nanaimo lakes Fishing Report 2024

Captain Ryan checked in tonight with an update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA. We returned late last night. Our trip today and Friday have been cancelled due to weather. Our next trip is going to be Saturday.

We had 25 anglers catch 7 Bluefin Tuna, 38 Yellowtail and 35 Bonito. We had some nice quality on the Bluefin Tuna. We had 6 Bluefin Tuna between 60 and 108 pounds. To be exact we had Bluefin Tuna weighing in at 108, 102, 90, 90, 80 and 60 pounds. We also had one small one that we caught on the troll early in the morning. There is excellent sign of big Bluefin Tuna right now.

It is very important to be prepared with the correct tackle. A Shimano Talica 12 or 16 two speed filled with 65 or 80 lb spectra. Connected to 5 feet of 80 or 130 lb flouro and a 250 gram flatfall. A sinker bait rig fished with a Talica 16 or 20 two speed filled halfway with 80 lb spectra than topped off with 60 or 80 lb mono to a short leader of 80 lb flouro. A 2/0 or 3/0 circle hook and a 4-6 oz torpedo sinker.
Please bring the correct tackle. During our last trip we had 20 hookups and got 6 of them.

"The bluefin are still biting," said Mike Pritchard. "It's 8:30 in the morning and we have outstanding Bluefin fishing. It looks like everybody in this area is doing very well on the Bluefin. It's a good time to hop on a boat."

Hello Apollo Anglers:

We have a two day trip that has some spots available. The trip departs Sunday the 9th of September at 9 p.m. fishing the 10th and 11th. and returns on the evening of the 11th. This two day is limited to 20 people. Cost is $510 per person and includes food and permits.

Contact Baron for more info or to sign up.

Baron Spafford
1815 Gillespie St.
Santa Barbara CA 93101

805-569-9939
805-452=1562 (cell)

We had awesome variety this year on our 8-10 day trips. Especially the Dorado fishing on kelp patty’s! 

~~Oct.16-20
 So for the last few days, I was either too busy to write a report or just too tired.  I knew these blogs wouldn't be making it out here until tomorrow anyway so I figured I would just do a 4 day report to explain the remainder of our trip down below so here it goes.

 When I left off, the sharks backed off and allowed us to have a great afternoon and we were hoping the sharks would do the same thing they did last year after the first couple of days which is leave.  That didn't happen.  It was a sharky trip for sure.  Brown Reef Sharks were in the picture for the remainder of the time we were down there.  Sometimes they were relentless and we'd have to pull anchor and go trolling for wahoo and other times they would back off just enough to allow us to scratch at the tunas and then other times they would back off completely.  They weren't tuna eaters though.  They let us wind in what we hooked, but they loved our kite baits.

 Anyways, we still had an excellent trip down there sharks or no sharks.  There were a lot of windows of opportunity and there were some slow windows as well.  There was almost always a window where we would get at least two cows before sunrise, and after that it never stayed consistent.  If we didn't need to sleep it would've been convenient.  I know we missed plenty of tuna bites in the dark hours through out the night but that's when we would sleep.  Like I said though we had an excellent trip and here are the numbers to prove it.

 130 yellowfin tuna and 60 wahoo for 8 guys for 6 days.  54 tuna kept.  11 over 200 lb's, 5 that may go when we weigh them on the dock scale, 6 between 170-180 and the rest were 100-150 pounds with much fish being in the 120-130 pound class.  We also released 76 of those too!  One release estimated to be around 200 pounds and several in the 150 pound range and like I said, many in the 120-130 pound range.  Our largest was 240 and next in line was a 234 pounder kept.

 Here are the team jackpot totals: 1st place goes to Charlie and Craig with 2 fish totaling 453 pounds.  2nd went to George and Scott with 2 totaling 414.  George also had 5 tuna over 200 pounds by the way.  One per day besides the last day.  3rd place went to the Jer-bear and JC with 399 pounds, and Brian and Bernie finished just behind them with 396 pounds.  None of this is official.  We still need to weigh them oin land.

 And that's basically how fishing was down there.  Here are some things that stand out to me while we were down there.  First of all I'd like to talk about KC.  I'm not saying he was scared, he just didn't seem too pumped on fighting one of these fish we call cows.  He wasn't the first or fifth for that matter to jump on a spot on the kite for example when one was available.  On the third day it couldn't be avoided.  He got up on that kite and when he did this particular time he hooked a big one and he handled it as well as anyone.  I mean he kicked that fishes @$$.  He came to battle and he won.  It taped out as a 193 pounder.  After that it wasn't hard to get KC up on the kite when a spot was presented.  It went from where the heck is KC, to him not leaving the rail at all.

 I let Mark know the Raiders lost.  I did it in a mean way too.  His birthday was the 16th I believe, and Chef Mike baked him a cake and we all sang happy birthday and when it was over, I gave him my birthday present which is spilling the beans on lying about the Raiders beating the Chargers.  Ha ha Mark.

 The weather was a lot less steamy the last few days down there.  It was still hot, but once the clouds went away it didn't feel like a sauna there anymore.  Although myself and a few others got the worse case of burnt lips we ever had.  I did it in a dumb way too.  I knew I should go get my chap stick from my room on the first day down there but my lips did;t feel like they were getting chapped so I thought, because of the humidity my lips weren't drying out and I didn't need protection.  Dumb, stupid and idiotic.  My lips may not have dried out but they still got as burnt as ever.

  So that's it.  We now travel for a few days.  The crew has plenty to do.  Clean, clean clean and sleep.  The passengers will be sleeping and celebrating a wonderful trip.  We'll be trying to break up the ride on our last day of travel by looking for a dorado kelp but that's still not for a couple more days.
      

 

Hello everyone, Today was spent traveling up. A great ride to end a great trip filled with a variety of fish. We would like to thank Billy Stephens for putting together such a great charter! It was a great seven day with a great group of fun anglers, and we look forward to next year! Our ETA is 5:30 See you at the dock, Team Supreme

Oct. 21

 

Trip wrap up: It was a hell of a trip with a great group of guys, with great tackle from Accurate and great food from Shawn. Yes we had some nausea from hurricane Paul but that's something you have to deal with sometimes in long range sportfishing. Thank you so much Mr. Joe Gigliotti and The staff at Accurate for letting us use and lend out your Accurate tackle.

Jackpot goes as follows: Dale Goss took 1st with a 52.6 pound wahoo, pizza man Joey G. took 2nd with a 50.4 pound yellowfin tuna (I told you Joe), and Gary Rogers took 3rd with a 40.2 pound yellowfin tuna. An Honorable mention goes out to Steve Lowe for his 56.4 pound wahoo he caught on the troll.

 

Today we left with our good friend George Davis and his group of dudes on a 14 day trip. Yup, a glory run going down down down. Our bait was fair and seems to be swimming in circles in the tanks and not dying off so that's good. We rigged up our rods and reels today taking our time because we have some time with some travel days ahead of us. We haven't had a true departure travel day for a long time now and I have to say it's nice not being in a rush to get everything done at once. There were some movies played today and a lot of sleep going down in the staterooms. Chef Shawn put out a nice little Sushimi snack that went down quick. Tomorrow we'll do our tackle fishing seminar for Wahoo after breakfast and then I'm sure there will be more movies and naps in everyones future. Travel days are nice. Can you say 1492 and Titos ! See ya.

 

 

P.S. We may loose satellite phone service on Wednesday and if we do we will try to keep you updated through Susan via the Radio and have her type up the reports and email them out.

P.S.S. If you have received this email directly from the boat the guys have asked me to put you on the email list. You now have the boats direct email and you may send the boys emails. Girls please be careful what you say the crew and I will be able to read what you put out.

Thanks for tuning in Tommy.

Had a few bites but we’re only able to land one 70 lb bluefin. Today’s results have zero influence on tomorrow. Extremely light loads all week. Call Seaforth at 619-224-3383