nm game and fish Fishing Report 2025

Once Again the ocean proves to us that everything will balance out if given enough time. Just last week it looked as if we would never touch our gaffs again. Today our 31 anglers were treated to a long drift that ended with 19 bluefin tuna from 60-100 lbs and 2 20lb yellowfin tuna. Preparation, an open mind and understanding that Mother Nature is the one one in charge is all you need. A wise old man once told me “we’re only as good as the fishing” today the fishing was very good and we are thankful.

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July 11
 The morning started off so promisingly. We had plans to haul butt down to the lower grounds where there had been some good kelping but we got stopped short. The setup was epic. We had a 1-2 degree water temp break, and we were instantly catching fish. They were mostly small yellowfin. There was a sprinkling of 15-20+ pound tuna in there but most were throwbacks. But it felt like the school of straight bigs was right off the bow. We found a nice kelp and caught a dozen nice yellows and some more of that small tuna with a sprinkle, and again, we felt like it was soon coming. It never came. We stayed very busy but unfortunately it was mostly that throwback yellowfin. Eventually we gave up on what we thought was our honey hole and we never found much else the rest of the day. The lower zone produced enough for the couple boats that were down there so we're going to start down there tomorrow.

 

 

 

The weather was great most of the day. It got a bit breezy late but hopefully that comes down tomorrow.
 

Captain Ryan Bostian called in tonight with an audio update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA. We have been fishing down the beach and the Yellowtail are biting really good on the surface iron and fly-lined baits. Today we had 51 anglers catch 240 Yellowtail (10 to 25 pounds). It's been a fun couple of weeks. Don't miss out on this opportunity. We fish every day and depart at 5:30 AM.

10 bluefin tuna 2 yellowfin tuna. We are seeing fish from 10 lbs to over 200 pounds. A 25 lb bait rod, a 40 lb bait rod and a 50,60 or 80 lb rod is recommended. If you do not own the proper tackle. Seaforth is renting 50 lb rods with a 2 speed reel. These rental rods have already conquered a lot of our fish.

July 17
    Our morning started off hot.  We had some very good tailing for about 1 1/2 hours on the 16-22 pound grade.  We managed to get a few fish per rod in that amount of time frame before things went dead around 8:30.  It's OK, we were expecting that.  We stuck with the plan and looked for yellowfin after that and it wasn't long before we connected.  We had 2 good stops and one great stop on the yellowfin tunas and scattered small stops the rest of the day.  They were a bit on the small side but that's what's around here so we fished them.  After that we drove out of the zone to put ourselves in position for tomorrow and didn't catch much the rest of the day.

    We'll be tailing it again tomorrow looking for the bigguns down below first thing in the morning.  The weather this morning was great.  It got a little windy in the afternoon but it was OK.
                                

 

Captain Ray Montera took out 39 anglers today. Final fish count for the day was 6 lingcod 4 sheephead 80 red rockcod and full Mexican limits of rockfish. If you enjoy bottom fishing this is definitely the time for you. As soon as the yellowtail show up the rock fishing will take a back seat.

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.
                                

 

The Ranta Charter started off fishing yellowfin tuna with a decent little score on school sized fish ranging from 10-20 pounds. Most of the fish were caught on the flylined sardine with 30 pound test and a 2/0 hook. We also had as handful of troll fish that came off of green and black zuker feathers. The next day we sought after some quality yellowtail between 20 and 30 pounds. Sadly, these fish didn't show like we hoped they would have. We saw a couple small schools of fish that came up and boiled in the chum, but nothing would stick with the boat. Fish were being caught on flylined sardine, yo-yo jigs, and everyone's favorite technique, the surface iron. We managed to pick away at some of these fish in the morning before calling it quits and moving on in search of a better bite. After hearing reports of the yellowfin bite picking up, We decided to make a run to the grounds to get in on the action. We arrived mid-morning with high expectations, as a couple other boats in the area had some big scores off big schools of yellowfin. It didn't take long for our dreams to turn to reality as a four way trolling hookup turned into a wide open bite. They were biting anything that was thrown in the water for a solid hour until most of the passengers had their fill pulling on these tuna, that averaged 15 pounds. We had a couple more stops for not as much success before pointing the boat towards something new. The last day of fishing was spent offshore looking for kelps, but dirty water and 20 mph winds made it hard kelp finding conditions/ However, we managed to pick up a few nice Dorado as well as a couple more yellowfin to add to our total. This was a great trip with some awesome people, a couple a which had their first experience out here fishing saltwater. A big thanks to Dan Ranta for putting this all together, we hope to see you all out here again sometime soon! Till next time, Team Supreme