Super El Nino 2026: At least from my point of view...

[Latimeria]

Has anyone else noticed how strange this season has been? On paper, this Super El Niño should be a dream scenario for Southern California anglers. We've got warm water pushed up the coast, tropical species showing up in places they normally wouldn't, and surface temperatures hovering around 74°F across massive areas of ocean.

The problem is that the fish don't seem to have any reason to stack up.

In a normal year, we spend a lot of time looking for temperature breaks, current edges, and chlorophyll lines. Those transitions concentrate bait, which concentrates predators. Find a clean temp break from 67° to 70° or a nice chlorophyll edge, and you've got a starting point.

This year, it feels like the ocean hit the "shuffle" button.

Instead of distinct water masses, there are miles and miles of nearly identical conditions. You can run 20 miles and still see essentially the same 74°F water. The chlorophyll charts look flat, the temperature charts look flat, and the fish seem to be acting the same way. There aren't many obvious zones telling you where to start looking.

As a result, fish are showing up in random places. One boat finds a school of decent sized yellowfin or wahoo in an area that looked dead the day before. Another boat runs over excellent meter marks in the middle of nowhere with no visible conditions suggesting why they're there. The next day they're gone.

It's been incredible fishing when you're on them, but finding them has become much more difficult because the ocean lacks the structure we normally rely on. The fish have 40-plus square miles of comfortable water to roam around in rather than being pinned to specific temperature or chlorophyll boundaries.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take 74-degree water off Southern California every day of the week. But for those of us who love reading charts and hunting productive water, this El Niño has turned the game into more of a treasure hunt. The fish are there. They just aren't giving us many clues.

Anyone else seeing the same thing, or have you found some pattern that's working in this giant bathtub of warm water?