cape fear river Fishing Report 2024

Nice grade of Yellowtail on kelps, with really good sign of Tuna that were hard to catch. Also more Dorado showing on kelps, but the 2 we hooked, found their freedom.

We are not quite into the zone yet and we have had a few stops on the jigs. It looks like there is a new body of fish moving in. These Bluefin Tuna are in the 12 to 18 pound class. We will update you later. Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

July 21
    I don't think anything abnormal happened today during our turn around.  Well, Sysco was late so we left for the fuel dock before that came aboard so, just another turn around day is what I'm trying to say.  We loaded the Paul Hess group, our Hess homies and we were out.  I think things went OK at the bait receivers.  We'll find out.  We fished this afternoon.  It's the year of departure fish days.  We scratched 16 nice grade tuna.  We're traveling now and I'm on watch.  It's almost 3:00 am on the 22nd and I believe we're in American waters.  I'm thinking about it and I don't think I've ever fished in American waters in the beginning of a 5 day trip which is what we're on.

    The weather this afternoon was rolly and choppy.  The weather now is pretty nice but I think it's supposed to be bad the next couple of days.  Windy, choppy, rolly oh my.

 

UPCOMING HOT TRIPS!!! We are planning on running some specialty trips sponsored by Berkley and Shimano These trips will be out of Santa Barbara, targeting White Seabass and/or shallow water Rockfish at the Channel Islands. They will have give aways and raffle prizes. Berkley Trips will be limited to 24 people and Shimano trips will be limited to 20 people. All trips will depart from Sea Landing at 9pm the night prior to the fishing date. Please email me at [email protected] for more details or to make reservations, call Sea Landing at (805)568-0460. The Berkley dates are fishing Fri. April 2, Fri. April 23, and Fri. May 28. The Shimano dates are Fri. April 16 and Fri. May 21

With great anticipation of a light load aboard the Apollo, all 14 of us anglers showed up at the dock early, swapping stories about past trips. We started boarding about 9:30pm and were greeted by Capt JJ Gerritsen and the rest of his crew, we signed in and had a seat for our safety briefing. Capt JJ then asked if we wanted to head offshore for Albacore which had dramatically slowed down the last couple days or head south along the coast for a shot at Dorado and Yellowfin and Yellowtail patty hopping. Without much hesitation we decided to head south and patty hop. We got the feathers in at gray light and started the troll, within 15 minutes the yell of "Hook-up" sang out, unfortunately the mystery fish got away and we were under way again. Five minutes later we heard that yell again, the mystery fish won round two and will live another day. Third time's a charm didn't hold true for us, our third hook-up is still out there in the deep blue. At that point the first troll rotation was fired (which included me) and the second shift took over. Within 10 minutes they had our first fish on the deck, a skipjack, from that point on while looking for patties we boated about 19 skipjack. We found our first patty around 10am and moved in with hopes of a wide open bite, but to our dismay there was nobody home. That held true for the next 8 patties we found, then finally around noon with a mouth full of burger, we heard the call to get ready. Never fails every time your food is done, it's time to drop a line. As soon as our sardines hit the water the patty expolded, we ended up with 1 Dorado and 2 Yellowtail. We only found two two more patties holding fish and ended up with 1 more Dorado and 4 yellowtail. It was now time to head back to port and we again set out the troll lines and managed to pick up 7 Yellowfin Tuna on the way back in. I really enjoyed sharing the rail with a great bunch of folks and look forward to doing it again soon. If you would like any of the pictures posted please email me at [email protected] .

Captain Mike Pritchard called in late last night with an audio update from the Tribute out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay.  We finished the day with good action.   We finished with 38 Bluefin Tuna up to 100 pounds.  They were biting the fly-lined sardines on 40 pound with fluorocarbon.

The Tribute is ONLINE at Seaforth Sportfishing.

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.

July 28

Well that 40 to 70 pound bluefin was found today. Not by us but it was found. We're making a 160 mile move tonight so we'll be fishing hopefully catching tomorrow afternoon. Needless to say it was a slow day for us and all the other boats who went scouting. We finally had some action late on yellowfin but it was not enough to keep us there another day. Hopefully the mysterious bluefin keeps biting for weeks/months/years to come.

Drew y the fabulous crew on the Polaris Supreme