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Been a weird season. As Steve said, as far as past Octobers go this has not been a normal "good" October. Very inconsistent and too many "single" fish sessions. Same goes for the entire season for me. However, this is all relating to surf-fishing as I know Steve's comments are.
On the contrary, seems the boat guys in the Bay had a banner year with many many good days, especially June & Sept-Oct.
Main factor in my opinion: BIG BUNKER...
I am now convinced that the bass are soooo drawn to these big bunker as their primary food source that all the big bunker in the Bay this year kept the major schools of big bass happy and concentrated there. They did not need to move down to the SOCO & Newport surf to feed.
In my opinion the lack of big bunker is the main reason for dry spells and, more importantly, the main reason why so many large bass these days seem way underweight for their length to weight ratio. I think bass feeding heavily and for a longer duration on bunker maintain a higher total body mass & weight from all the fish oils in the bunker. These bass just can't maintain this healthy weight & mass eating crabs, lobsters, mantis shrimp, small less oily baitfish, etc.
Hopefully bunker conservation will take off in the future.
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