merimbula Fishing Report 2025

~~July 3

Howdy folks and good evening. As I left off yesterday we were going to the bluefin grounds today. Well we did and of course it was a different day today, it's fishing. The morning was very slow especially compared to the last 5 days running. Things weren't looking on the up. We left the grounds in search of and found nothing. When we went back to the grounds we noticed boats were drifting and most of them all had a fish or two hanging, so we decided to drift too. And for the next several hours we most always had one or two hanging too.

 

 So after a day and a half we had 5 fish on the boat and things were looking bad, and now there isn't a skunked person on board. We could've doubled our score too if it wasn't for all the casualties but hey, that's fishing. A successful day I say. Great weather helped too. Up until late it was just lovely.

 

So I leave you now not knowing exactly when the next time I'll be writing to you but I can tell you it won't be any later than the 10th so keep checking back or come fishing.

P.S. Where the hell is the spell check on this thing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The apollo is running a two day charter this weekend and needs two people. The trip is limited to only 20 people and departs on Thurs. night at 9pm and returns on Sat. night around 7pm. The cost of each spot is $520. This includes all food and mexican permits. If you are interested please contact Dan Hernandez at 909 534-7637.

Mike Pritchard called in with this update for the Tribute. "The great fishing we had this morning, did continue on. We've had very good fishing. We've caught limits of Yellowtail, limits of Yellowfin tuna and we had a nice Dorado lunch. The weather has been nice, but there is a light breeze. The Yellowfin really loved the surface lures.

"We'll be back out tomorrow night on another 1.5 Day trip. See you on the water."

The San Diego out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego,CA checked in with us today:

37 yellowtail. A few decent shots made our day.

Fishing in the morning started slow. Several schools of yellowtail with no success. But by mid-morning things started to happen. They bit well into the late afternoon. The guys released lots of the yellowtail. We then took off off shore for kelp patties with yellowfin, but only found a few dorado. Our weather is good. Tomorrow we are going to go looking for yellowfin. Dinner tonight was Drew's favorite Osso Buso with parmesan potatoes and veggies. Really tasty.

Well, fishing was cut short as we had to perform an emergency air evacuation for a passenger. Coast Guard did their job with perfection and the reports are the passenger is going to be ok.

Some blue fin were caught for the day and a yellow fin. We will be back at the dock tomorrow and head out on Joe Beck's 5 day on Monday. We still have some open spots on his trip and a couple on the father/son, father/daughter trip with Larry Brown on June 14th. Give Susan a call if you can come out and join us.

Thanks,

Aug 14
    As I write this, it's the morning of the 14th.  When I was awakened for my watch and day at 3:05 this morning I couldn't tell if we were running or if we were anchored up in the bay.  You can't really hear the engines from where I sleep but I couldn't tell from the ride because it was so nice going up last night.  I seriously asked Tommy as he was still up reading.
    
    The fishing slowed down for us today as fishing does from time to time.  The bluefin didn't bite as well this morning nor did the yellowfin.  There was still yellowfin to catch this morning and there were some good scores had in the afternoon away from the bluefin zone but we caught enough yellowfin yesterday and hung out in the bluefin zone for a chance at some more of those trophies in the afternoon/evening.  We still had a decent morning.  I mean we still caught 14 nice bluefin and some yellowfin, but the bf's never made it back around for the afternoon snack fest.  We had a great trip and will be off loading a nice catch tomorrow morning at 6:00 and turning right back around shortly after that for 5 days.
 
     One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the amount of these toad bluefin being caught on jigs.  More then I have ever seen ratio wise but that could also be because more people were doing it but that could be because it was working well.  The shimano butterfly jig is the jig that caught most of our jig fish. But that could be because that's what most people were using but that could be because it was working so well.  And 90+ percent of those were caught on the sink.  No retrieve necessary except to bring it up to sink back down.  They loved it.  So if I were coming out this year I would throw a couple of those in my box.
                                
    
    PS- Shimano gave me nothing to write that last paragraph.  It just worked.

 

Captain Ryan Bostian called in tonight with an audio report from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA. We had EXCELLENT fishing today. We fished at the Coronado Islands and our group of 34 anglers caught 155 Yellowtail (up to 23 pounds).

The are biting the fly-lined baits really well and also the Yo-yo iron too. Anglers comfortable with surface iron fishing were also very successful. We are heading back out there tomorrow.