San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

As I have mentioned in adjacent topic last week we went fishing at Bahia de LA. Days were mostly sunny with strong afternoon winds that slowed not much in the nights but the mornings were OK. Issak, our panguero was a commercial fisherman occasionally helping Octavio's sport fishing business. We stopped for catching live bait, but only action as on the bottom with some smaller rock-fish species. Several times we stopped for casting near birds feeding at the surface but nothing attacked our jigs. There were other boats too but we didn't see anyone to pull something out of the water. Then we went behind the largest local island, Angel de la Guarda where supposedly was the Yellowtail Alley according to the maps, trolled, Yo-Yo, jigging - nothing.
In the afternoon Issac started to worry that if we return with empty cooler Octavio wouldn't be happy so he got us I guess near to Isla Smith and we started bottom fishing with chunks of the earlier caught rock-fihes. Plenty of pargo and larger rock-fishes at about 150-200 ft, one 5-6 lbs sheephead and one 12-13 lbs tresher shark. Another juvenile shark was carefully released. Sorry, we didn't take any pictures since there wasn't much to brag about. But we still could fill a 50 qt cooler with fish. Water was about 67 - 68 F, greenish-murky and a bit clear behind Punta Arena lighthouse. BTW, I have a question for a reel that I'll publish in the equipment forum.

Nice report, to bad about the yellowtail, but at least you caught some fish. I am doing my first Baja trip in 2 months

May is early July gets hot but is way better.The Fall can be fantastic but the winds return. We stayed on the backside of Guardian Angel Island for Two days, stuck there from a major Chubasco. Our Yellows came from the North Side of the Island, 120 feet deep on live Mackeral. We came across a feeding Sailfish in 68 degree water. I threw a Tady 45 at it and was on for a few wild minutes. I’m now 0-6 on those damn things. Most amazing was the.endless quality sized Spotted Bay Bass in the Bay itself, almost ruining Newport Harbor for me. We also threw Krocodile Spoons at abundant Ladyfish that often jumped higher than any fish I had ever seen.

Yea, Juan Cook has been doing charters in that area and he is posting mostly grouper and cabrilla caught deep dropping knife jigs.