photo courtesy of wikipedia
Where have all the sardines gone? Is it a cyclical thing, are our local waters too cold? One thing we need to realize as fishermen is our fishing tactics may need to change with more squid and anchovies in the picture?
photo courtesy of wikipedia
Where have all the sardines gone? Is it a cyclical thing, are our local waters too cold? One thing we need to realize as fishermen is our fishing tactics may need to change with more squid and anchovies in the picture?
flies, sand & surf 
Thanks for the link, Al. I can personally attest to the abundance of anchovy in our local waters over the past few months. In fact, early Sunday AM I ran my skiff across a school in the dark that was no less than 200 yards long and top to bottom solid red on the sonar. Its no coincidence that we also see improved bonito fishing both locally and Catalina as well. The presence of this kind of bait bodes well for our spring/summer fishing for the other two of the 3B’s, the barracuda and bass as well! Good times ahead!
I haven’t noticed a fall in sardine populations in the San Diego area. Often you find huge schools that are not even bothered by predators. I used to worry that the tuna farms off the Coronado’s were netting them in excess to feed the tuna pens but those operation have diminished. last yea there were few anchovies. I hope Glenn is right. The one thing I have noticed is that our sardines seem much larger than years past. Right now there is a good YT bite deep off the Coronado that are fish keyed on something other than sardines because they are leaving the liv bait untouched. I’m looking forward to summer as well Glenn. I hope those 17 lb bonito return soon that would be cool.
It seems that the sardine/anchovy populations are on a lot of minds – here is another interesting article that cites a recent reconstruction by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/why-west-coast-sea-life-is-so-wacky-right-now/283003/
great follow up article Steve!
Good one Al