North County 4-2-06
 

I figured with the lack of posts about yellowtail recently you BWE regulars might tolerate a bass-fishing post.

Mark and I hit the Fletcher Cove launch in our tandem around 7:45 to paddle through 3-4 foot sets and into glassy-calm conditions. The kelp beds that seemed so prolific off the coast of Del Mar, Solana Beach, and Cardiff last summer have been hard to find the last few weeks. I don't know if the stringers are still there being held down by current or if something actually killed a lot of them off, but it certainly is hard to find the bass habitat these days without sonar assistance.

We managed to find a pretty decent patch between Solana Beach and Cardiff and Mark actually got the first calico on his first cast. A half hour and few fish apiece later I hooked what I thought was a WSB, only to bring this toad to the boat:

http://momentoffame.com/photopost/da...m/IMGP3125.JPG

Biggest Calico I've ever caught or seen - I'm guessing around 9lbs. His mouth was big enough to fit my entire fist in. We snapped a bunch of pictures and then let him go. The rest of the morning was pretty productive with probably a couple dozen calicos and a few sand bass caught between the two of us. About 10:30 the wind picked up and conditions got kind of nasty, but the bite never really slowed down. We found a few mackeral out in deep water and paddled against the wind back to the launch bouncing them along the bottom looking for the halibut that never showed and then called it a day about 1:00.

We saw a lot of schools of bait on the meter when we were away from the kelp and occasionally saw them puddling on the surface, but dropping swimbaits into them never produced anything. Can't wait for the bigger fish to come back in.

Are there any kelp experts around here? Anyone know why it isn't visible in North County right now?

-Chuck

Right on! Thanks for the report...

Kelp-
 

Chuck,

Nice Calico. I would say the big fish did show up for you already.
The red tide of last year may have acted to kill alot of kelp up and down the coast. It totally blocks out the light necessary for healthy kelp. It seems to be worse where the kelp beds were maby a little thin already.
It grows very fast, so I am hoping by mid to late summer it will get thicker. The kelp harvesting co. out of San Diego went out of business, so maby that will help in Point Loma.

Dave

Beautiful Calico. Way to go! Did she taste good? :lol:

Nice fish! I really need to broaden my horizons, and start fishing other places! Kelp was burried under the surface at La Jolla this weekend too in most spots...

Thanks for report,

Chris

Wow....That's a nice fish man. What a trophy.

Last time I paddled down to Wind & Sea in early March to try for calicos I could not find the inner kelp that was there last summer--only thing was a rather narrow band of the outer edge of the kelp. Very wierd.

Besides blocking the sun, the red tide also depletes oxygen from the water for devasting results. My favorite Calico kelp bed at Royal Palms (near Palos Verdes Point) which was so thick last year you couldn't paddle across it is completely gone and along with it the dozen or so 2-6lb Calis I used to pull out in a morning session. I'm am also hopeing that the fast growing kelp will recover by mid summer.

Thanks for the report, Chuck, and nice fish. I think any fish report here is welcome, from surf perch to shark. I wish I could put up a report, but I evidently gave up catching fish for lent. :cry: