cheatham dam Fishing Report 2025

GREAT YELLOWTAIL FISHING!!! APOLLO went on an overnight trip with 23 anglers scored 58 Yellowtail. Check out their next open party trip. Call now for your reservation at Fisherman's Landing (619)221-8500

Covered a lot of water and chased small spots of bluefin almost all day long. At the end of the day we only managed to land 6 bluefin from 25-80lbs. Tomorrow’s a new day.

~~Aug 25
 We had a slow day today.  The morning seemed promising.  We caught a little but we saw a whole lot.  If just one of those schools we saw this morning wanted to bite a little we would of had a great day.  That seems to be the deal this year though.  Today, we hit the wrong schools.  We caught about 20 ish this morning from 30-50 pounds.  The afternoon stunk.  We ran in to where we finished up last night and it was muerto.  We ended up in an area late that had mucho fish but unfortunately they were all small.  We didn't even try them.  It wasn't worth wasting our precious sardine for. 

 The good news about not catching much fish this afternoon is we still have some of a tank of sardine left to fish with this morning.  It's 4:00 AM as I write this and we just finished up with our attempt at bait making.  We caught plenty of bait, but it wasn't a good size for the tuna that's out here so we're going to try and make some lemonade here.  We're going to take our big spanish mackerel and take it to where the 150+ pound bluefin live.  We'll do this after we run out of sardine this morning.  No one has tried that cow BF with a couple tanks of spanish yet.  Maybe that's the key to it all.

 The weather remains great.  We had a few hours this afternoon where things were getting interesting.  We had a descently strong wind out of the southeast and with it came some rain.  It wasn't all that neat but it didn't last long.  Things went back to butter.  Nice.
       

Well late in the day yesterday we got into a good school of albacore. They bite well and everybody was hung on the boat. It was a wild afternoon and we ended up with a nice round of albacore. This morning we are in a new area. Prospects look good and we've had a handful so far. We are coming up on a really good looking spot so I will update again later. Thanks! Tommy and crew

10 bluefin tuna 2 yellowfin tuna. We are seeing fish from 10 lbs to over 200 pounds. A 25 lb bait rod, a 40 lb bait rod and a 50,60 or 80 lb rod is recommended. If you do not own the proper tackle. Seaforth is renting 50 lb rods with a 2 speed reel. These rental rods have already conquered a lot of our fish.

Captain Jodie Morgan called in from The Apollo. We just returned from a 2.5 day trip and we had limits of Yellowtail and 52 Bluefin Tuna (25 to 65 pounds). If you are interested in jumping on the Apollo call the chartermaster Allan 714-797-9030 to get in on a Two Day trip July 17th and 18th.

~~Aug 23
 We drifted most of the morning until around 9 or so.  We drifted due to us catching fish.  We caught a whole lot of fish this morning.  They weren't the same 20-25+ pounders we've been getting.  There were a few of those, but these were about half that size.  It wasn't what we were hoping for but they were still fun.  The guys were having a blast.  They were getting some practice at the whole tuna fishing thing, picking a good bait, where to drop in, follow your fish... And they got to use some of there tags as well.

 After that we thought it would be a great idea to make a few hour run and get to San Clemente Island to catch those big yellows we caught there a couple of trips ago.  In theory it sounded great, but we didn't catch very many yellows.  We ended up bailing on it and looking for some bluefin that's been hanging around there.  We saw one pretty good spot around there but they wouldn't bite.  At dark we ended where we'll start tomorrow.  Some boats had some pretty good days here today on a very good grade of yellowfin along with some of that 25-50 pound bluefin as well.  Oh how I hope we can get in on some of that tomorrow.
Time will tell.  Cross your fingers at home. We'll take some good luck anywhere we can.
      

88 yellowfin 138 yellowtail 12 skipjack 1 dorado. Fun fall fishing.