Where are the yellowtail we used to see

[alwaysbendo]

I dunno where you’re looking but there’s still lots of yellowtail.. most boats fish bluefin instead of the islands. And like usual some years the yellows are close sometimes they’re at the outer islands. Catalina during corona was probably the best year ever

 

[lazyfisherman]

Yellowtail counts don't fill the boats like bluefin counts unless they're limiting out.

 

[sickcat]

Sardine numbers have been pretty low historically speaking for 5-6 years now that has to have some effect on gamefish numbers.

 

[lowprofile]

According to Friedman Adventures, some kid caught a small YT in Redondo King Harbor. Reported this morning, check out his video

Last year between this time and November they were catching Yt off the docks in redondo and MDR. Everyone just had the sense not to post about it until later.

 

[Invictus]

Sardine numbers have been pretty low historically speaking for 5-6 years now that has to have some effect on gamefish numbers.

Cycles, tonnage of microbait keeping the tuna mass here. Sauries as well.

I also remember hearing about the mythical sardine on sport boats and how they were “YT Crack”. Last decade, almost all sardine.

 

[bigboils]

Late 90's caught YT like crazy Horseshoe Kelp and Dana off Domes, Santa Monica Bay limits WSB in 40-50 lb class right off beach few days. Had a Boston Whaler then and ironically ended up divorced and broke about the same time...lol

 

[Surfisher23]

My take - I think there’s 2 things going on with why we aren’t seeing the volume we have used to but I’m not a scientist ha.

First being the sportboats absolutely butt f*** the population of fish spawning on kelps in the spring and late fall. Think of all the 5-10lb fish that get caught that don’t get the chance to spawn and push into our coastal waters. The limit should only be 5 OVER 24”. I also heard the Mex seiners wrap it pretty good down below now too.

Second is the coastal kelp is having a hard time growing back. I heard this was due to the urchin population blowing up. Lack of kelp left sheepshead vulnerable to being caught easier and in numbers and they keep urchin in check.

 

[ctmfish]

No one has mentioned that the Long Beach/Huntington Beach area the local commercial gillnet boats regularly work the 4-6 mile range specifically for white seabass and yellowtail, although the claim from DFG is that rod and reel take about the same or more than commercial.

 

[barredsurfperch]

I think since covid a lot of the older more experienced anglers either finally bought themselves a boat, or up and moved out of state, leaving open party boats full of less capable anglers. Maybe that's just my perception.

 

[sickcat]

No one has mentioned that the Long Beach/Huntington Beach area the local commercial long line boats regularly work the 4-6 mile range specifically for white seabass and yellowtail, although the claim from DFG is that rod and reel take about the same or more than commercial.

Longliners or gill nets?

 

[sickcat]

My take - I think there’s 2 things going on with why we aren’t seeing the volume we have used to but I’m not a scientist ha.

First being the sportboats absolutely butt f*** the population of fish spawning on kelps in the spring and late fall. Think of all the 5-10lb fish that get caught that don’t get the chance to spawn and push into our coastal waters. The limit should only be 5 OVER 24”. I also heard the Mex seiners wrap it pretty good down below now too.

Second is the coastal kelp is having a hard time growing back. I heard this was due to the urchin population blowing up. Lack of kelp left sheepshead vulnerable to being caught easier and in numbers and they keep urchin in check.

+1 on a 5 fish/24" minimum limit.


They spawn in the winter. They are trying to grow offshore on the kelp paddies. Well, grow while not being eaten.

 

[jer dog]

Yep, killing rats is not cool.

 

[ctmfish]

Longliners or gill nets?

I meant gillnets, corrected, thanks

 

[Ali]

A lot of these fish are being caught in nets on their way up the coast. The mexican bait boats that feed the pens will set on a school of yellows if the opportunity arises.

This combined with the tonnage of bait being taken out of the water to feed the penfish is my best guess.

We grew up tossing surface iron to massive schools of yellows from the the nados to descanso and those days have been gone for about 6 years now.

I pray it's cyclical, but fear the worst.

 

[azarkon]

We the tax payers employ people who's full time job is to answer this question, and sometimes they make graphs for us dummies to look at

My take: a peak in landings will be followed by a decline in landings, both because of lessened reproductive capability of the species since a lot got killed, and also the cyclical nature of water temperatures which expands and contracts the range and volume of the fish into southern California. There's also ocean factors outside of our control (and understanding) that effect "recruitment"- the ability of fertilized fish eggs/larvae/fry to grow into adult fish.

View attachment 1511559

Numbers are one thing, the other is the amount of boats fishing. In 1995 there was probably a fifth of the boats we have today, so even if the recruitment numbers are the same, each boat would see a fifth of the catch.

Unless you can magically get wild fish populations to scale to human population growth, there’s no going back, period. More people = less wild life to go around. That’s why we farm, because you actually can scale that.

 

[azarkon]

+1 on a 5 fish/24" minimum limit.


They spawn in the winter. They are trying to grow offshore on the kelp paddies. Well, grow while not being eaten.

Rat catch numbers really are insignificant compared to the larger picture which is yellows being wrapped by commercials and getting caught in gill nets. I can’t believe people here buy into this narrative when the party boat numbers are public. It’s really easy to count how many rats are caught each year if you took the time to do it in the late fall months when it happens.

Like all species of fish, mortality rate of young fish is high regardless of fishing, so the chances of that rat growing into an adult yellow is actually relatively low. So a couple thousand rats being caught translates to maybe several hundred missing adults, which is trivial compared to the massive tons wrapped by commercials in Mexico. Putting a 5/24” limit on yellows would just mean party boats go slaughter rock fish instead, hardly what you want to see happen.

 

[sickcat]

Rat catch numbers really are insignificant compared to the larger picture which is yellows being wrapped by commercials and getting caught in gill nets. I can’t believe people here buy into this narrative when the party boat numbers are public. It’s really easy to count how many rats are caught each year if you took the time to do it in the late fall months when it happens.

Like all species of fish, mortality rate of young fish is high regardless of fishing, so the chances of that rat growing into an adult yellow is actually relatively low. So a couple thousand rats being caught translates to maybe several hundred missing adults, which is trivial compared to the massive tons wrapped by commercials in Mexico. Putting a 5/24” limit on yellows would just mean party boats go slaughter rock fish instead, hardly what you want to see happen.

I think a 5 @ 24" limit is a good idea just because how many YT does a person need? I understand the biology and that not taking sub 24" fish doesn't affect the population much. That said it can't hurt.

As for a lower YT limit pushing sporties to fish more rockfish it might increase pressure on rockfish a little but not much. Summertime offshore trips wouldn't change much if at all and trips fishing the islands and down the coast hit rockfish already. Add to that the regs, here in the states at least, have rockfish covered pretty well.

I hear there has been increasing commercial take in MX in the last few years. Not easy to get good numbers on that. That take does certainly affect the local population some. Some of that has gone on basically forever so the only change is how much has that pressure increased over the historical baseline. My guess is not a huge amount. It is not the biggest factor though, conditions are. Coming out of 3 years of La Nina into a pathetic El Nino it seems to me that we are having a somewhat "cool" summer season so far at least. I'll bet you noticed that pretty cold upwelling along some the coast post Hillary.

Good news is conditions will change and YT are pretty quick to grow and mature.

 

[todd m miller]

You mean like the huge Sand Bass counts we’d see in the summer?

Huge sand bass counts off IB flats, during the spawn. Yeah maybe we shouldn't have caught so many. And the giant Humboldt squid for three years in a row. Been many years ago. Everything cycles around. Barracuda are back!! Never had dodos until last couple years. Even catching dodo up here off oregon coast!!

 

[Noms]

I see plenty of adult yellowtail and white seabass coming in at work. All from Baja.
Rarely see any number of the same size coming from local fisherman. I'm too young and dumb to know what exactly that means. I never got a chance to fish past 2016.

 

[tbev]

To think that the sport boats are putting a dent in anything while the netters (seiners and MX pen farmers) are doing their thing is crazy to me.

 

[Surfisher23]

To think that the sport boats are putting a dent in anything while the netters (seiners and MX pen farmers) are doing their thing is crazy to me.

Idk, when covid hit and the sporties couldn't get off the dock the fishing was pretty fucking incredible at the Nados with 0 pressure from the big boats.

 

[sickcat]

To think that the sport boats are putting a dent in anything while the netters (seiners and MX pen farmers) are doing their thing is crazy to me.

Certainly recs impact is much smaller but there still is some "dent".

A few simple calcs for BFT in U.S. waters here on the west coast. Commercial take is under 500mt or 1,100,000 pounds. Figuring 60lb average per fish thats just over 9166 2 fish limits. If you said there were 25 people on a sporty that would be 366 trips. I pulled the 60lb average out of my butt so plug in what ever average you like - there is still a rec impact.

I totally get that sportfishing is not the problem when it comes to Pacific BFT. There is still an impact that should be (and is) accounted for. Look at the take of a number of rockfish since we took a lot of the commercial pressure away here in CA. Recreational take is the biggest take now.

 

[barredsurfperch]

Idk, when covid hit and the sporties couldn't get off the dock the fishing was pretty fucking incredible at the Nados with 0 pressure from the big boats.

I think the sportfishry just pressures the fish more than anything, look at bass lakes, very few people keep them, but watch how when lakes get popular catches go down.

 

[omarkayak]

I think the sportfishry just pressures the fish more than anything, look at bass lakes, very few people keep them, but watch how when lakes get popular catches go down.

Oh, see, and here all along I thought it was because I especially suck at green bass fishing!