Word was blowing up that the Bluefin moved in real tight to Oceanside earlier this week, 30-100# grade. Then yesterday it popped open right in front of Newport between 1 and 5 miles from the harbor mouth. Then somebody caught a 20# bull dorado in front of Newport. There went any chance I was gonna be able to get any sleep. I couldn't have gotten more than 2 hours of sleep last night because I couldn't stop thinking about how a 70# BFT would look on the floor of my boat.
I broke down last night and subscribed to Terra Fin for temp and chlorophyll charts. I spent some time last night pretending I could make heads and tails of the charts, and formed my route. People were speculating that the fish would move north over to Palos Verdes and beyond today, but I felt like Newport Canyon should be able to hold fish for at least one more day. There were already some fish caught yesterday in Long Beach and I imagined that particular school was most certainly long gone.
I drove down and launched out of Huntington Harbor this morning about 0700, because I can't stand launching in Newport and having to idle 45 minutes through the entire harbor. Plus, I could start further west of where the action was yesterday and make my way toward it, hopefully meeting some foamers along the way. I thought the boat ramp would be packed with people playing hooky to chase the odd coastal bluefin, but it looked like a standard weekday.
I made my way out to the edge of the Huntington Flat, starting at the Mussel Farm and then searching my way east along the ridge. Absolutely gorgeous day.
I wasn't seeing the foamers that people were seeing the last couple days. I saw a number of large flocks of terns resting, glancing over at me as if to say "ay, shoulda been here yesterday!"
I made my way to the Newport Canyon area and found about a dozen other boats idling around, with no obvious action going on. My fish finder wasn't giving me any usable readings so I figured my only option was to mooch off of other boats' action or hunt down a foamer for myself. With every boat generally aimless, I decided to keep searching. So I kept motoring on down the ridge, all the way to Laguna beach, before turning around and searching a mile further outside. When I got back to the Newport area, all the boats had left. Radio chatter seemed to say that some might have happened upon a school swimming deep, but nothing to get worked up about.
I cut through the flat and decided to take a look at Izor's to see if there were at least any cuda around. Wet a line for the first time at noon, and still couldn't find any birds/bait/decent marks at the reef. Nada! So I headed in. And realized 1/4 mile into the harbor that I accidentally headed into Alamitos Bay instead of Huntington...they're too close together.
I think this pic accurately represents my current neck pain.
DFW surveyor told me that nobody was coming back with tuna. Glad I wasn't the only one struggling. Some thought it might be an afternoon bite, but I didn't have enough sleep under my belt to withstand any more more aluminum bench travel.
I'm curious how the coastal tuna play out in the coming days, weeks, and months. I didn't think anything like this would happen until September. Now I'll be on the edge of my seat all summer.
