San Diego Fish Counts Explained: Landings, Boats, and What the Numbers Mean

San Diego posts fish counts from four landings and dozens of boats, every day of the year. That is a lot of numbers. This guide explains where they come from, what the trip types mean here, how to read the yearly table, and where each count lives on Fish City.

The four landings that publish counts

Every San Diego count starts at one of four landings. Each one has its own count page on Fish City with the week's total in the title, a species-by-day table, the boats, and yearly totals back to 2022.

• Seaforth Sportfishing, on Mission Bay. The one landing not on the Point Loma side of town.
• H&M Landing, on the Point Loma waterfront.
• Fisherman's Landing, next door to H&M.
• Point Loma Sportfishing, the third landing on the same stretch.

The San Diego fish counts page is the index of those four: the city's seven-day total, each landing's share, species by day, and the latest trips.

How a San Diego count gets to Fish City

A boat returns, the landing posts the trip's count, and Fish City compiles it with every other landing report in the state. The count pages refresh daily. The boat's own page gets the trip; the landing page and the city page add it to their totals; the species pages update "where it is biting this week." Same report, four places to read it.

We do not edit dock reports. If the landing posted 40 calico bass released and 8 kept, that is what you see. New to the vocabulary? Start with How to Read a Fish Count.

Trip types in San Diego

San Diego runs everything from half-day trips to multi-day trips, and the length is the biggest clue to what a count will contain.

• 1/2 Day AM, PM, and Twilight. The Point Loma kelp and the bay: calico bass, sand bass, sculpin, rockfish, and barracuda and bonito when the water warms.
• 3/4 Day and Full Day Coronado Islands. The Coronado Islands, a short run south into Mexican water. Yellowtail is the headline; calico bass, barracuda, and bonito fill the count. Boats fishing Mexico need everyone aboard to carry a Mexican fishing license, which the landing sells.
• Full Day Offshore, Overnight, 1.5 Day. The tuna grounds. Bluefin tuna, yellowfin, yellowtail, and dorado in season. Counts on these trips swing hard from boat to boat and day to day, so read several before you book.
• 2 Day and longer. More fishing days, further south. Compare like with like: a 3 Day count against other 3 Day counts.

For hours, prices, and what to bring, see the San Diego charter guide. For when each species runs, see San Diego fishing seasons, which is derived from these same counts.

Reading the yearly table

The city page and every landing and boat page carry a "Fish Counts by Year" table. Here is San Diego's, straight from the same data the pages use.

Three things to know when you read it. First, the current year is partial; it only runs through the latest report on file, so do not compare it with a finished year until December. Second, "trips" counts reported trips, not boats, so a year with fewer trips and more fish means fuller loads or a better bite, and you need the species column to tell which. Third, the top species column shifts with the water. A year where a pelagic sits on top was a warm-water year; a year led by rockfish and calico bass was a year the fleet fished closer to home. The monthly breakdown under each year on the city page shows when the switch happened.

Species by day

Under the totals, the San Diego page shows a table of species down the side and the last seven days across the top. That is the fastest read of the week. A species whose row fills in from left to right is building. A species that showed once and vanished was a passing school. A row that is only released fish means they are there but small.

What the numbers do not tell you

A count does not say how big the fish were, where the boat fished, what the weather did, or whether the bite happened in twenty minutes or all day. For that, read the San Diego fish reports from the same boats, and the captain reports called in from the water. The count tells you what came home. The report tells you why.

Where San Diego counts live on Fish City

• San Diego fish counts: the city index, species by day, landing shares, latest trips.
• The four landing pages linked above: each landing's week, its boats, and its years.
• Boat pages, one per boat, reached from any landing page: recent trips and counts by year.
• Yellowtail, bluefin tuna, calico bass, and every other species page: where that fish is biting this week, with San Diego's landings in the list when they reported it.