It’s been another week of mediocre fishing for Southern California anglers. I’m not sure if it was due to weather on the outside, or the fact that there were some yellows biting down at Colonet, but it doesn’t seem like anyone went looking for those tuna that were off Ensenada last week. Are they still around? Probably, but if no one runs goes out there looking for them, they’ll simply exist in a state of quantum superposition similar to that of the late Schrodinger’s cat. I’m sure that at some point someone will go out there and open the box, putting an end to the bite being simultaneously alive and dead. But until then we can all ponder the hypothesis in hopes of distracting ourselves from the fact that the big news this week is that the sculpin are biting.
Not a big fan of sculpin fishing? Join the club. The good news is that most of the boats are getting them as by-catch while targeting sand bass and calicos with a leadhead and squid. While this is significantly less horrible than fishing them on a double dropper loop in 200-feet of water, it’s still sculpin fishing so take that for what it’s worth. In regards to the bass fishing, I’d call it okay to pretty good depending on the trip but it’s not wide open. In fact, I’d wager that the average angler will lose more leadheads on a trip than they will end up with bass in their bags.
If you really want to get depressed about your fishing options, take a look at this week’s Navionics Chart. We’ve got a 130-mile stretch of sculpin and sand bass biting along the coast, some rockfish below the border and then some yellows biting 120-miles south of there. Hooray, it’s January!
On the bright side, we’ve got some decent weather in the forecast after this little front blows through on Thursday afternoon. We’ve also got a full moon happening on Friday night which will hopefully have a positive impact on the yellowtail bite that’s happening at Colonet. Over the weekend, every boat that fished down there caught yellows but I don’t think any of them broke 20 fish. If the full moon doesn’t help the yellowtail bite down there, maybe one or more of the boats will be prompted to poke their noses outside and see how the bluefin liked the lunar cycle. 
I’m not sure what the full moon is going to do for up this way but it might help with those yellows that have been hanging around Point Loma and La Jolla the last month. Also, the offshore water in Orange County still looks okay and still has lots of bait so we can all keep our fingers crossed that some of those holdover bluefin pop up. As for me, I’m going to be fishing the SBS spotted bay bass tournament in San Diego on Saturday. If you’re not doing anything you should hook up your boat and come down and fish it. That’s it for this week. I’m hoping to be back with better news next time.
