Solid Rockfish Fishing Out of San Diego into Mexico
Steve comes out with us a few times a year, anytime family and friends come into town. They wanted to load up on Rockfish for tacos so we went about 12 miles down into Mexican waters just across the border. Passports are not required for these trips. All we need is a Mexican fishing license. It’s a great option during the winter when rockfish is a closed in California. Steve has been out catching these critters with me numerous times and he learned it was best to buy a commercial vacuum sealer to handle all the Processing on his own. A vacuum sealer is a great tool to have when hunting or fishing as it will keep your Bounty fresh for up to a year in the freezer. These rock fish can be cooked in so many different ways and are one of the most tasty fish. We can catch out here.
The goal was to catch our limit of rockfish so we focused on bottom Fishing only in about 350 feet of water until we had limits which is 10 fish per person and some for the crew. For Bait, we were using swim baits and live sardines with two hooks on each dropper rig. Double the bites. We used to use squid, but it often gets picked off the hooks and I have found that the large swim baits get bit better anyways.
When Fishing rock fish out at the 9 mile bank just off the coastline it is generally great fishing For these delicious taco stuffers. We have numerous spots and sometimes they bite right off the bat and sometimes we have to search around a little bit but once we find that lucky rock it’s game time.
We end of the day with about 28 bocaccio, 3 vermillion and a bonus 28” lingcod. Lingcod are also out in these deep water rock spots as well and we catch them very often. They put up quite a fight.
We had very calm seas today and Therefore, we did not have to use heavy weights to keep our baits down at the bottom. I always tried to start with the lightest weight as possible and put on some heavier ones if necessary to stay down at the bottom and not scope out the line too much.
The best type of knot For bottom, Fishing is the dropper loop knot. It is very quick and easy to tie, and it makes for quick hook removal when dealing with tangles, which happened often with 4+ anglers with lines at the bottom. Pulling the hook off, makes handling the tangles 10 times easier and then you can simply pop them back on and get back to Fishing with minor re-rigging.
RECENT FISHING REPORTS AROUND SAN DIEGO, ca
