bear lake utah Fishing Report 2024

We fished our first day of the 5 day offshore kelp hunting. We saw plenty of kelps most having mucho yellowtail and mucho dorado on them. Unfortunately they were not in the moods to eat. We scratched out 60 mixed fish for our efforts today. We're heading for Benitos Island to fish for the night and at least a few hours in the morning. If it doesn't look good we will shoot down to the next island, Cedros.

Oct. 5

I'm lying. Its actually Oct. 6 as I write this. It's Drew here, back from a few trips spent on land and fresh out for a healthy 40 day stretch. It appears I have some large shoes to fill as Cap. Richie has been putting the wood to the tuna fish out here lately. Well mother nature welcomed me back with some wind. Thanks mom. We arrived to the fishing grounds we chose to start about an hour ago and threw out the sea anchor in hopes that the tuna will find us rather then vice versa. It's easier that way when you have the wind like we do and if the tuna do find us it will be much more comfortable with the bow to the wind like it is with the chute out. We'll know the answer to that in about an hour or more. Baits o.k. There is much more sardine alive this morning then I thought there would be. So that's it. There's a dorado swimming around out my wheelhouse window so I'm going to go make someone catch it.

~~Sep. 17
 We had bad odds today.  We fished for wahoo and our fish hooked to fish landed ratio was poor.  It always is with wahoo but I feel today was extra bad.  I think if you're landing half of what you hook with wahoo you're doing OK.  Today at best we were 1/3.  At best.  I called out to 2 of our anglers fishing today and asked what there ratio was for the day and I got a 1/2 and a 1/4.  Then my buddy Dave came up to the wheel house and said he was 0/4.  So that gives you an idea.  If we would've caught half of what we hooked today we would've had a really good day.

 Alright.  I'm done whining.  I'm still glad we came here.  Everybody got there chance at a wahoo and there's still a chance for some more tomorrow.  We're headed inside now and we'll be fishing for wahoo while we're looking for tuna first thing tomorrow morning.  The weather now is fantastic.  A little weird this morning with mixed swell and a wind coming from the southwest but it's beautiful now.

 We couldn't come to an agreement on a price for someone to wear Mark's shirt today.  Justin wanted 200 and Mike said he'd do it for 150 but I couldn't find enough people to chip in.  It was a good one too.  He was wearing a white shirt today, so by 9:00 this morning he could've entered a wet t-shirt contest.  He may have won too if you're into guys like Mark.
        

The Apollo checked in with 162 Albacore today. They've had some excellent fishing with beautiful weather. The fish are still on the chew, call Fisherman's Landing for details and to check their schedule. (619) 221-8500

This morning was slow and the weather was rough. We lost a couple of nice fish because of the weather, but as the afternoon came so did good weather and really good fishing. Roger got a pair of bookends now as he landed another big tuna weighing in at 255 lbs. Most of the fish were 120-170 lbs. Fun afternoon. Dinner was an incredible roasted duck, my favorite. We are hoping for good weather and more great fishing tomorrow.

Had a great wahoo next year! 7-10 day trips are the place to be ! 

Aug. 11
    We had a great morning today.  I'd have to check with the big guy but I believe we had around 60 of the 15-25 pound yellowfin and 9 of those big 60-80 pound bluefins on our first drift.  I'd call that a good morning.  It wasn't full speed either.  It was just a nice scratch over a period of a few hours.  Nice drifting along there in beautiful weather once again.  I sure hope this weather lasts a while along with the fishing.
    
    After our first drift we did some others of course.  None producing as well as the first one but throughout the day we scratched at some more yellowfin and a few more of those big bluefins.  It was just what we needed after a day of mostly driving around seing a lot and  not catching much.  Needless to say we'll be hanging around here tonight and trying it again tomorrow.

    On a sad note, one of the greats in the sportfishing industry passed away today.  Most of you reading this wouldn't know who I'm talking about because he was a behind the scenes guy.  I'm talking about the great sardine fisherman Joe Machado, and if you've been fishing in the last 35+ years, you were using bait most likely caught or found by him.  As you all know, no bait no fish, so we'll be throwing some sardines over the side for him tomoorow.  RIP Joe.
                                                        

 

July 19
    Today was a bust for us.  I can't sugar coat it any.  It was slow all around.  We chased around fish all morning but we never really saw much volume in one area.  The fish were scattered out one here two there for miles.  We'd stop and maybe get one or two per drift but it wasn't enough to keep us around.  We left and went to the next Island up arriving after lunch.  After looking around for a while we found one spot that I think we would have done well on if there were no such things as sea lions.  The yellows boiled around and we hooked seven or eight of them and they were all stolen from us by our furry little friends.  After that we took off and fished offshore the rest of the day and only caught a handful of tuna.

    The weather right now is good and we should have it tomorrow as well.  We're going to copy our first morning out here and hopefully have similar results.