TUNA TOWN
by Gundy Gunderson for Western Outdoors
Fall weather brings the warmest water of the year to Southern California's fishing grounds. Follow these tips to get your best show at yellowfin tuna.
As summertime wanes and fall approaches, the waters off the Southern California coast reach their warmest levels. Through this warm water, swims one of the most highly prized local catches, the yellowfin tuna. It is with great zeal local anglers pursue these fish and for good reason. Yellowfin are hard fighters and excellent table fare. But once north of the border, the typically aggressive feeding tunas behave very differently. For many anglers, it is a time of great frustration.
Unfortunately, the prevailing characteristic of these northernmost tuna is that they are hard to catch. It may be due to fishing pressure both commercial and sport, some theorize, as they migrate through the Mexican seiners, the San Diego multi-day and day fleet and the private yacht fleet. They become boat-shy, line shy and hook shy.
Another theory is that these fish intermingle in the cooler bait-rich northern waters. With fall's warm water fingering up into the San Pedro Channel, pushing into the hundred fathom curve and mingling with cooler waters, the yellowfin encounter rich feeding grounds. Once they get on the local feedbag, it's hard to get their attention.
A few years back, I was cutting a local tuna caught along the hundred fathom curve and I examined the stomach contents. I found a potpourri of items including anchovy, sardine, tuna crabs, squid, two trumpet fish and a 10-inch octopus. The fish weighed thirty-five pounds. Fishing pressure and plentiful feed combine to make these fish notoriously wily. For whatever reason, the tuna we encounter in local waters can be very challenging. Patience and persistence are your best assets.
There are plenty of ways anglers hook and catch yellowfin in local waters. But on a consistent basis, there are probably three ways anglers encounter most of these local tuna; the first, breaking fish, the second, swimming with the dolphins and the third, schooling under kelp paddies. From the perspective of an angler and a boatman, the ability to master these varied encounters will put more fish on the deck. A combination of fish finding skills, adept boat handling and possessing the ability to hold, chum and fish live bait will result in greater catches of a fish often tough to catch.
Breaking Fish
Local yellowfin tuna show well. When the conditions are right, you can see spot after spot up on bait. But seeing is not catching. Often, when you run on them, they sink out quickly just out of chum and casting range. If you get in a position to throw chum, they'll come up crashing on the chum, eating every bait without a hook in it. Trolling on these fish can also be maddening. The fish seem to rarely hit trolled bait.
