barnegat inlet Fishing Report 2025

Stopped on schools of bluefin all day today but we’re unable to get one to stick. We did however land this 140 pound beauty. Back out tomorrow.

~~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.
      

 

47 yellowtail 29 bonito 6 calico bass. A couple of good shots today. Surface iron fishing is a technique that should be attempted once you are completely comfortable with your gear. I believe that you will enjoy fishing a lot more if you become very good at bait fishing first. Flylined sardines were the most productive today.

24 yellowtail 1 bluefin. Still fish around but the changing conditions have them acting up.

We had a couple hours of very good dropper loop yellowtail fishing on 25-35 pound fish in the morning. When that slowed we stayed busy with smaller grade tuna and the occasional mahi. We made a tour and got the anchor back down around lunch time and had the same action but with an occasional larger model tuna being hooked. We hooked 10 and landed 4 50-60 pounders. After dinner the few that still had the energy to fish all caught several more of those big yellows before we took off at 10:00. We're now spending the day traveling up the line and will be arriving to finish up the trip at Guadalupe Island for a day and a morning.

Great fishing again today with our 17 Angler’s putting the Landings rental gear to the test. 29 Bluefin, 6 Yellowfin and 4 Yellowtail in awesome weather.

Captain Ryan Bostian checked in with an update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing out of Mission Bay, CA. We are still trophy fishing! We caught a 132 pound Bluefin Tuna. We had 9 Bluefin Tuna (one at 132, a 101, 7 of them at 75 pounds). We had two over 100 pounds that pulled the hook at color.
Short topshot and flurocarbon is not working. Please have 100 to 200 feet of mono topshot.

WOW!! What an incredible day!!! This albacore is in the cooler 76 degree water. It wants to bite wide open. Can't say enough about how much fun today was catching big fat jumbo albacore. They tired our anglers out. By the end of the day only a few were still standing. Chef Pedro fixed a spicy teriyaki albacore lunch that was fantastic. For dinner he served some delicious veal chops. Today was just a great. this is what albacore fishing is supposed to be like.