Barracuda Take a Shine to Anglers’ Offerings at Catalina

You wouldn’t want to fall in wearing anything shiny because the barracuda at Catalina Island are in the attacking mood.

And judging from the amount of fish in the water, you wouldn’t have much of a chance.

But if you have a shiny lure or a lively bait, you can catch the feisty fish from dawn to dusk.

So thick are the barracuda along the front side of the island that anglers are getting downright spoiled.

Anglers aboard L.A. Harbor Sportfishing’s Sport King on Tuesday stopped at three locations. At each they found huge schools of barracuda that apparently couldn’t wait to sink their pointy teeth into anything that hit the water.

“Everybody that was around there got ‘em,” said Bruce Root, skipper of the Sport King. “There was a half a mile of fish at times, it was the best it’s been in 10 days. There were probably three football fields worth of fish pushing up bait at times.”

Root’s customers boated 410 barracuda ranging in size from four to eight pounds, and similar counts were reported by other South Bay vessels.

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Not much in the way of variety at Catalina, but there are some white seabass cruising its coast. The Sport King and the Islander out of 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro picked up five apiece Tuesday, including a 22-pounder by Mike Naoe of Gardena, and skippers were reporting a few more on Wednesday.

Root said all the seabass caught aboard the Sport King were hooked on blue and white Tady lures.

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With practically all the offshore action taking place at Catalina, only a few boats have been searching the shores of San Clemente Island, hoping to find the huge schools of yellowtail that were in the area earlier this spring.

The Shogun of L.A. Harbor was there all day Tuesday and its passengers picked up 13 yellowtail, but the fish were relatively small--in the eight-pound range--and believed to be resident fish and not part of the schools breezing through the area in weeks past.

“It seems like they were the same fish that have been there a couple of years,” said Andy Lamp, skipper of the Shogun. “It has been a little while since they really bit really well.”

The trips haven’t been a total waste, however, because anglers have had little or no trouble putting calico bass to four pounds in the sacks.

Locally, the Santa Monica Bay and Horseshoe Kelp have been yielding a fair amount of barracuda, calico bass and sand bass to anglers aboard half-day and twilight boats.

Although it can hardly be termed a wide-open bite, a few skippers--primarily those fishing the bay--were able to put their customers on some sizable schools of fish.

Those on the afternoon half-day trip aboard Malibu Sportfishing’s Aquarius, for example, took 52 sand bass Tuesday, and one fishermen hauled a 17-pound sheephead from the bottom.

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Big fish honors go to Frank McLure of Long Beach, who caught a 36-pound white seabass at Catalina aboard the Shogun. Honorable mention goes to Jeff Mehr of Long Beach, who landed a 25-pound halibut at Horseshoe Kelp aboard Long Beach Sportfishing’s Southern Cal.

Notes

A calico bass-inshore clinic is scheduled for Saturday at Art’s Fishing Tackle in Gardena. Instructors are Greg Stotesbury and Ben Secrest. A fishing trip will follow Sunday. The clinic is free. The trip, aboard L.A. Harbor’s Pacifica, is $85 and space is limited to 25 people. Information: (310) 323-3339. . . . Alondra Park Lake in Torrance is one of eight urban reservoirs that will be stocked monthly with catfish beginning next week. The fish will range from one to two pounds and no limit has been placed on the number that can be taken.