morton Fishing Report 2024

~~Oct. 13-14
 Nothing to report on Oct. 13.  More of the same.  Though it was our last day so the cocktail hour was to a minimum.  We arrived to our destination around 1:30 in the am Tuesday morning.  We did a tour for flying fish (to use as bait) but we only caught a few.  We kicked the anchor over and most of us got a couple more hours of sleep.  Everyone got up at 0400 hours and got to work.  Some faster than others.  When I woke up George was the only one in the water so I thought I'd give him a hand.  I threw a sinker on a rig and dropped down a sardine and 5 minutes later we had our first tuna aboard.  About an 80 pounder.  It was our sashimi fish.  After that there was a whole lot of good shark and small tuna fishing going down so again during a time when no one was in the water (due to having to retie because of shark teeth), I dropped another bait down, this time on the rod Mark likes to call the OJ (no one knows why), and about 20-30 minutes later we had a 196 pounder aboard.  While that was going on George got hooked up and brought a 218 pounder over the rail.  It wasn't even light out yet.  After that the sharks fully took over.  It was pretty much unfishable so we didn't give it much time, we pulled anchor and got to trolling and for the next 8 hours or so it was steady striking on the wahoos.  Damn.  We caught about 5 per angler so I'd call that good for sure.  For the last few hours we got steady strikes on one of this groups favorite fishing methods, trolling the yummy fliers.  We caught a lot of tuna today on those and on the marauders and some on bait.  They were all mostly in the 120 pound range.

 The weather today sure was interesting.  The wind never had much strength but it couldn't pick a direction.  One minute it was coming out of the northeast, and the next it was coming out of the west.  It did that all day so for that and the sharkies giving us grief we never tried another anchor job today and we're spending the night adrift.  It also rained a whole lot this evening.  I'd say it was raining cats and dogs when I went to bed but it's cleared up now at 0100 hour as I write this on my watch.  One more hour and I'm going back to bed until 5 when we'll all be going back into battle.  Hopefully tomorrow these dang sharks leave us alone.

July 29

Our timing is out of wack. Or the Bluefin's timing is. Yeah, that's it. The Bluefin's timing was out of wack today.

Yesterday it was completely an afternoon thing, so us arriving today at noon was going to be perfect. Unfortunately for us it was a morning thing today.

When we arrived to the grounds most everyone was finishing up there drifts. We found a few kelps and had some good fishing on some descent grade yellowtail's and one of

the kelps had some bluefin on it but it wasn't steady enough action on the tunas so we kept looking. We saw a few schools of it throughout the rest of the day but it wasn't

in a biting mode. We ended up getting a stop late for some and we're currently drifting and will be in the hot zone all day tomorrow. Hopefully it's an all day bite tomorrow.

The weather today was fantastic and we're expecting the same tomorrow. Everyone on board is having a blast and the leader for todays fishing goes to the youngster Vinny.

Every time we stopped the boat today he was hooked up and is making grandpa Brad very proud.

~~
July 30
 Arrive/Depart today. I feel that I've written this report before. We added a few things, like crew members, food, new passengers... We took a few things away, like crew members, old passengers with there fish... Anyways, We left again mid morning on Mr. Chaparro's 18th consecutive charter. A limited load of 20 passengers. We got our bait... We'll see... and are underway. We'll be fishing first thing tomorrow for tuna/yellowtail/dorado all day long and most likely working our way back down to Cedros Island. There looks to be some wind on the way so we like to be at Islands fishing when that happens. More comfty that way.

The weigh in happened. Just a 5 day progress report. Mark actually gained weight while Justin lost some. And Mark was the better eater. Unless he's secretly stuffing his face during his watch or something. Maybe he doesn't remember doing it.

53 pass. 167 yellowtail 25 bonito. Small yo-yo jigs surface iron and live bait were all working. Bring your passports and fish the technique your most comfortable with.

Yesterday we looked at 612 kelps and they were all empty. Today, the very first kelp we looked at was loaded. Aquarium style fishing for yellowtail, yellowfin and skipjack tuna.

Captain Aliyar called in with us today from the Polaris Supreme:

We are on our way home after a 1.5 Day with excellent Bluefin fishing. We have limits of Bluefin Tuna up to 115 pounds with the majority in the 40-50 pound range. We had a stop last night in the dark and caught 30 Bluefin with the flat falls.

We have a bunch of 1.5 Day trips and 3 Day trips open for April.

Next open party trip departs on Sunday, April 11th at 7PM for a 1.5 Day trip.

The Tribute out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego, CA checked in with us today.