Photo: Fury Sportfishing

The Count

Two weeks ago this chart was a flat line. Last week it went vertical. The kept-fish count went 168 → 46 → 168 → 598 → 594 across the past five weeks, but the kept count understates the actual fishing. Add in the released-but-bit count and you get 268 → 91 → 749 → 1,513 → ~1,500 encounters — a 16× jump off the late-April floor.

The bite is happening on two specific kelp beds: Point Loma Kelp (the Dolphin out of Fisherman's, the Daily Double out of Point Loma Sportfishing) and the La Jolla / Mission Bay kelp stretch (the New Seaforth and Sea Watch out of Seaforth). Both zones are sitting in 66–67°F water with comfortable swell, and both have produced triple-digit weekly kept counts. That's not a fluke trip — it's the entire half-day fleet stacking fish in the same conditions at the same time, with the Daily Double joining the bite in just the last two weeks.

The Coronados are also lit up, by the way — the San Diego full-day pulled 67 calicos as bycatch from a yellowtail/barracuda trip to Coronado Islands last week. Same warm-water pattern, different kelp bed across the border.

The story behind the numbers is the release ratio. The Dolphin's AM and PM trips have been kicking back 2 calicos for every 1 kept. That means anglers are hooking 6–10 calicos per trip and keeping the legal limit of 5 — what people are actually getting on the rail far exceeds what the kept count alone suggests.

Conditions When the Bite Was Hot

The headline condition is water temperature on the kelp itself. The sensor at Scripps Pier in La Jolla — which sits literally on the kelp edge the half-day boats are fishing — reads 66.2°F. A few miles offshore, the Mission Bay buoy reads 67.3°F. Both sit squarely in the 62–70°F band where calicos actively spawn and feed, and both are running about 2°F warmer than the same week in May 2025 (Scripps Pier averaged ~64°F that week, Mission Bay ~65°F). Warmer kelp + healthier kelp canopy (which the warm-but-not-hot range encourages) = more bait, more cover, more calicos staging on the edges. The temp gradient from pier (66.2°F) to offshore buoy (67.3°F) is normal — bias toward the pier reading for kelp habitat decisions because that's where the fish actually are.

The other tailwind is the post-new-moon week. The new moon hit Sunday 5/17 — three nights before the Dolphin's standout 5/18 AM trip on Point Loma Kelp (58 kept, 100 released, plus 2 white seabass up to 20 lb). Post-new-moon nights have the darkest water of the lunar cycle, and that's when squid push onto the kelp edge to spawn. Squid in the area pulls everything — calicos, white seabass, even yellowtail — within striking distance of the half-day fleet. The lunar illumination is now climbing through the week, but the squid push usually persists for 5–7 nights past new moon.

7-Day Forecast

Every day this week is a GO. That's unusual — most weeks have at least one MAYBE or ROUGH day, but the calico story benefits from the same thing that's keeping the offshore bluefin bite alive: a stable high pressure system over the SoCal Bight with light NW winds and a long-period west swell that doesn't bother the inshore kelp boats.

The smart picks: Friday and Saturday AM trips before the wind freshens. Sunday will see the NW build to 10–15 mph in the afternoon — workable, but if you're new to fishing or prone to seasickness, take the AM trip and be home by 1 PM. Memorial Day Monday is the sleeper window — the wind drops back, the kelp gets less pressure because most weekenders are headed home, and the post-new-moon squid push should still be live.

Every condition is either matching or improving on what set up last week's bite. Water is holding at 67°F across the inshore zone, swell is easing through midweek, and the moon is exiting the dark-water phase that drives squid activity — meaning the squid push should be running 5–7 more nights. The only wildcard is Sunday's wind, and even that doesn't change the fundamental story.

What Anglers Are Saying

The white seabass on the calico trips is the bonus story most people are missing. WSB is one of SoCal's premier light-tackle targets — a 20-pound fish is a $1,000-tackle-loadout result for a $90 half-day ticket. The Dolphin hit them on back-to-back trips on 5/18 fishing Point Loma Kelp, the same kelp the calicos are stacking on. If you're already booking a half-day for the calico bite, the WSB shot is a free upgrade — bring one heavier rod (40 lb braid, 30 lb fluoro, sliding-egg sinker on a live mackerel or sardine) and fish it on the bottom while everyone else flylines.

For the broader audience, the New Seaforth's pattern matters: 174 kept calicos over six days of consecutive AM and PM trips, running the kelp drift between La Jolla and Point Loma. That's the most reliable boat on the bite right now — they've been on calicos every single day of the breakout.

Tackle Loadout