madison Fishing Report 2024

Mason and Gage with a couple of our 83 yellowfin tuna. Finesse live bait was once again the star.

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Hi friends. Yellowtail fishing was off the hook this morning -- or, on the hook, depending on which way you look at it. Fifteen to twenty-eight pound fish just kept coming over the rail and we also had a few flatheads as well. It was all you could've wanted on fly-lined sardines, yo-yo jigs, and surface jigs too but we only took a few boxes to break up the morning and from there, we ventured offshore with the hopes of finding something floating for dorado and wahoo.

Let me tell you, trying to locate kelps in eighty degree water is a difficult task and although we did get lucky and found a couple scraps, they weren't holding all that much. However, we did troll up a few legitimate ball-slappers, a marlin (healthy release), and one really nice wahoo at dusk caught by Mike Henry. His wahoo looks to be in the fifty to sixty pound range and he coaxed that fat skinny into latching onto a purple and black Marauder. Good going, Mike.

For tomorrow, we'll be fishing for all kinds of species but our main target is wahoo. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Our weather is just splendid and the all-day bronze-a-thon continues. I'm starting to look like Hulk Hogan out here. Supreme guns. Later.

This past weekend we went out with 33 anglers on both of our trips. Saturdays fishing was a little bit better as far as quality is concerned. On both trips we ended up with limits of rockfish but Saturday we caught 80+ red rockcod to go along with 3 lingcod and plenty of chilies and Boccaccio. Sunday we had a bit of a wind swell come up making the drift rather fast. Sundays count was 63 reds 2 lings and limits of rockfish. The weather forecast looks good for this week.

Sep. 19

We didn't start fishing today till around 2:00 in the afternoon. Before that we traveled up in very cool dirty looking fishless water as we expected. Everyone slept in and chilled out while the crew did some maintenence on the boat and did some repairs on monday details. After the boat was in tip top shape we ate fish tacos and got ready to fish. We didn't find any wide open yellowtail fishing but we scrached out an afternoon. We caught 3 a round on mostly good grade yellowtails with a few cows mixed in. 35 pounders is about what they were. So we're traveling up now in good weather to the yellowfin/dorado grounds. We could use a top off on some yellowfin and we can use some more dorado and then we'll have most of a day to fish for the bluefin before we head for home.

Oct. 9

Today was mostly spent traveling. We did roll by some wahoo country at lunch time and made a couple of passes with the wahoo jigs but we had no strikes. We were expecting that though as there was already a boat there trolling it up all morning. It was something to break up the ride anyways. The weather was good for traveling so we were stoked on that. Other then that it was normal travel day stuff going on. Little nick knack projects for the crew and relaxation for the rest of the guys. The plan for the next couple of days is to travel all day tomorrow and use the remainder of our bait catching bluefin tuna on our last day which is on Friday.

In other news, I haven't posted it on here yet because I guess your not supposed to till the time is right and now the time is right. Since July my wife and I have been pregnant. Well she's been pregnant. I've just been working. Anyways today was the day we found out the species. Or gender rather. That's right, captain Drew is now captain daddy Drew. We're having a beautiful baby girl. That's right, there's three stages in a mans life and I've reached stage three. You believe in Santa Clause, you don't believe in Santa Clause, and now I am Santa Clause and I couldn't be happier about it. Drink it in people, it always goes down smooth.

27 yellowfin 21 bluefin 27 yellowtail. Shoulder and belly hooked baits work best when fishing picky tuna. The second picture shows where to place your hook. The baits pictured are also a prime example of what a bad bait looks like, taking your time and selecting a good healthy bait will get you more bites.

"Today we went offshore you know we have some political stuff going on at the Coronado Islands," said Ryan Bostian captain of the San Diego. "So we are fishing offshore for the time being. It looks like our timing was pretty darn good. Today we went out there and caught 15 Bluefin tuna and 13 Yellowtail. It's nice to be able to go out there on a 5:30 to 5:00 trip and catch exotics like Bluefin tuna. We had one really good shot at them. They were boiling on the corner.

"Most of our group today were beginner fishermen. If you are looking to join us for some offshore fishing our next Open Party trip is next Thursday. This Thursday we will be fishing Open Party, we will be on out offshore schedule. That means a 5:30 to 7:00 trip. The ticket price is $115 which includes your Mexican fishing license. We saw a good sign of Bluefin tuna. It seemed like every kelp paddy had a few Yellowtail on it, but we're mainly fishing the Bluefin out there. Some schools bite, some do not, but there are certainly plenty of them out there. If you'd like to join us please make reservations at 619-224-3383."

Aug. 15
    We started our morning off in the local bluefin zone.  We caught 12 of them, 2 of them being the 50+ pounders while the rest were that beautiful manageable 30-40 pound fish and we caught a few yellowfin.  On drift number 2 we hooked and lost one.  Do to the amount of boats thinking the same thing we were and the lack of fish I was seeing being brought over the rail, I decided to leave early and look for yellowfin for a while.  It wasn't long before we found some, and then some more, and then some more.  It pretty much was like that for as long as we fished it which was until after 5 when we went back to the zone where we started.  We had good fishing pretty much all day long.  The only negative thing about it was the grade of fish was a bit on the smaller side.  They weren't runts but they weren't great either.  12 pounds is the short version.  They averaged out to be 12 pounders.  We looked all around for a bigger grade but it pretty much was what it was.  I did think that the area we finished up in yellowfin wise had quite a few more 20 pounders mixed in than what we'd been fishing so it may be something to look at tomorrow.  We finished up right where we started and we had a long 2 1/2 hour drift.  We caught a yellowfin every once in a while, we landed 4 of the 30-40 pound bf's and caught 1 70ish pounder and lost at least 4 of those.  We are going to drift tonight and do it again tomorrow.