . and the others were right off Dana Point, all in about 300 feet of water.”
The six-passenger Falco brought in a 100-pounder and Dana Point’s Sea Horse a 77-pounder.
A fisherman aboard the Thunderbird out of Davey’s Locker was reeling in a mackerel he had hooked when a thresher estimated to weigh close to 300 pounds swam up to the boat, grabbed the mackerel, and took off.
There was nothing anybody could do but watch the line scream from the reel until it broke.
More than 40,000 people are expected to celebrate San Diego’s Spring fishing season Sunday.
The 10th Day at the Docks will feature free boat rides, casting contests and, for children, a pond stocked with roosterfish, yellowtail, pargo and other exotic fish. Seminars, displays, exhibitions and raffle drawings are also scheduled.
Openings remain for the adult and junior fishing tournaments--more than 600 anglers are expected to compete--scheduled Saturday. For information, call H & M, Point Loma or Fisherman’s Landing.
Baja fishing: The first significant marlin bite of spring is under way at Cabo San Lucas and the East Cape region.
The water temperature is between 76 and 80 degrees in Cabo San Lucas where marlin are being caught between two and five miles out of the harbor. Up to four per boat are being reported, said Darrell Primrose of the Finisterra Tortuga fleet.
Beavers are chewing up trees along the Truckee River in downtown Reno and some people are recommending a kill-off to control the problem.
Wildlife biologist Steve Fairaizl of the U.S. Department of Agriculture says he will begin a survey of the numbers and the damage in the next few weeks, but said 90% of the trees have been damaged in one section of the river.
Fairaizl and John Champion, a resident who keeps tabs on the trees, wants the city council to meet with wildlife authorities to devise a control plan.
“The most humane thing to do is shoot them,” Champion said. “There has to be some control or they’ll ruin all the trees and the river and they’ll die anyway.”
Biologists believe if the trees continue to be destroyed, the Truckee will lose its shade and the water will heat up, threatening the river’s fish population.