tunkwa lake Fishing Report 2025

The Annual SFR charter aboard the Apollo with Captain J.J Gerritsen and crew was a big success !! The Apollo is running out of Sea Landing on beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor, the closest harbor to the outer Channel Islands. Great weather meant an ideal cruise over to San Miguel Island for some of the finest shallow water rockfishing you'll find anywhere. 300 feet down you say, maybe 200, how about 100 feet ? No way. The offshore terrain around San Miguel is so rugged and marked with underwater pinnacles, we spent most of the day fishing in 25 to 90 feet of water. Lighter rigs, jigs, leadheads and swimbaits were the order of the day, and the San Miguel rockfish were in a hungry mood. We started catching fish before daybreak and spent the rest on the trip hauling up huge reds, chuckles and lings, all sporting some of the most vibrant colors I've seen on any fish in a long time. Awesome day!! We limited out on huge rockfish, slammed about 50-60 grumpy whitefish, 5-6 huge goats and 16 or so pre-historic looking lings before calling it a trip. Epic day !!!! The jackpot was a nail biter as Shawn Suhr's huge lingcod and Art Moralez's giant goat battled to a near dead heat. Captain J.J needed to come down and settle the score, with the final vote went going to Shawn's 12-13 pound ling. Great job Shawn. Captain J.J and his crew did an awesome job as always and the Apollo is looking as spotless as ever. The Apollo will be in Santa Barbara till around mid May before moving down to Fisherman's Landing in San Diego. Call Sea Landing at 1-805-963-3564 or log onto www.apollocharters.com for their schedule. Great trip everyone !!!. email me at [email protected] for any photos. Thats the word on the water. Don

Hello everyone, Today we started out our six day trip locally. There was excellent sign of 20-30lb Yellowfin tuna. However they did not cooperate that well. We are headed west in search of larger Bluefin. Wish us Luck, Team Supreme

July 8
    We started this morning off with a bang.  We were up at 0400 hours and loaded up on mackerel, then we went and found a nice school of 20-25 pound fish that bit for us for a little while.  They were biting the surface iron great and I decided this morning that my favorite kind of fishing is surface iron for big yellows.  Big tuna and wahoo are really cool too but man o man is it fun.  My passenger and bud Dennis wasn't hooking any.  He usually does but he had a straight rod the whole drift.  When it slowed down he noticed that his jig had no hook on it.  Through all the excitement he ever noticed until it was done.  I thought that was kind of funny.  Bummer though.  The bite was rather short lived as was expected and after that we did some scouting.  We found a nice school of those 20-25 pounders but it was tough to get them to bite.   Throughout the rest of the day we did some scouting and caught fish and did some scouting and didn't.  We ended up with about a hundred and we're satisfied.

    We're going to stay the night and try this again in the morning.  I'm thinking about fishing offshore for tuna in the afternoon.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.
                                    

 

Today we caught 2 yellowfin tuna and did not like what we saw offshore. We are going back to the islands starting tomorrow. Bring a 25 or 30 lb flyline setup and a 40 or 50 lb yoyo setup. Passports required !

~~Sep. 19
 Today was mostly a travel day for us.  We did have a nice little surprise in the morning.  We had a double jig strike on wahoo.  Then we had a couple more singles.  Then we had one more single a little later along with a few dorados.  When we got to the yellowtail grounds in the afternoon we found mucho wind.  It was blowing 25-30 knots right through the grounds we were planning on fishing so we fished elsewhere.  We found a little spot with some current before dark and we captured 6 cow yellows, we're talking 30-40 pounders, to go along with lots of 10-12 pounders and some bonito.  Action is what we call that.  We now have to head north and we'd like to find some dorado tomorrow.  It's going to be a bumpy/windy ride up tonight and we hope for it to back off tomorrow for our fishing and ride home.
 

Stumbled upon a couple of biting schools and enjoyed some semi controlled chaos. 2 bluefin tuna 152 yellowfin tuna. 30 lb flyline bait was perfect again today.

~~Sep. 5
 Here we go again.  Arrive/depart today.  Off with the old, out with the new.  5 days.  That's how long we have on this one. 5 days.  Weather forecast looks terrific for at least the next few days so that's wonderful.  We have another first for me this trip.  Before this trip I have never loaded up with straight mackerel for bait.  Other than the last trip but that was a 1.5 day trip.  This is long range.  Straight mackerel.  That's 3 top tanks, and 2 big slammers full below deck.  All full of mackerel.  So this will be interesting.  It looks like great yellowtail bait.  Not great for chumming but great for catching the yellows, and I'm sure the bluefin will eat them too, just not as well as the sardine.  Oh well.  It is what it is.  We'll just make lemonade, that's all.

 So to start things off tomorrow we will be fishing for those yellowtails.  And most likely, we'll be doing that for the next couple of days before getting in the hunt for the blues.  Action.  We want action.  Wish us luck.
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Another one bites the dust ! 12 fish over 100 pounds 2 fish over 200 pounds and 23 school sized bluefin. @pennreels are what we use and trust, they have taken a huge part in our success when it comes to these fish. Thank you !!!!