lake hartwell Fishing Report 2024

40+ bluefin onboard so far for Capt. Matt and the boys. These bluefin are averaging 40 pounds and are very catchable on 30 lb. come prepared with different line sizes from 20-40 lb. hooks from #4-2/0. Match your Flourocarbon size to your mainline size. Listen to the crew, even if you have been fishing since before they were born.

This morning was slow and the weather was rough. We lost a couple of nice fish because of the weather, but as the afternoon came so did good weather and really good fishing. Roger got a pair of bookends now as he landed another big tuna weighing in at 255 lbs. Most of the fish were 120-170 lbs. Fun afternoon. Dinner was an incredible roasted duck, my favorite. We are hoping for good weather and more great fishing tomorrow.

Sep. 15

First off I'd like to give a shot out to my Phillidelphians. What up Philly. Your just going to let the Chargers roll in there and get it done. Uhhhh. That's right. You and your candy cane looking uniforms, Xmas all year long here in the mlb of Philly. And here's another thing, your cheese steak sandwiches stink. That's right, I said it. No hard feelings Philly. That's the way I feel about every team the Chargers go up against.

Now onto fishing. Today was awesome. I mean it was just a blast. We started it off early with a jig strike/sonar school and it was game on. Early on it was nothing but small fish. Small yellowtail, small yellowfin, small dorado. So we shook, shook, shook. Release, release, release. Then we caught a nice one. Then another. And another until pretty much everything we hooked was a 30-40 pound yellowfin tuna. Nice! Take that Philadelphia! Well we caught a bunch of them during that 1/2 day stop and it was fun. It was like fishing in a giant aquarium. Everywhere you looked it was tuna. You could choose which fish you wanted to hook if you were fast enough. You had to be quick though. After that we fished some kelps, some that were holding pretty good amounts of dorado, and we trolled around for some more tuna but we were spent after the first 1/2 of the day. I'm telling you, that was fun fishing.

Anyway, the weather today was mostly good. It got a little breezy there late but no complaints. We're sliding down and we're going to look at the yellowtail grounds tomorrow and decide on where to go from there.

Capt Ryan Bostain from the San Diego 3/4 day trip called in with a trip report from todays trip. They decided to head west from the Coronado Islands in search of some offshore fish, with the report of the tuna racing up the coast. We started they day with a stop on some really nice grade Bonito from 5 to 10 pounds and left them biting after we had 55 on the deck. We some mixed schools of Yellowfin and Bluefin and ended the day with 20 Bluefin and 36 Yellowfin that were all between 10 and 35 pounds. We had mostly beginner anglers on the boat today, very few had ever fished offshore before. We will be heading back out there tomorrow and until they go away. You will need a 20 pound bait rods, today they we biting 20-40-50-60 and even 80 pound line. If you come out with us the perfect setup will be a live bait from 20-40 pound set up, some size 2 and 2/0 hooks for either the Anchovies or Sardines. Come on down and get in on the action.

Today our 24 anglers landed 7 bluefin tuna from 70-85 pounds. First time anglers, seasoned anglers, captains, crewmen and all the way up to our office personnel. Nobody is off limits when it comes to the frustration and lack of sleep that a bluefin can create. However, if you stick with it, come prepared and keep an open mind. You will eventually be rewarded with a fish of a lifetime.

Iven moving on up! We had a great a day of fishing today. Our fishing started today at noon and we had non stop action all day long. We landed some nice Yellowfin tuna between 40-80 lbs. However with great tuna action came great shark action. Our resilient passengers were hooking these tuna very well, but the lurking Great White Sharks were hot on their tails. Eating a large majority of our nicer tuna hooked. Pictured here is Ivan with his prized tuna that he was able to hustle in through the sharks! Very different than last years fish ( other fish pictured). Great improvement!

Oct. 16

I would call today a very disappointing day. We had The Rocks to ourselves today after a 3 day rest and I thought we were going to get um but it was not to be. 0 wahoo. 0. Not even a short biter. We trolled for 4 hours for nothing. I think what I'm trying to say here is we didn't catch any wahoo. We caught a few handfuls of yellowtail in the morning before the sharks took things over and after realizing there were no wahoo to be had we went offshore and looked for a kelp the rest of the day to see if we could get 1 that way or a bunch of Dorado's but that was not to be either. The fishing today stunk. Everything else today was lovely though. The weather today was really nice. The sun was out and the seas were flat. The food is always great out here and the scenery was lovely as well. We're working our way back towards home now to extend our fishing time for the trip. We're going to top off on those beautiful yellowtails tomorrow and spend our last couple of day

s hunting the bluefin tuna.

Mike Pritchard called in with this report for the Tribute. "Capt. Randy just got back from a 1.5 Day trip with good mixed bag fishing, with Dorado & Yellowtail.

"We have space available for tonight's 1.5 Day trip. Give Seaforth Landing a call at 619-224-3383.