WTF Happened to La Jolla!
 

Went to La Jolla on Saturday to fish for Calico bass--haven't been there since 10/2020. It was shocking how barren it looked and fished. I know the kelp has taken some hits all along the coast but this was terrible. It used to be so thick at the point you could never get through it in a Hobie with the drive down. Saturday there were just a few half-dead looking stringers and even those were hard to find. It wasn't a matter of the current pushing the kelp down--there wasn't that much current and no kelp on the sonar.
The signs that used to give you hope that something was about to happen like bait boiling, birds working the area, smelt skipping through the kelp getting chased by something none of it was there. Whine, Whine, Whine--I know it was only one day but it was depressing to see La Jolla looking so lifeless.:(

X2. I too was there on Saturday. Just so tired of the Crazy weather patterns in San Diego or up in the mountain were I live. I can't believe it had been 5 mo and 6 days since my last trip to LJ. I used to be able to hit LJ at least once a week. I have been saying that very thing about the Kelp being gone for more than 2 years. Having the effect, that it took out the whole Eco System that supported the food chain that all the fish need. When you don't have a Habitad, you don't have much LIFE. I read that the Scientist have been studying it, because it's affecting much of the West Coast.

Missing Kelp
 

1. A couple of years ago, maybe more, there was a big die off of starfish. Those starfish ate the urchins the feed on the kelp, left unchecked they ravaged the forests.

2. We had a couple of years of very warm water, too warm for the kelp, so that also contributed to it's demise.

I've experienced the same in Dana Point, there used to be massive beds of kelp that you couldn't get through in a kayak even, it's barren now. Although I've seen some signs of a recovery, it'll take a long time to get back to where it was, if it can. To go along with that there's been a big drop in the fishing, one can barely catch a bass these days.

I have been hearing that explanation also for some time. What does not make sense, is that there used to be Urchin commercial dive boats in LJ all the time when I was out there. Now most have relocated to the North like Oregon up to Alaska, because there were fewer than was commercially profitable. It's not as some are going to say, anything with Politics in California or price of commercial fishing license. It's signs of the huge Ecological System problem that, humans make worse with industrial waste management. Just look at Florida and all the problems they have from the fertilizers that make their way, into the rivers and eventually the Ocean.

Fishy fishy....
 

I predict that new hobie fishing kayak sale will go down.

fishing limit/ season is cut short, catch is down, yellowtail disappeared.

Craigslist kayak sale will be up !

Just because La Jolla isn’t the same doesn’t mean there aren’t fish out there. Still plenty of fish to catch and spots to fish.

The urchins definitely played a roll. I’m no expert but I think the commercial guys harvest the red urchin and SoCal is now full of purple urchin. They also want the eggs and when there’s not a lot of food the urchins go dormant and don’t reproduce.

Never fished in Baja?


Not a lot of kelp gulfside, but yellowtail aplenty. Easy to catch too.

I wouldn't mind seeing kayak resale prices go down since I'm in the market for my first one right now. It sucks about the kelp situation and I don't think anyone knows the exact answers. There's still lots of yellowtail around- offshore I think it's better than it was when I used to fish back in the 90's, but obviously offshore isn't as accessible for kayak anglers. Of course there's still lots of nice rocky reefs and outcroppings to target