barren river lake Fishing Report 2025

Ryan Bostian called in to give this report for the San Diego. "Today was our 1st Day at the Coronado Islands, after spending a month offsore. Today we went down to the Islands with 24 anglers and we're coming back to the dock with 32 Yellowtail. The Yellowtail we caught ran from 12 to 25 lbs. There are enough big ones in the mix to keep it interesting for sure. We caught fish on all 3 techniques today; flyline-sardine, surface iron and yo-yo lures. So if you are going fishing with us I'd bring three rods for the local Yellowtail fishing. Fly line sardine with a 25 or 30 lb. was probably the best way to get a bite. However, we did have plenty of fish on the lures.

"Com on down and see us, we leave the dock everyday at 5:30 AM. We'll be fishing these Yellowtail at the Coronado Islands as long as the fish are here. We saw some big beautiful schools today. Hopefully they stick around. We'll check back in again tomorrow.

Sep. 2

Well we started in some traditionally tasty grounds today. The weather was magnificent and so was the water we were in. Warm and a beautiful glassy blue. It was also lively as could be. There were birds buzzing around all over, little dabs of dolphin, big herds of dolphin that were "all birded up"(that's code for "looks right"), a dead animal floating,(known for holding lots of dorado),kelp paddies and floating fishing gear buoys(also known for holding mucho dorado and wahoo). Well none of it was holding !@#$. I'm just bummed about it too. We had this area all to ourselves for 3 days in early September with beautiful weather and fishing conditions and it stunk. I can't sugar coat it. We covered a lot of good looking spots for not much fish. It just wasn't there. If I had a time machine I would go back 5 days ago and do it all over again. We would start above and fish our way down instead of starting below and fishing our way north. At least then my stress level wouldn't be high because we'd have fish in our holds. Fishing would be so easy with a time machine. Maybe I shouldn't write such downer reports but my friend Rob on board says he enjoys reading the good with the bad and you know what, this sort of thing happens. Fishing can be good and it can be bad. Oh well but hey, our trip is only half over, we're going to catch a bunch of yellows tomorrow, get some bait, maybe catch some more yellows and some more bait then go and whip on the tuna. Right? I hope so.

Your bummed but still very high spirited captain, Drew

July 17
    Our morning started off hot.  We had some very good tailing for about 1 1/2 hours on the 16-22 pound grade.  We managed to get a few fish per rod in that amount of time frame before things went dead around 8:30.  It's OK, we were expecting that.  We stuck with the plan and looked for yellowfin after that and it wasn't long before we connected.  We had 2 good stops and one great stop on the yellowfin tunas and scattered small stops the rest of the day.  They were a bit on the small side but that's what's around here so we fished them.  After that we drove out of the zone to put ourselves in position for tomorrow and didn't catch much the rest of the day.

    We'll be tailing it again tomorrow looking for the bigguns down below first thing in the morning.  The weather this morning was great.  It got a little windy in the afternoon but it was OK.
                                

 

Capt Mike Pritchard from the Tribute called in a trip wrap for todays trip, it was very good fishing this morning, with some highs and lows. We ended with 31 mixed tuna and 25 very nice grade yellowtail. Yo yo and fly lining worked very well for, and are still getting some hook ups in the dark while sitting on a kelp patty. Our next open trip is scheduled to leave on Sunday night, if your interested give Seaforth Landing a call at 619-224-3383 or go to the website and sign up.

Since our big hit on Tuesday, the yellowtail at the Coronado islands have gone into sleepy mode. Each of the last two days we have seen plenty of yellowtail but they have been very difficult to catch. Today we went out with 62 passengers and caught 2 yellowtail and 150 rockfish. One thing is for sure, these yellowtail will bite again. As far as predicting when they will bite it is anyone's guess. If you come out expecting to catch yellowtail, you may go home disappointed. If you come out to enjoy the "fishing"and the ocean, and you happen to come on a day in which the yellowtail are biting. You just might experience the best day of "catching" in your life. Be prepared, the difference between 75 yellowtail on the boat and 2 yellowtail on the boat is 2 hours of biting fish.