bradenton Fishing Report 2025

July 28
    Today we had about as good of yellowtail fishing as you can get.  Quality to quantity ratio, holy Toledo.  18-25 pound fish and they were biting pretty much as full speed as yellows bite for a couple hours and after that it slowed down but they were still biting well for a couple more.  If you have read my past reports you know that surface iron fishing on big yellows is my favorite kind of fishing and it was pretty much wide open on the surface iron.  Holy Toledo!  I'm not the only one who felt this way either.  We have a Polaris Supreme first timer on board, his name is Josh and he may love it more then me.  He named his dog after a surface iron.  Tady.  How cool is that?  We've had a tank of mackerel on board for about 3 weeks and we finally let them go today.  On hooks that is before getting eaten by yellows.  In the late afternoon ewe looked for bait and found some a couple hours before dark and caught a tank full of nice mackerel.  We restocked our supply.  We made a couple drifts along a kelp line while the sun set and tugged on a few calico bass and now we're headed up to fish tuna tomorrow.  Sweet dreams.
                            
    Oh yeah, Happy Anniversary to Renee.  I think you know who that's from Renee.
                    

 

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."

42 pass. 2 bluefin tuna. We were around fish all day but never found the magic school. Another example of how truly special days like yesterday are.

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July 11
 The morning started off so promisingly. We had plans to haul butt down to the lower grounds where there had been some good kelping but we got stopped short. The setup was epic. We had a 1-2 degree water temp break, and we were instantly catching fish. They were mostly small yellowfin. There was a sprinkling of 15-20+ pound tuna in there but most were throwbacks. But it felt like the school of straight bigs was right off the bow. We found a nice kelp and caught a dozen nice yellows and some more of that small tuna with a sprinkle, and again, we felt like it was soon coming. It never came. We stayed very busy but unfortunately it was mostly that throwback yellowfin. Eventually we gave up on what we thought was our honey hole and we never found much else the rest of the day. The lower zone produced enough for the couple boats that were down there so we're going to start down there tomorrow.

 

 

 

The weather was great most of the day. It got a bit breezy late but hopefully that comes down tomorrow.
 

The San Diego checked in with us today. 

62 Yellowfin, 27 Dorado, 34 Yellowtail. Anglers changing their baits often had most of the bites.

Hello Everyone, We are still marching up the line here making good speed. Our ETA to the dock is 6 am tomorrow morning. Another great Billy Stephens Charter in the books. A well rounded trip with a great variety of fish and enjoyable anglers. Cant wait for next years charter Billy! Will report again tomorrow, Team Supreme

Aug. 21

We had a good morning today. We managed to be the lucky boat and found a school of bluefin that stuck with the boat and we were able to scratch at them for several hours before having to move. The grade of fish was all mixed up from 15 pounds up to 40 pounds. After that we searched a lot of water and only found 1 school that wouldn't have anything to do with us. It just swam away. There were a few other schools in the area for other boats that did the same thing.

The weather today was OK in the morning then breezed up pretty good in the afternoon and then it backed off at dark. The forecast was down graded from what it was calling for and is now showing pretty good weather for the next few days so we're stoked about that. We hope they're right this time.

We're currently heading for the yellowfin grounds due to the poor reports in the yellowtail grounds. There will be a few of us looking around there tomorrow so hopefully we'll be able to get them located.

Drew doo di doo doo doo

We at Tribute Sportfishing are feeling the Holiday Spirit and would like to give back to our Anglers, so we decided to spice things up for this weekends trip. We love our Sponsors and our fisherman enough to raffle off our own "brand new" gear purchased our given to us from them. This Friday nights trip will have new raffle prizes of... -Seeker 40 pound rod- -Okuma Cortez Reel- -5 packs of Seeker Soft Steel Ultra flouracarbon- -A case of BallastPoint Sculpin IPA- -A $25 Seaforth Sportfishing gift certificate- And a free 1 1/2 day rockfish trip aboard the Tribute. Over $800 in give aways just because we love you guys and gals that fish with us. There is also rumor that a sponsor or 2 may sweeten the pot further. Merry Christmas!