long lake Fishing Report 2024

Aug. 25

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bluefin are the most unpredictable fish out there that we fish for. If you would have told me yesterday that we were going to have a day like we had today, I would have laughed in your face. Never again though. I will never trust this fish. For the last several days the bluefin fishing was very poor. I really thought that it was over for the year. I was wrong. Today we experienced the best bluefin tuna fishing I have ever seen. This is on a quantity to quality ratio that I'm talking about here. In my 13 years of long ranging, today was the best for the Bluefins.

Just after 6:00 this morning we stopped on a single fish mark under the boat. Just after 6:00 tonight we left them. The whole time we drifted it was pretty much wide open. The fish were from 25 up to 75 pounds. Most of them being in the 30-40 pound range. Once again we went into battle and we won. Oh yeah, we fished in the rain. At around 11:00 it started raining and it never stopped. Everyone on board was absolutely drenched all day and it was awesome. By the end of our stop no one was fishing so Mark and I grabbed a couple of rods and boated 3 of them ourselves. It was only Mark and I fishing and I was bringing one in and wouldn't you know it, when the fish was at gaff, there was Mark's spectra tangled all over my fish. 2 anglers fishing and he manages to make a big tangle. MAAAARK!!! I would have made him put on the dunce helmet but he was already wearing it. Heres why. There was a 2 fish tangle and Mark grabbed 1 of the rods to unwrap it and he dropped it right in the water. MAAARK!!!. Unbelievably another person fishing managed to hook one of the guides on the rod and we got it back. Fish and all. I immediately tossed Mark the yellow dunce helmet and he wore it all day.

Needless to say everyone on board is beat tired and we will not have any trouble sleeping through the night tonight. We're headed for the yellowtail grounds now and will be there first thing in the morning.

Captain Ryan Bostian checked in this evening.  The audio was broken up but wait for it.  They had 61 Yellowtail and a good pick on Calicos.  The load is light tomorrow and very light this coming week.

~~Aug 23
 We drifted most of the morning until around 9 or so.  We drifted due to us catching fish.  We caught a whole lot of fish this morning.  They weren't the same 20-25+ pounders we've been getting.  There were a few of those, but these were about half that size.  It wasn't what we were hoping for but they were still fun.  The guys were having a blast.  They were getting some practice at the whole tuna fishing thing, picking a good bait, where to drop in, follow your fish... And they got to use some of there tags as well.

 After that we thought it would be a great idea to make a few hour run and get to San Clemente Island to catch those big yellows we caught there a couple of trips ago.  In theory it sounded great, but we didn't catch very many yellows.  We ended up bailing on it and looking for some bluefin that's been hanging around there.  We saw one pretty good spot around there but they wouldn't bite.  At dark we ended where we'll start tomorrow.  Some boats had some pretty good days here today on a very good grade of yellowfin along with some of that 25-50 pound bluefin as well.  Oh how I hope we can get in on some of that tomorrow.
Time will tell.  Cross your fingers at home. We'll take some good luck anywhere we can.
      

Nov. 6

Well today wasn't at all what we expected. Last week it had been great yellowtail fishing in the zone we were in but for whatever reason most that fish wasn't around today. Famous words of Steve Loomis, "only one things for sure and that's that things will change". So true in life but especially true in fishing. Things will always change whether it be for better or for worse. Unfortunately today it was for worse. That's why you can't base your booking a trip on last year or even 2 weeks ago. Oh well. We caught a few nice yellows today and lots of other species we saved for meals later on in the trip because they'll be tasty. We're now heading south. We're going to start fishing first thing tomorrow fishing for D, all of the above.

Passenger Mike Payne brought a whole bunch of crab with him. I'm not sure exactly what kind of crab they were. They weren't king crab but the next best thing. Basically it was all you can eat because when I had all I could take down there was a lot of it still available. Delicious. Talk to you tomorrow.

Drew

Captain Mike Pritchard checked in tonight with an update from the Tribute out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA.  Sorry for the late report tonight.  We found a school of Bluefin on the way home and let them have it!  We ended our day with 9 Bluefin and 18 kelp grade yellowtail.

We go again tonight! Come on out and get some