skyway bridge Fishing Report 2023

An 81-pound bigeye tuna that came out of a school of albacore was the first tuna of its kind to come in on a long range boat this season, and it won the Polaris Supreme jackpot for rookie angler Carl Geosana of Whittier at Fisherman's Landing July 14.

Drew Henderson skippered the five-day trip with 24 anglers, and was the beneficiary of a tip from Doug Reed and the Renegade that put him on the albacore, which have staged a badly needed re-bite at about 90 miles from San Diego.

Henderson said a second bigeye, a fish in the 120-pound class was hooked.

"Everybody on the crew pulled on it," said Henderson, "for over an hour. We had it close enough to bring out a gaff once, but it took off again, and finally busted the 30-pound line it was hooked on."

Geosana said he spent an hour and 15 minutes on the 81-pounder.

"I almost went overboard when he bit," said Carl. "He went down, and then he pulled me up to the bow, and I had to get over the anchor there at least ten times. He kept making runs, until the reel got red hot."

Carl said he fished a sardine on a 3/o Eagle Claw hook, and used 30-popund Big Game line, a Penn 500 reel and a seven-foot Ugly Stick rod.

Greg Hannond of Huntington Beach was second, for a 42.6-pound albacore, and Brad Hall of San Diego won third place for a 42.4-pound albie. Skipper Henderson said his anglers had a very good catch of yellowtail and some bluefin tuna and were "‚Д¶just short of limits of the albacore. At least half the guys did get limits."

Captain Mike Pritchard checked in tonight with an update from the Tribute out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA.  Sorry for the late report tonight.  We found a school of Bluefin on the way home and let them have it!  We ended our day with 9 Bluefin and 18 kelp grade yellowtail.

We go again tonight! Come on out and get some

Capt Mike Pritchard called in late last night with a report from the Tribute, they had absolutely fantastic Bluefin Tuna fishing they have seen. They ended with 72 Bluefin Tuna up to the Mid 30 lb range, we also got some Yellowtail and Bonito to round it out. We have added another trip departing Wednesday night at 10pm, to get in on this trip call Seaforth Landing at 619-224-3383 or you can go to www.seaforthsportfishing.com. The 2 fish limit for Bluefin has not gone into effect yet, so we can still keep 10 Bluefin per angler in US waters. Give us call and get in on this fantastic Tuna fishing while you can.

I have three more fishing opportunities on the Apollo. Berkley will sponsoring three overnight Channel Island trips. These will be sea bass and rock fish type adventures. There will be give aways and raffles on board compliments of Berkley and Pure Fishing. Everyone will receive goodies for fishing. The dates will be: Friday April 3rd, Friday May 1st, and Sunday May 17th. To book a spot please contact Sea Landing (Truth Aquatics) at (805) 568-0460.

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.
                                

 

Steady sonar stops for our 30 anglers produced 104 yellowtail from 12-20 lbs. 40 lb mono on a 20 or 30 size conventional reel and a yoyo jig was the most productive. Trips are filling up fast for this season. Make those resos

4 yellowtail and plenty of reds and rockfish. The islands continue to move in the right direction.

After another slow day offshore. We have decided to make Monday and Tuesday an island trip. We will be targeting yellowtail, kelp bass, barracuda and we even heard of a bluefin sighting today. Summer island tackle consists of a 25 lb bait rod, a 40 lb yo-yo rod, your favorite jig stick and your favorite kelp bass rod. Passports are required. Reservations are light but both trips are a definite go.