Planning a November trip? Three things I think happen this month, and one piece of advice before you book.
Tuna holds through November. Yellowfin is accelerating, not fading, and skipjack has more than doubled. I would book an offshore trip and expect it to work.
Rockfish is the safe play and it has a deadline. Highest rate on the board, and groundfish closes January 1 south of Point Conception. November and December are what is left of the season.
Whitefish is my quiet pick. It nearly doubled in a week and is now the most landed species in Southern California. Nobody books a whitefish trip and they probably should.
And the advice: look north before you default to San Diego. If what you want is a sack of fish, the boats out of Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Long Beach and San Pedro are running more than twice the rate right now.
Each call below comes with what would prove it wrong. First, though, last month's.
The one I got wrong
In October I wrote that the yellowfin window was closing and you should book it before it shut.
It did not shut. Yellowfin is at 1.52 per angler over the last seven days against 1.24 over thirty. It got better. I set my own condition for being wrong, which was yellowfin still above 1.0 at the end of October, and it cleared that easily.
So that is one call wrong, in the direction I would rather be wrong in.
Why I would look north this month
This is the thing in this month's numbers I would not have guessed.
Fish per angler by landing, last seven days:
| Landing | Fish | Per angler |
|---|---|---|
| Stardust, Santa Barbara | 1,700 | 14.3 |
| Long Beach | 2,200 | 11.0 |
| Channel Islands, Oxnard | 3,000 | 10.9 |
| Morro Bay | 540 | 10.6 |
| 22nd Street, San Pedro | 1,600 | 9.2 |
| Patriot, Avila Beach | 495 | 6.2 |
| Fisherman's, San Diego | 1,100 | 5.7 |
| Point Loma, San Diego | 448 | 5.0 |
| Davey's Locker, Newport | 2,200 | 4.6 |
| LA Harbor | 165 | 4.5 |
| H&M, San Diego | 1,900 | 4.3 |
| Marina Del Rey | 1,400 | 3.8 |
| Oceanside | 595 | 3.8 |
| Seaforth, San Diego | 3,900 | 3.7 |
| Dana Wharf | 1,500 | 3.4 |
Hook's Landing in Ventura shows 20.0 per angler but reported only one day last week, and Redondo Beach shows 3.5 on one day. Too thin to rank.
The San Diego landings sit low on the board. Seaforth put up the most fish of anyone, 3,900, and the second-lowest rate.
That is not San Diego fishing badly. It is a different kind of trip. San Diego boats are running long offshore trips for tuna, where thirty anglers split a few hundred fish over two days. The northern landings are fishing closer structure for rockfish and whitefish, where a half day can put a dozen fish in front of every person on the rail.
Both are good trips. But if what you want is a full sack, the boats out of Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Long Beach and San Pedro are the ones doing it right now.
The boat behind the number
Take the Freedom, out of 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro. Two trips last week, 48 anglers, 761 fish. 15.9 per angler, fifth best in the region.
Go back one more day and it gets better. On October 27 it ran a 1.5 day and came back with 566 fish for 28 anglers, including 280 whitefish and 56 sheephead.
It is worth saying what the Freedom is not doing. It is not the top-scoring boat on our board. That is the Blackfish out of Davey's Locker, which put 82 tuna on the deck for five anglers on a single Full Day. Our score weights trophy species heavily, and tuna counts for far more than rockfish.
Which is sort of the point.
What it catches matters as much as how much. Across the last two trips: 388 rockfish at 8.08 per angler, 267 whitefish at 5.56, 60 sheephead, 44 yellowtail. One yellowfin and one dorado, almost incidentally.
No tuna run. No long range to the banks. Local structure, rockfish and whitefish, and a sack of fish for everyone on board.
That is this month in one boat, and it will not top a leaderboard built for tuna.
Where the fleet is on species
Last seven days, across 17 reporting landings.
| Species | Fish | 7 days | 30 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whitefish | 4,900 | 2.46 | 1.29 |
| Rockfish | 4,000 | 2.61 | 2.68 |
| Yellowfin tuna | 4,000 | 1.52 | 1.24 |
| Skipjack tuna | 3,500 | 1.30 | 0.52 |
| Calico bass | 1,600 | 0.69 | 0.58 |
| Sculpin | 932 | 0.57 | 0.29 |
| Bonito | 814 | 0.31 | 0.33 |
| Sand bass | 728 | 0.34 | 0.24 |
| Bullet tuna | 674 | 0.39 | 0.40 |
These are landing-wide rates: every fish of a species divided by every angler who sailed from a landing that reported one. A boat targeting a species usually beats the number shown.
Spiny lobster sits apart. On the ten hoop net trips reported last week it ran 5.14 per angler, because those are dedicated trips rather than a dock average.
Three calls for November
1. Tuna holds through the month
Yellowfin is up, not down. Skipjack has more than doubled, 0.52 over thirty days to 1.30 over seven. Between them that is 7,500 fish last week.
The water has not cooled enough to push them out, and nothing in the counts suggests a collapse like bluefin had on September 12. Bullet tuna is still at 0.39, which tells you the warm water species have not packed up.
The boats doing it are out of San Diego, Newport and Dana Point on overnight and 1.5 day runs.
What would prove me wrong: yellowfin below 0.70 by the end of November, or two straight weeks of decline. A real cold push would show up in skipjack first.
2. Rockfish is the safe play, and it has a deadline
Rockfish is the highest rate on the board at 2.61 per angler and has been the most reliable species all autumn.
It also has a date on it. Boat-based groundfish closes in the Southern California management area on January 1, and south of Point Conception the nearshore group has been closed since October 1. The boats on rockfish now are working deeper water outside 50 fathoms.
November and December are what is left. The northern landings are where the rates are best.
Check CDFW before you go. Regulations change and I am not the authority on them.
What would prove me wrong: rates dropping below 2.0 through November, which would mean the deeper water is not producing the way the shallow grounds did.
3. Whitefish is the fish nobody books a trip for
Whitefish went from 1.29 per angler over thirty days to 2.46 over seven. It nearly doubled. At 4,900 fish last week it is the most-landed species in Southern California.
Nobody books a whitefish trip. It is what you catch on a rockfish day when the rockfish are slow, and most anglers treat it as filler.
It is better than that. Ocean whitefish is firm and mild, and that bit of extra firmness is what makes it useful. It grills and pan fries without falling apart, it makes very good tacos, and it holds up to a ceviche cure instead of going to mush the way a softer fish does. And it is a large part of why the northern landings are putting up the rates they are.
The bag limit is 10 whitefish per person, inside the general 20 finfish limit. On the Freedom's October 27 trip, 28 anglers brought back 280 of them.
What would prove me wrong: whitefish under 1.5 per angler by the end of the month, which would mean last week was one good stretch rather than a trend.
What is fading
Yellowtail. 0.11 per angler over seven days against 0.20 over thirty. Still showing up on 45 landing-days last week, 279 fish, so it has not gone anywhere. The rate has just halved, and nothing in the counts suggests it turns in November.
Bluefin. In October I said it would come back as the water cooled. It has not. The bite that stopped on September 12 has not restarted and November is late for it. I am not calling that again until the counts move.
Still out there
Barracuda is up, and it is worth knowing where. 0.30 per angler over seven days against 0.14 over thirty, 292 fish. But it is concentrated rather than fleet-wide. Fisherman's Landing had 82 of them on one day, October 31, at 2.1 per angler. H&M had 129 across four days, most of it on October 30 and 31. Oceanside had 50.
Strip out the Fisherman's day and the rest still runs at 0.23, well above the month. So it is real. It is just happening in San Diego and Oceanside, and barely anywhere else.
Which is the thing to watch with any rate like this. A region-wide number can be one landing having a week.
Wahoo is scattered but real. 12 fish across five landing-days last week, 200 over the month. Nobody is running a wahoo trip, but they are still being caught on the offshore runs.
Dorado is nearly done. 113 fish last week at 0.09, down from 0.14 over thirty days, and 80 of those 113 came from Seaforth on a single day. Late for them, and they will go before the yellowfin does.
Lingcod is quietly good. 0.27 per angler over seven days, slightly up on the month. It closes January 1 along with the rest of the groundfish, so the same window applies.
Trips worth looking at, by where you are
Categories rather than specific departures, because seats move and a trip named today may be gone by Thursday. All of these are on the site with live pricing and open seats.
Central Coast. Morro Bay is at 9.9 per angler on rockfish alone, 10.6 overall. Patriot out of Avila Beach is at 5.7 on rockfish. Short runs, cold water. Both sit in the Central management area, which also closes January 1, but is open at all depths rather than the 50 fathom rule that applies down south.
Santa Barbara and Ventura. Stardust leads the whole region at 14.3 per angler. Channel Islands out of Oxnard is at 10.9 across 3,000 fish, the most of any northern landing. Island trips to Santa Cruz and Anacapa.
Los Angeles and San Pedro. Long Beach at 11.0 and 22nd Street at 9.2. Both are running three-quarter, full day and 1.5 day trips to the local banks and Catalina, and the rates are as good as anywhere in the region. The Freedom out of 22nd Street is fifth in the region on fish per angler this week.
Orange County. Davey's Locker at 4.6 and Dana Wharf at 3.4, with a mix of local half days and offshore runs.
San Diego. Lower per angler because the trips are longer and offshore. This is where the tuna is. Fisherman's, Point Loma, Seaforth and H&M all run overnight and multi day trips.
For a first trip, anywhere. A half day out of Long Beach, Newport, San Pedro or Redondo. Calico bass is at 0.69, sculpin is up to 0.57, and you are home by early afternoon.
For something different. A hoop net trip. Four in ten came back with limits since the opener and there are only one or two a night in the whole region. The season runs to March 17.
Every trip, with current prices and open seats, is at findyournextcatch.com/trips.
How to check my work
Every number here comes from our own fish counts, pulled each morning from SoCal landings, and you can see the same data at /intel. The seven and thirty day windows are as of November 4.
I got October's yellowfin call wrong. I would rather put the calls in writing and be held to them than publish a forecast nobody can check.
See you in December.