sanibel island florida Fishing Report 2025

Tuna fishing was good again today with nice quality tuna. We took off mid-day to hunt for some dorado and wahoo on kelps in the afternoon, but no luck. We will be on the Ridge tomorrow to sweep for wahoo. Our lunch today was an outstanding fresh tuna fillet with avocado, lettuce, tomato and wasabi sauce. We will update again tomorrow. Thanks, Tommy and crew

27 pass. 16 yellowtail 127 kelp bass 34 barracuda 7 sheepshead 19 California Golden Tilefish. Perfect weather and plenty of bites.

~~Sep. 16
 Yesterday morning I was looking at the positions and forecasts of positions and conditions of hurricane Odile and it sure looked to me like we'd be able to go around it that night.  So after consulting with Tommy, he did some research and he agreed.  And by dark yesterday I was 95 percent sure we could do it.  Not enough.  We need 100 percent out here.  So we headed straight west most of the night until I got an update on the storm at 2:00 am which made me 100 percent sure we could easily make it around the storm.  So we hung a left and we've been traveling all day heading for Alijos Rocks.  We had some choppy weather this morning but we couldn't tell by our ride because we were going with it.  Down swell = a good ride.  The weather is nice now that I write this and we're expecting the same the next few days at least.

 We usually expect a couple travel days on an 8 day trip and today was one of ours.  We did try really hard though to find a nice big dorado kelp but we were unsuccessful.  The only kelps we found weren't big enough to hold a school of mahi.  So we'll have to do it tomorrow or the next day.  Or the next, OK.  We'll be concentrating on wahoo first thing tomorrow. We'll be saying our wahoo prayers tonight.  I'll check back later.
         

~~Aug. 21
 We missed again this morning folks.  I'm not very happy about it, but I've excepted it.  We've definitely put in our work this trip.  Not necessarily physically these last couple days but mentally for sure.  I am drained.  We didn't want to spend another afternoon like we spent yesterday so we left the grounds and fished the Coronado Islands this afternoon.  We didn't see much yellowtail.  Myself or the other long range boat here.  I heard some good analogies this trip by other captains on the radio that I'd like to share.  Looking at the fish reports is like watching sports center.  They keep showing you all the top tens, but they almost never show the other Joe's, and sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield.  Most guys the last couple days have been the bugs.

 There have been quite a few firsts for me lately.  First of all I've never spent this much time fishing this close to home other than my 3/4 day days..  I have never been anchored up right outside the harbor on the second night of the trip.  We were there catching bait.  I've never captained the boat to San Clemente or the Coronado Islands.  There's probably more.  Oh yeah, I've never seen the 5 freeway from the boat.  Mark thought it was a bird school.  In his defense, I had to give it a double take too.

 So that's it.  We're going home and we'll be leaving for 5 tomorrow.  Tommy is coming back out so he'll be deciding where to go.  I'll tell you though, it's tough to pass on this fish.  Unfortunately for us, it's the best grade of tuna around.  It's great for the 1/2 day boats though.
       

We started off the morning with a few strikes on sonar schools of yellowfin tuna. We thought we were on the right track but things soon slowed down to virtually nothing. A few of the guys were seeing schools up above us, big schools but weren't producing much more then we where. We went and check those out and it looks like there schools of bluefin with a little bit of yellowfin mixed in it of course the bluefin don't bite. We spent part of our morning looking at eight giant kelp patties for two bites on yellowtail which we lost. Right now it's about 2:10 we have 20 yellowfin on board and were wondering where in the heck they're all at. We have good weather and six more hours to look wish us luck.