Local ocean water temps have been spiking over the last week, due to various factors including hot air, lots of sunshine, little wind along the coast, very little upwelling of cool water and a northward push of warm water from the south.
This is happening a bit earlier than usual and more dramatically than usual.
Just off Santa Barbara recently, I’ve noted water temps of 73 degrees on the surface during the middle of the day and on one occasion late in the week the temperature broke 74 degrees.
Combined with the influx of baitballs of anchovies that showed up recently, the stage is set for warm water species to show up, and anglers are excited.
While fishing aboard my charter boat WaveWalker this week, I’ve been treating my passengers to a wild calico bass bite, then trolling out to the 4-Mile reef zone picking up a few barracuda along the way, and finally fishing the reef for big red snapper, bocaccio, olive rockfish and blue rockfish.
The open-party sportboat Stardust was also fishing reef zones locally when a surprising fish came aboard. It was a gold spotted sandbass and what made it a startling catch was that none of us local captains can ever remember one being caught here before.
It is a fish that inhabits reef zones of the Sea of Cortez, well down along the Mexican mainland and part way up along the Pacific side of Baja California. But never to our knowledge has one been caught this far north.
That fish was hundreds of miles north of its traditional range.
As soon as it came onboard, Capt. Dane Johnston got ahold of Capt. Merit McCrea, who is a marine biologist as well as a fishing captain.
McCrea identified the fish from a texted picture and sent the info to Milton Love of UCSB’s Love Lab, who is wiring it in to the fish identification book he is updating for the California Department of Fish & Wildlife.
The geographic range of the fish is being updated to accept the reality of its presence locally, even if it may be because it moved northward with warming water.
It is good to give our marine sciences professionals good and current information, so they can keep good records and add it to their ongoing research.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
