FISH

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In more than 50 years of fishing the waters off Los Angeles, Dick Aker has never seen a summer like this one.

“I can’t ever remember the albacore starting to bite in May,” said Aker, coming ashore from a Redondo Beach skiff after nine hours of fishing. “They usually don’t start until Fourth of July weekend. But this is an extraordinary year all around.”

Credit the extraordinary fishing to the El Ni & #324;o weather phenomenon, which has meant warmer waters off the coast. This has brought fish rarely seen here to local waters and more money to the cash registers of L.A. County’s sportfishing fleet.

“We’ve seen about a 30 percent increase since May,” said Nancy Gray, manager of Redondo Sportfishing. “Just when we start to think it will slow down, business keeps on going steadily.”

Gray said there are usually waiting lists for summer weekend trips, but this year there have been numerous weekday waiting lists.

The story has been the same at the handful of other sportfishing businesses along the coast.

There are six landings on county shores where people can charter a boat or buy a spot on a fishing trip Long Beach Harbor and Belmont Pier in Long Beach, L.A. Harbor and the 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro, King Harbor in Redondo Beach and Marina del Rey.

Most of the businesses have two to three boats in service, which each hold from 50 to 90 people. The companies say their boats are more full this year and some have even added service to meet demand.

For example, Marina del Rey-based Happy Man Sportfishing, with two boats in service, has added a daily fishing trip to chase after the yellowfin tuna that have been caught here for the first time since the last El Nino in 1982.

“There’s a lot of people coming out for yellowtail these days who say they haven’t been out in a while,” said Winter Coto of Belmont Pier Sportfishing in Long Beach.

Anglers say they started noticing changes in the catch back in May. The albacore had arrived early and were biting in big numbers, and they began to land exotics like Dorado.

Fish commonly caught locally have been especially abundant, such as the yellowtail, whose catch has increased fivefold for Redondo boats, Gray said.

None of the businesses reported raising their prices in the midst of increased demand, and Gray said she believes Redondo Sportfishing will not do so, especially this late in the season with work and school vacations ending.

While sportfishing businesses bask in the brisk business, some expect the predicted El Ni & #324;o-driven storms this winter to wipe out the extra summer earnings.

“For this fiscal year, I’m doing fine up to this point,” said Happy Man Sportfishing owner Brandon Ford. “But there’s four months left and when the storms start, that money will probably all be washed away.”

He said it usually takes four winter weeks of business to equal the revenue of one summer week, and his business usually drops off about 60 percent during late fall and winter.

“If it rains like it did in the last El Ni & #324;o, it’ll take me three months to earn what I make in a week of summer,” said Ford.

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