Yellowfin Tuna and Yellowtail Continue to Bite

Area anglers continue to enjoy the summer-like water conditions.

Outer island catches were excellent last weekend, as overnight boats returned with yellowfin tuna and yellowtail. It appears that bluefin tuna are feeding again at Cortez Bank.

The Los Angeles Harbor boat First String returned Monday with a catch of 200 bluefin and yellowfin. Bob Delaney of Torrance caught the largest tuna, a 40-pounder.

Long Beach Sportfishing’s Toronado worked an area off Catalina Island and returned with 62 yellowfin. Lee Johnson of Long Beach caught the largest yellowfin--a 35-pounder.

The landing’s Aztec returned Monday with 26 tuna and a limit of rockfish. Jerome Montavance of Long Beach caught a 35-pound bluefin.

At the request of anglers, L.A. Harbor’s Shogun worked offshore of San Clemente Island and returned with 324 rockfish and 162 whitefish.

L.A. Harbor’s half-day boat Matt Walsh found skipjack at the rigs and anglers caught 26 on *

Catches of note: Mark McLain of San Pedro and Fred Barton, Gilbert Flores and Bob Hall of Inglewood caught six and 10-pound skipjack.

Bonito continued to be caught by anglers aboard the Annie B Barge. Over 200 were caught last weekend. Most of the fish were small, but a five-fish limit of three-pounders was caught by Lee Tosh of Carson. Tosh also caught a 70-pound bat ray. *

Torrance fishermen swept the top three places at the Oct. 10 Heal the Bay tournament.

The winner, with 55 points and 19 pounds of fish, was John Evans. Second place went to Kevin Justice with 55 points and 18 pounds of fish and third was Pete Wright with 50 points and 15 pounds of fish.

The winning team was Justice and Rob Robertson of Manhattan Beach. *

Rosie Cadman reports that 209 marlin have been brought to the Avalon weigh station.

Tom Leadbetter of Long Beach, who was aboard the Kingfisher on Sunday, brought a 168-pounder to scale.

On Monday South Bay half-day boats will be on a fall and winter schedule. Only one trip a day will be made during weekdays. On weekends, there will be two trips: one in the morning and afternoon.

Anglers should call for weekday departure times. Most boats in the fleet will depart at 9 a.m. and return at 3 p.m. *

South Bay catches: Tom Brenton of Long Beach, aboard the El Dorado at Horseshoe Kelp, landed the whopper of the week--a 65-pound mako shark.

Mas Kanelo of Redondo Beach, aboard the Blackjack at Osborne Bank, caught a 32-pound yellowfin.

Joel Thompson of San Pedro, aboard the First String at Tanner Bank, caught a 30-pound bluefin.

Clara Fry of Gardena, aboard the Hitless Miss at the rigs, caught a 29 1/2-pound yellowtail.

Pat Gallagher of Hawthorne, aboard the Jeanne at the flats, caught a 28-pound halibut.