buxton Fishing Report 2025

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.

~~Aug 20
 It was a slow day out here today for us.  It was a slow day for many.  But of course it depends on who you talk to, some might say it was a great day.  It all depended on which school you found.  Just like it's been, most schools don't produce, but the few lucky ones do.  We didn't find the lucky one.  Our best school was for 20.  But no matter who you ask, it was a slow afternoon today. After lunch, we didn't find a school till after 6:00.  We're due.

 The weather today was awesome.  Again.  We're going to drift out here tonight and try it again tomorrow.  I thought about doing something different, like hunting bluefin, but it hasn't been very good and our plan B., that being San Clemente island is closed tomorrow darnit.  Plus these yellowfin we're catching are just too beautiful.  Such a nice grade.

 One more day.  We're due.  It won't take much more to get 200 of these things for the trip.  200 of these things would be nice.
        

A four hour drift, followed by 2 quick stops resulted in 39 bluefin from 30-60 lbs and 28 yellowfin from 20-50 lbs. staying at the rail and fishing either a flyline sardine on 30 or 40 lb. A 60-100 gram colt sniper or flatfall or a 2-4 oz torpedo sinker with a 1/0 or 2/0 circle hooks is the name of the game. Keep em wet !

Aug. 22
    We finished up our trip today hunting bluefin.  They weren't very friendly today.  In fact they were down right mean.  We saw a tremendous amount of fish today but very few would bite our lines.  All day long we were stopping on schools and we have 22 fish to show for it.  All of them were nice ones with the biggest going about 60 pounds.  !st and 2nd will be easy, figuring out 3rd place in the jackpot may take a while.  Alot of 45 pounders to weigh I think.

    We're headed in.  Tommy's taking the next one out, and I'll be on board.
                        

~~Aug 30
 Today didn't go as well as we were hoping. The plan sounded so good in my head too. You don't believe me? Come inside my mind and tell me it didn't sound like a good plan, you'll be a liar. The plan was to start here and work there. We were supposed to catch a bunch of yellowtail, then catch a wahoo or two, then scratch at some dorado here and there along with another wahoo or two, then we were supposed to get a small hit on wahoo in the end before finding the motherload of dorado.

 Well, there wasn't much yellowtail. The little bit of dorado we saw either didn't bite or was small. And we didn't see a wahoo until the end. We did see a school of good grade yellowfin that wasn't in our plan. It didn't bite for long though. It was on the corner biting every bait for about three minutes. Just long enough for everyone to get one and then they vanished. I drove around thinking I would easily find the school again but we never did. We lost at least 6 wahoo on the last spot we checked and landed none. The wahoo won today.

 Cool things of note today- the sailfish we caught, a couple marlin hooked and the orcas we saw. In the 14 seasons I've been out here I can only remember a handfull of times seeing killer whales so it's not too often we see them. We also don't catch sailfish too often.

 Tomorrows plan- wahoo!

~~Sep. 22
 We had a slow day.  And there's no sugar coating it.  There's no let's let you decide if it was slow.  It just was, and unfortunately for this trip we don't have another day to make it right.  There was a one hour window where if you were in the right place at that time and found a school you were in for a good bite but that was few and far between and unfortunately we weren't the few.  We scratched a little in the morning, found a dandy school before lunch that let us catch a few handfuls before swimming away, and we found a stretch of and area this afternoon that we thought we were going to make something happen, we found three kelps in a row with tuna on them but they would only boil around and not bite except for a few. 

 On the plus side our weather today was fantastic.  If you're going to have a slow day fishing, it's a whole lot better doing it in good weather than in bad weather.  I also saw alot more of San Clemente Island than I ever have before.  I now know more about the looks of the island itself and the bottom structure of it.  We're headed in now and we're turning around again tomorrow for 2 more days.

 And one last thing.  I'm not going to mention it because I only heard this second hand and I don't want to start a rumor if it's not true but a sport boat out here today caught a wahoo.  Now once again I'm not going to mention it, but one boat, maybe the Prowler caught a wahoo.  I'm not going to start a false rumor so I'm not saying anything.