FISHING / DAN STANTON : Water Cools to Low 60s, Chilling Tuna Action for Area Anglers

Winds from the north brought an end the excellent fishing at the Cortez and Tanner banks.

South Bay sportfishing fleets report that the 70-degree water that kept game fish in local waters for most of the summer and fall has dropped into the lower 60s. The tuna have returned south to Mexican waters.

Water temperatures remain slightly above normal, however.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, surface action at Horseshoe Kelp and the oil rigs resulted in limits of large bonito.

The waters of Santa Catalina and San Clemente island produced excellent catches of calico bass and fair catches of yellowtail.

Long Beach Sportfishing’s Reel Special, on the season’s first rock cod trip, reported several anglers catching their limit. Joe Wong of Long Beach caught a 20-pound lingcod.

South Bay Sportfishing landings are scheduling combination surface-rockfish trips this weekend.

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Ralph and Shirley Gunther of Lomita were trolling slowly with a blue and white feather off Point Firmin in a skiff Monday and spotted a kelp paddie with birds feeding on schools of bait fish.

They approached the kelp and cast a hook with a piece of squid, and hooked up with a yellowtail.

As Ralph Gunther was fighting the fish, a seal went after it.

A jet skier sped toward the seal, however, and it fled just as the yellowtail was being brought aboard the boat.

The Gunthers’ fish weighed 18 1/4 pounds.

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Cabrillo Marine Museum’s popular Science at the Seashore will be offered Sunday.

Participants will meet in the Museum’s Auditorium and the staff will lead them to nearby Point Firmin’s tide pools, where a variety of sea life will be identified and put on display.

Sea urchins, sea stars and hermit crabs are among animals found in the tide pools.

Information: (310) 540-7563.

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South Bay catches: Steve Beckett of Wilmington, aboard the Sportking at Catalina, caught the whopper of the week: a 28-pound yellowtail.

Al Garcia of Wilmington, aboard the Hitless Miss at the oil rigs, caught a 24-pound yellowtail.

Gume Baiz of Westchester, aboard the Aquarius at Huntington Flats, caught a 19 1/2-pound halibut.

Donald Macklean of Long Beach, aboard the Reel Special at Horseshoe Kelp, caught a 15-pound halibut.