What's Going On?
 

For the past 4 years there hasn't been kelp and/or bait. When the squid
showed up, it lasted a week or two with lots of hook ups. Not anymore.
Not like there used to be. I can still hear Aaron crying, "you should of
been here 10 years ago." Now, I'm saying the same thing...

Too many El Ninos? Global warming? WTF?

X2. I've been wondering how is it, that the fishery has declined so much is just a few years. The disappearance of the kelp is the most notable and takes away a large habitat area that held a lot a bait.

I think I heard something about a disease that has killed off a large population of starfish who are the main predators of sea urchins. Without the starfish, the purple urchin population has exploded and they are eating out all the kelp beds. Destroying vast forest everywhere they go.

Sky is Falling...
 

The Sky is Falling Yanni...:notworthy:

Warmer water, less starfish as mentioned, less sheephead, and most notably, less people posting.

I’ve noticed when A bite hits the boards you probably already missed it

Warmer water increases phytoplankton blooms. The phytoplankton blooms reduce the ocean oxygen levels and increase bacteria. The depleted ocean oxygen levels are literally drowning the Starfish and the increased bacteria is causing disease. The phenomenon has been called Sea Star Wasting disease. No Starfish predators to eat the Sea Urchins has allowed the Urchins to eat the kelp unchecked. On top of this Sea Urchins are one of the few organisms that thrive off the Sludge we dump into the ocean -- further increasing their numbers. It's a snowball effect that just moves up the food chain.

We have the same thing happening to the cold water kelp forests that stretch from the East Coast to Europe, as well as increased die-off of coral reefs in warmer climates from other pollution imbalance issues.

If the problem was related to an increase in the sea Urchins, than I would expect an increase in Sea Urchin divers. There used to be Sea Urchin dive boat like the the Crab and Lobster boats that regularly are at LJ. The fact is I haven't seen the Urchin dive boats in a couple of years. I know some have moved to the Pacific Northwest.

Dittos Mark. I used to see urchin divers all the time. But not anymore.

John, I'm looking for LJ specifics. Answers from the many science
minded locals, especially those tied to Scripps; and from those who
have fished LJ for at least the past 10 years and beyond.

The urchin divers are gone because the sea urchins have depleted the kelp so much that they are now starving. As a result, they contain little to no uni (urchin roe) and are no longer a marketable food source. Unfortunately they don’t just die of starvation but can linger for years eating any new kelp that grows and creating urchin barrens. There is some hope in a fairly new start up company called Urchinomics based in Norway. They collect the starving urchins, feed them in shore-based aquaculture farms to fatten them up and then sell the uni. It would be nice to see that take off here in SoCal someday.

So you’re saying that these urchins aren’t reproductive but still linger and if we just remove them, or most of them, there’s a chance the kelp could grow back?

The urchin divers go after the larger red and dark purple urchins. Which have a large row. Those are the kind found in restaurants and shipped over to Japan.
The smaller purple urchins are the problem.
The urchin picked for food are now harder to find and that state has a lottery for new urchin Licenses. Plus the fact a large number of the urchin divers I knew have pasted on.
There are many articles and youtube videos here is one
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/97580...sts-are-losing
Its going to be a ling time before things return to what we think as normal

Thank you for the reply and the link to the article. It's insane how much kelp has disappeared and to see it's not just here in So Cal. Such a huge change in such a short time.

If you’ll pardon a rambling lurker (and diver)…

I’m guessing whatever the problem is it’s much more complicated than we think. While my experience with La Jolla is limited to the last three or four years, my long experience with the beds to the north, which are behaving similarly, seems to say the symptoms don’t match up with any one theory.

The beds I know well – stretching from Salt Creek down to the Barn made it through the last El Nino really well, which shouldn’t have happened. It’s only been since the water cooled back down that they faded. What’s with that?
I’ve been to the bottom at Sano and San Mateo repeatedly the last couple of years, where there hasn’t been a trace of kelp, and in both instances there were no purple urchins and very few reds.

The Barn came roaring back during the last two Fall/Winters only to die off before the water got warm. This year I’ve been diving the Barn since early February and it went from pretty awesome to sickly stems in a matter of weeks.

At the same time, the new Artificial Reef off Poche and one between San Mateo and Trestles came up out of nowhere over the winter, although they were down in the current when I was last there, so I don’t know how they’re doing.

The bottom line is it just sucks, and I’m hoping it comes back before I get too old to take advantage.

It's comes down to trade winds.....
 

Causing up welling of cold water 💧 in return Causing El Nino we need some la Nino plus ➕️ rain 🌧 😜 😀 :reel:
Might cause the blue fin to leave and albacore to return you never know.

Last time I saw this much kelp loss in the area I fish was from 1995 to 2001.
I hope it will rebound soon.

The kelp does seem to be making a comeback, at least in DP, just real slow in doing so...

Location, location, location...
 

Yanni, maybe you need to change your fishin' spots...

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