chandeleur islands Fishing Report 2024

Say what????? Limits of Yellowfin (25-45 pounds) the last day of November and after our last storm. Yup! Great sign of 100-200 pound plus Bluefin too, but the couple bites we had got away quickly. We have a few more trips this week before we go to the boat yard.

The Adrenalin rush of a “trip saving” stop in the final minutes is something that will never get old. 82 yellowfin tuna, 2 bluefin tuna, 11 skipjack. The Locals Summer is in full swing.

Plenty of bites and opportunity today as we landed 4 nice bluefin.

Tip from the crew: make sure your spectra is put on your reel properly with a line winding machine.

4 yellowtail 129 calico bass 29 barracuda 4 sheepshead 26 whitefish. Another action packed day at the Coronado Islands.

Yesterday we looked at 612 kelps and they were all empty. Today, the very first kelp we looked at was loaded. Aquarium style fishing for yellowtail, yellowfin and skipjack tuna.

~~Sept. 3
        I slept in this morning.  Travel day.  I awoke at 5:00 and went straight to the
computer to see if we'll be bluefin fishing tomorrow or yellow-finning up.  Bluefin
it is.  10 knot flags out there all day tomorrow.  Nice.  So we didn't fish at all
today.  No reason to.  We traveled through 4 other boat wakes from yesterday and
they didn't stop the boat so we weren't going to cost us tomorrows fishing time to
try and prove them wrong.  I trust our code boats.  The weather traveling up has
been ideal all day long.  The passengers did what they do, movies, books, and
relaxation while the crew took it easy and did some chores at a reasonable pace.
We did a lot of organizing of things.  We went through crates and boxes and nuts
and washers and bolts and things like that and just made sense of it all.  The crew
even got around to detailing our beautiful teak rails.

        The bluefin reports sounded good today so we're excited about getting up there for
a couple of days to finish up the trip.  We'll either spend 2 days blue-finning or
we'll do 1 day here and go get our yellowfin on for the last day.  I'm not sure.
That's what's so exciting about it all!
I may not sleep well tonight I'm so excited.  Maybe it's because the 1.5 hour after
lunch nap I took and/or all the coffee I've drunken since then.  Not because I'm
tired, I just love coffee.  I'm kidding.  I'm sure I'll sleep fine.  I've been doing
this a long time.

        My daughter turned 5 months yesterday.  People say the time flies and they're
right.  It sure does.

"Today was another great day of bluefin fishing," wrote Polaris Supreme skipper Drew Henderson June 24. "We found the first school at 6:30 in the morning and we plunked on it again for 5 hours. Plenty of fish came aboard but again the landing ratio was a bit poor. It's a war zone with all the net boats out there. They drive 100 feet from your boat at 15 knots to get at your school."

At Fisherman's Landing June 26, Drew said, "We got rained on a bit yesterday." He weighed the fish, and the hands-down first-place winner was Harv Domsalla of Douglas, WY, with a 73-pound bluefin that came out of a school of albacore. It beat Domsalla up for 45 minutes.

"He kept making runs," said Harv. "I credit the crew for helping me get it aboard. I'm a novice. The other anglers helped a lot, too, by moving out of the way while he waltzed me around the boat about four times."

Harv said he fished a sardine on a 2/0 Mustad hook, with an outfit borrowed from the boat: 30-pound P-Line, a TLD 15 reel and a six-foot rod.

Harry Harms was second, for a 38-pound bluefin, and Bruce Burton of Wildomar won third place for a 37-pound bluefin tuna.

Captain Ryan Bostian called in today after 2 PM with an update from the San Diego. Today is my day off and Cameron is running the boat. We are up to 80 Yellowtail. We are having light loads even though the fishing has been great. Most of the fish medium grade with fish up to 25 pounds too!