"As the Water Cools".....

[THE DARKHORSE]

It isn't winter yet, and the water temps have been bouncing around quite a bit, 62 morning and 65 in the afternoon. I'm certainly no expert when it comes to the O.C., thank goodness . As far as La Jolla goes, we are obviously spoiled, kinda like summer fishing year round . This time of year I tend to focus my time on the other local beaches for the flatkind. Find a sandy beach with bait running the surf, and concentrate your efforts just outside of the surfline. The Halibut zone for me has been around 12', lately, and GPS is king. I went to my spot from last week today, but the conditions were completely different, with murky water from all the surf we've had and windy. I questioned myself after launching late with 18 mph wind (Hobie), and thought about turning back to the car before even making bait (ugly ugly ugly), but went straight to my GPS spot and caught a 32" Halibut on my first bait that hit the bottom, then a barely short WSB and more Halibut in the murk, had fun after all.

La Jolla specifically, something's kinda fishy right now, or I should say not fishy. I know plenty of Yellowtail are around, but they aren't in the mood to play. I really think they are eating a resource out in very deep water that will make capitalizing on the bite a challenge to say the least. Hopefully they switch back to fin-bait soon and traditional methods will produce again, but I'm not holding my breath.

I agree with Iceman to an extint on fishing the lower column (especially when metering the majority of the bait on the bottom), but don't completely retire the most natural presentation, the flyline. I know for a fact that Yellowtail will cruise 3'-5' from the surface during every cold month of the year, especially during and after warm spells and sunny weather. After a string of sunny days, the warmest water is on top, right?. Even in January and Feburary I will have a surface-iron tied on, unless squid are present.