OUTDOOR NOTES : Something Fishy Is Going On to the South

Albacore showing up near San Diego in early May?

Huge white sea bass feeding regularly off Santa Catalina Island?

Both phenomena are hard to believe, but true.

Fishermen are doing well on two fronts in what has become one of the best spring seasons in several years.

The first albacore of the season have been caught, and there appear to be large schools of the popular tuna within range of San Diego’s sportfishers.

“It’s the earliest (season) I can remember,” said Bob Fletcher, president of the Sportfishing Assn. of California. “We’ve had them in late May and early June, but this is really kind of remarkable.”

The first albacore of the year was one taken during a late yellowtail run last January.

The Cherokee Geisha and the Prowler set out for exploratory runs late Sunday night after hearing reports of two fish caught 50 miles southwest of Ensenada by commercial jig-fishing boats returning from their season in the South Pacific.

At 7:45 Monday morning, skipper Bill Stephens of the Cherokee Geisha reported the first catch of a small tuna 85 miles southwest of the landings.

“We were intending on going as far as 100 miles if we had to,” Stephens said. “We got stopped short of that. We got stopped at 85 miles on a single jig strike, which was about a six-pound fish.”

An hour later, the Prowler, fishing 20 miles east of the Cherokee Geisha, caught four albacore in the 15-pound range.

Stephens worked his way toward the Prowler, and the two boats combined for 30 albacore. The Shogun, on a five-day trip out of L.A. Harbor Sportfishing, which had been operating 150 to 250 miles south of the border before moving up when hearing of the albacore, reported catching 70 in the same area.

“It was like the middle of August out there,” Stephens said, adding that the water was clear and blue, between 63 and 65 degrees. “I couldn’t believe it was May.”

The Prowler, which set out with 22 passengers again Monday night, reported to Fisherman’s Landing that it had already boated 22 albacore in the 14- to 16-pound class only 67 miles south of Pt. Loma by 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.

Michael Laurs, a biologist and migratory species expert with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the fish in the five- to six-pound range might have been spawned by adults that spent the winter farther south in the Guadalupe Island area.

“The middle-sized fish could have also wintered in the Guadalupe area, or they didn’t migrate as far off the coast at the end of the last fishing season and had a shorter distance to move in,” Laurs said. “I think it’s a very favorable sign. If it were just the small fish, I would not get too excited, but the medium-sized fish make it a lot more exciting.”

Meanwhile, L.A. Harbor Sportfishing boats have been finding white sea bass off Catalina’s shores in recent weeks, and Tuesday those aboard the Outer Limits and Top Gun had no trouble catching their limits.

“They started biting as soon as we got there, and we had limits by 6:30 or 7 o’clock in the morning,” said Gary Norby, skipper of the Outer Limits.

Of the 20 fish brought aboard the Outer Limits, 10 weighed more than 40 pounds and five topped 50. “I haven’t seen them this big since about 1974, when I had a catch like that in the same area,” Norby said.

The Top Gun’s catch included four yellowtail, 130 barracuda and 130 calico bass.

There has been some talk of a possible El Nino recurrence this summer, a phenomenon that brings a warm-water current northward, displacing nutrient-rich water that otherwise flows regularly along the coast.

It also brings exotic species of pelagic fish with it, such as the yellowfin tuna that were caught regularly within a dozen miles of the San Diego County coast during the 1982-83 season.

“There’s some indication of a signal for an El Nino in the pressure structure in the Central Pacific,” Laurs said.

However, he agreed with scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography that it would be premature to declare that El Nino has returned.

Farther south, off southern Baja California, striped marlin are so prevalent that fishing for other species is becoming difficult.

Tarzana’s Tom Snyder and others fished near Hotel Punta Colorada aboard the El Thomas and caught 14 stripers--including one of 210 pounds--and other boats have been averaging between three and six stripers a day.

However, other species are actively feeding, too. A group of 10 fishermen stayed three days at Hotel Palmas de Cortez and caught nine marlin, 38 dorado and 10 yellowfin tuna.

The tuna and dorado, according to Rafael Martinez of the Hotel SPA Buenavista, appear to be getting bigger, as both species have been regularly tipping the scales at more than 40 pounds.

The 1990-91 hunting regulations have been adopted, and the application deadline for all big-game hunts filled through the Department of Fish and Game’s public drawing process is June 25. License and tag applications will be available by June 1 and should be mailed to DFG, License and Revenue Branch, 3211 S Street, Sacramento, CA., 95816.

More than 12 million fall chinook salmon will be hauled from the Coleman National Fish Hatchery in California to the lower Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay in an effort to bypass low water flows in the Sacramento River caused by drought.

The Orange County Chapter of the Rockey Mountain Elk Foundation will hold a banquet and fund-raising auction May 19 at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach. Details: (714) 540-3375.

The Southern California Marine Assn.’s Spring Boat Show will start a 10-day run Friday at Fairplex Park in Pomona.