First Gray Whale Spotted and Good Wintertime Bass

The abundance of live squid for bait is making for some excellent wintertime surface fishing. The availability of market squid in our waters has truly been amazing and may well be tied in to the cooler water temperatures that have prevailed for the past two years in our local waters. The commercial squid quota was met for the first time ever in 2010. This year, the quota will be met a year earlier on November 18.

The half-day boat Clemente out of Dana Wharf Sportfishing had 100 sand bass recently with the three-quarter day Sum Fun registered a mixed bag catch of calico bass, sand bass, sheepshead, and perch. There has also been some nice halibut taken recently. On Tuesday, the Landing reported 55 anglers on two boats taking 64 calico bass, 181 sand bass, and some other rockfish. The winter catch was arguably better than the summertime bite.

Joey Engel from San Juan Capistrano fished on the Sum Fun and posted on Facebook that it was epic fishing. He wrote that fishing was great and that small strips of squid really worked well if you were after a sheepshead.

Because most of the bass biting are taken on wrecks, twenty-five to forty pound test is advisable. You really need to pull hard on these bass to get them out of an environment that is not very kind to fishing line.

Don Ashley from Pierpoint Landing is also reporting good local bass fishing at times on the local wrecks off Long Beach while halibut continue to be taken inside Long Beach Harbor with great regularity.

The Santa Monica Bay has also been a good venue for rockfish. The half-day boat Redondo Special is running a weekday special of only $30 per person as well as providing an entire months free fishing to the angler who catches the largest the largest lingcod in November.

Marina del Rey Sportfishing continues to catch a mix of sand bass and rockfish with some nice lingcod from time to time. The Spitfire reported 14 anglers on Tuesday taking limits of sculpin, near limits of rockfish and 5 nice lingcod.

While rockfish catches continue to dominate the Southern California scene, there is still some great surface fishing for you to take advantage of. Watch the weather as another front is headed our way for this weekend.

The first reported sighting of a gray whale took place aboard the Sum Fun earlier this week near Dana Point. Pacific gray whales migrate each fall and winter from Arctic waters to Baja California's lagoons for the calving and nursing season. The leviathans travel more than 12.000 miles in this incredible journey. Gray whales exhibit a feeding pattern that is unique among whales. They turn on their sides and consume bottom-dwelling crustaceans and krill while scooping up huge amounts of sediment from the sea floor.

 Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a researcher who conducts the annual ASC-LA Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project from the Point Vicente Interpretive Center on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.  The researcher is in need of volunteers for this year's Census and Behavior project and will conduct orientation meetings Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center. For more information phone Schulman-Janiger at (310) 519-8963 or email her at Janiger@cox.net