stockton Fishing Report 2024

~~Sep. 7 "Feeling Better"
 I can't say I had the highest of hopes for this morning.  It seems like up and down this whole coast in the mornings has no current.  As you know, no current = no fish.  So we bailed on our yellowtail spot after 8:00 am and went kelping.  I believe we found our first winner ohhh around 10:00 or so.  It was good for 20 dorado.  Another 1/2 hour later we found another that was good for another 20.  Another 1/2 hour later... and so on and so on.  We had a good day of kelping.  Most of our passengers on board have never been in a dorado bite before today.  It was jaw dropping for them.  Lots of fun.  We're feeling better. 

 Now we're going to catch our yellows.  We're going to head into the coast for tomorrow and try and get a bunch of those.  See?  I write short reports on good days.  Hopefully I keep them short.
     

~~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.
      

 

Aug. 29

Here we go again. We arrived early this morning and unloaded a deck full of bluefin and yellowtail, loaded up some sysco, put on a bunch of fuel, then loaded more groceries, put the new peeps on and took off on the glory run. The Gary Roberts 9 day baby. We got a good load of bait and we're headed down. It looks like we're going to pass by where we caught our bluefin last trip after daylight so we'll definitely be looking for those as we roll down. We'd never pass up that kind of fishing but we're not going to give it our all. If we don't see it and the other boats in the area aren't seeing it we're going to keep her rolling on down down down to destinations unknown. Or better yet not decided on. Either my next report will be about us catching bluefin or it will be about our traveling down.

Capt Ryan checked in from the San Diego to report that they finished yesterday's trip with 111 Yellowtail. We got a lot on the yoyo iron as well as the surface iron and flylined baits. Make sure you bring all your Yellowtail gear to be prepared, a 40 lb rig, a 25 lb bait rod and a surface iron rod. We are online everyday and the weather looks good for the next few days, give the landing a call at 619-224-3383 and make your reservations.

~~Aug. 28
 It was a busy morning for us today but a kick back afternoon. For the second time this year we are not fishing on our departure day. We did the usual turn around throwing in an oil and fuel filter change. We offloaded, then onloaded and then we took off before lunch. The bait was OK. It looked great but lost some scales putting it in our tanks. We'll see how it likes 80+ degree water in a couple of days. I decided to skip this 30 mile yellowfin zone today and get down below while we have a window of good hurricaneless weather. There will be some wind the next couple of days everywhere but should come down nicely for a week or so everywhere if the forecast holds true. I'm still not sure where we're starting yet this trip. We'll either head straight to the rocks or drag our feet for a day and wait for the weather to get pristine. For now there is some napping going on and just some old fashioned kicking back. Something we haven't seen a whole lot of this year as it has been straight to fishing out of the gates.
 

The Apollo has a 2.5 day charter this weekend with openings. Departs the 29th at 5 pm, and returns June 1st at. 6am. Please contact Jim Wilson at +1 (909) 644-7780 for details.

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 08-22-2016 Good evening. Today was spent offshore all day. It didn't take log to start seeing sign right after day break. Everything certainly looked promising. Many many spots of both bluefin and yellowfin tuna just about everywhere we looked. These things just seemed to have a case of lock jaw. We threw everything except the kitchen sink at them, but just couldn't them to bite let alone stick with the boat. We have high hopes for a great closing day tomorrow. The fish is around, just a matter of finding the right one to shut down on. We'll check back in tomorrow for our final trip report. Tight lines, Team Supreme

Aug 16

Today started off on the slow side. For a few hours after daylight we saw virtually nothing. A little bit in the dark and even less in the day light. A couple of the boats found schools and were drifting so of course the stress level goes up. Thankfully we found a school after 9:00 and drifted with them till after lunch. They didn't bite full speed by any means but it was steady picking for most of the time. And oh yeah, they were the 50-70 pound grade. Yes baby, they're back! For today anyways. Who knows when they'll disappear again. Maybe tomorrow. Anyways after that drift, that was it for us for the day. We never found another deal. But I chalk this day up as a good one because that's just a beautiful grade of bluefin.

We're headed down now and we're going to try for some yellows in the morning and try our hands at some yellowfin in the afternoon. That's the tentative game plan for now anyways. Things change out here constantly. That's fishing. The weather today was top notch. I give it a 9.5 in the morning and an 8.7 in the afternoon. See you tomorrow.

Drew

To mama bear- Your little angel did great today. 2 record breaking bluefin for him. They were bigger then he was. He's currently sleeping in bed safe and sound.