merritt Fishing Report 2025

Plenty of stops on breezing, foaming, jumping, tuna. Colt Snipers and flylined bait on 25 lb. 16 yellowfin tuna, 14 bonito tuna, 1 mahi, mahi, mahi, mahi, mahi.

~~AUG. 6
 We fished hard today.  It felt like a kind of slow day but when you look at our tally it shows we had a good day.  We just never got steady more than a couple of drifts.  We'd stop and get a handful and then have to go again.  Other than a few hour long drifts that is.  But at the end of the day, when only half the people were fishing and I had a yellowtail to give away because the angler who caught it had his limit already and nobody handed me over a tag, I knew it was a good day. 

 Things didn't start off so hot though  Nope.  I knew our bait was dying but I thought we were good for another day of fishing before it would croak.  I was wrong.  "Red Boy".  The sardines were red.  Most were either floating belly up or lying at the bottom of the tank.  We made it through though.  We worked hard and had a good day.  The yellows were nice ones too.  20-25 pounds in the morning and 14-25 pounds in the afternoon.

 The weather through here was great today.  I'm not sure we've had one day at this Island this year where the wind wasn't ripping through the south end where we've been fishing.  Now we have one and it looks like it will remain true tomorrow as well.  We saved one tank of bait from last trip.  I knew the first morning we may not have any survivors for our last day if we didn't save our one tank of good bait.  Hopefully we find something to use it on.  I know we'll be making horrific speed coming up so we won't have any time to "work" an area.  We just have to pick a course and hope for the best.  See ya.
       

Traveling today in great weather. Lunch is sweet and sour pork with Hawaiian fried rice. Dinner is shrimp Diablo. You're not getting the breakfast report because I usually skip breakfast. We will be fishing again tomorrow morning. Come on cows!

July 5
    Good evening everyone.  It's evening where I am right now anyway.  It may not be when you read this.  We left on a 6 day this morning.  We stopped to get bait and yes, there is still a shortage of sardine.  We got about 30 scoops of jumbo sardine mixed with all size mackerel.  Then we took a couple scoops of beautiful looking anchovy.  We skipped the sardine seminar and concentrated on an anchovy seminar.  The lost art.  20# test, # 2 hook.  Finess fishing.  When you find out how good of a fisherman you really are.  That's what the tuna are feeding on around here so they'll hit them fine if it's presented right.

    We'll be hunting tuna tomorrow first thing and we'll take it from there.  The weather now is stellar but they're forecasting some wind tomorrow afternoon.  We hope they're wrong.
                                    

 

July 17
    Our morning started off hot.  We had some very good tailing for about 1 1/2 hours on the 16-22 pound grade.  We managed to get a few fish per rod in that amount of time frame before things went dead around 8:30.  It's OK, we were expecting that.  We stuck with the plan and looked for yellowfin after that and it wasn't long before we connected.  We had 2 good stops and one great stop on the yellowfin tunas and scattered small stops the rest of the day.  They were a bit on the small side but that's what's around here so we fished them.  After that we drove out of the zone to put ourselves in position for tomorrow and didn't catch much the rest of the day.

    We'll be tailing it again tomorrow looking for the bigguns down below first thing in the morning.  The weather this morning was great.  It got a little windy in the afternoon but it was OK.
                                

 

Hello anglers. We have a trip coming up that has a few openings. This one is July 2 and 3. Cost is $500.00. Limited to 20 passengers. Cost includes food and permits. Please contact Patrick at 702-375-0010. Should be a great time. Hope to see you there.

We have only 5 spots remaining on our June 1-6, 5.5 day trip! This trip is limited to only 18 passengers and is filling quickly!! Trip departs at 6pm May 31st, and returns 6am on June 6th. We will be fishing Cedros and Benitos targeting Yellowtail and calico bass. As well as fishing offshore for those early season bigger bluefin tuna! Ticket cost is $1300 per person. Contact Jodie at 858-220-1593 or [email protected]