oyster bay Fishing Report 2025

~~Oct.16-20
 So for the last few days, I was either too busy to write a report or just too tired.  I knew these blogs wouldn't be making it out here until tomorrow anyway so I figured I would just do a 4 day report to explain the remainder of our trip down below so here it goes.

 When I left off, the sharks backed off and allowed us to have a great afternoon and we were hoping the sharks would do the same thing they did last year after the first couple of days which is leave.  That didn't happen.  It was a sharky trip for sure.  Brown Reef Sharks were in the picture for the remainder of the time we were down there.  Sometimes they were relentless and we'd have to pull anchor and go trolling for wahoo and other times they would back off just enough to allow us to scratch at the tunas and then other times they would back off completely.  They weren't tuna eaters though.  They let us wind in what we hooked, but they loved our kite baits.

 Anyways, we still had an excellent trip down there sharks or no sharks.  There were a lot of windows of opportunity and there were some slow windows as well.  There was almost always a window where we would get at least two cows before sunrise, and after that it never stayed consistent.  If we didn't need to sleep it would've been convenient.  I know we missed plenty of tuna bites in the dark hours through out the night but that's when we would sleep.  Like I said though we had an excellent trip and here are the numbers to prove it.

 130 yellowfin tuna and 60 wahoo for 8 guys for 6 days.  54 tuna kept.  11 over 200 lb's, 5 that may go when we weigh them on the dock scale, 6 between 170-180 and the rest were 100-150 pounds with much fish being in the 120-130 pound class.  We also released 76 of those too!  One release estimated to be around 200 pounds and several in the 150 pound range and like I said, many in the 120-130 pound range.  Our largest was 240 and next in line was a 234 pounder kept.

 Here are the team jackpot totals: 1st place goes to Charlie and Craig with 2 fish totaling 453 pounds.  2nd went to George and Scott with 2 totaling 414.  George also had 5 tuna over 200 pounds by the way.  One per day besides the last day.  3rd place went to the Jer-bear and JC with 399 pounds, and Brian and Bernie finished just behind them with 396 pounds.  None of this is official.  We still need to weigh them oin land.

 And that's basically how fishing was down there.  Here are some things that stand out to me while we were down there.  First of all I'd like to talk about KC.  I'm not saying he was scared, he just didn't seem too pumped on fighting one of these fish we call cows.  He wasn't the first or fifth for that matter to jump on a spot on the kite for example when one was available.  On the third day it couldn't be avoided.  He got up on that kite and when he did this particular time he hooked a big one and he handled it as well as anyone.  I mean he kicked that fishes @$$.  He came to battle and he won.  It taped out as a 193 pounder.  After that it wasn't hard to get KC up on the kite when a spot was presented.  It went from where the heck is KC, to him not leaving the rail at all.

 I let Mark know the Raiders lost.  I did it in a mean way too.  His birthday was the 16th I believe, and Chef Mike baked him a cake and we all sang happy birthday and when it was over, I gave him my birthday present which is spilling the beans on lying about the Raiders beating the Chargers.  Ha ha Mark.

 The weather was a lot less steamy the last few days down there.  It was still hot, but once the clouds went away it didn't feel like a sauna there anymore.  Although myself and a few others got the worse case of burnt lips we ever had.  I did it in a dumb way too.  I knew I should go get my chap stick from my room on the first day down there but my lips did;t feel like they were getting chapped so I thought, because of the humidity my lips weren't drying out and I didn't need protection.  Dumb, stupid and idiotic.  My lips may not have dried out but they still got as burnt as ever.

  So that's it.  We now travel for a few days.  The crew has plenty to do.  Clean, clean clean and sleep.  The passengers will be sleeping and celebrating a wonderful trip.  We'll be trying to break up the ride on our last day of travel by looking for a dorado kelp but that's still not for a couple more days.
      

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

Hi friends. I don't know what's going on with me, it's like the fish just elude us in the morning time and around lunchtime, people start to get very down about our fishing day, myself included. We had a horrible morning. A boat just a few miles from us got on a kelp and had good fishing on bluefin, yellowfin, and dorado. Okay, maybe that means that we're in the right area. Nope. We went in all kinds of different directions only to find a boat already on a kelp catching fish or a boat already working the area. Very frustrating. Around lunch time, the mood on deck was starting to sour and the mood in the wheelhouse was the exact opposite of laughing babies, sunflowers, and Labrador puppies. It was straight death. I was pretty sure that I was about to lose my turkey caesar salad all over the dash and that would've been the highlight of my day up to that point. Yep, it was that bad. But as our boss's old boss, Steve Loomis, used to say, "west is best."

So I made the decision -- we're going to head west all day until we don't see a boat on the radar or we fall off the earth. As I was checking my water temperature charts, looking at the next area where I was sure that I was going to go and find another boat or non-biting fish, it happened. Not the sound of a single fish popping on the sonar or the mast-man yelling at me to rotate trollers, but the sound of a school -- a gigantic school -- on the sonar. I flipped from the computer screen to the sonar screen, throttled back the mains, and spun the wheel hard to starboard. In the excitement of the moment, I managed to tangle up the chord for the gyros in the wheel as I was spinning too (sweet), so I'm yelling in the P.A. system, chasing down the school, and trying to untangle the chord all at the same time and just like that, the school is off the edge of the screen, swimming away with my heart.

As I sit looking at a blank sweep of the sonar for a few seconds and the thoughts of ripping the wheelhouse chair from its base and throwing it out the window, I finally realize that Jed is screaming down at me from the mast. He was screaming profanities, but not directed towards me, at least not directly. His screams read something along this line, and I'll clean it up for everyone at home, "they're f-ing shinning!!" Bingo, as I came back around, the sonar lit up once again right in front of the boat and after a few seconds -- which seemed like a century -- the fathometer ran red. Oh my gosh, they're under us, thick! I can't remember if I cursed when I called for the bait to rain down on the school after we stopped the boat but I apologize to our anglers if I did. In all honesty, I don't think they could hear me on the P.A. as everyone was screaming their heads off as well and after shutting down the mains and running out to the back deck, the most beautiful sight I could've seen was right before my very eyes; fishing boiling everywhere and all the rods bent over. Sonny Jim!

We drifted with that school of five hours and after the initial rush where they were biting sixty pound line for a couple of hours, we kept two to five going for the remainder of the stop. We finished the drift with 120 bluefin tuna (limits) in the 15-30 lb. class and 40 yellowfin tuna in the 12-18 lb. class. Like I said before, Sonny Jim!

So there you have it. A day in the life of a sport-boat captain. It's life of stressing like you're a lady of the night in church and then in the blink of an eye, you're the fireman carrying out the baby from the house fire to place it into the loving arms of it's mother. Here you go, ma'am.

-The Supreme Team