crystal beach Fishing Report 2024

We have a 1.5 day trip this weekend aboard the new boat Pride. Berkley,Penn, and other companies will be on the boat with raffles and giveaways for each passenger. Penn with be raffling off a torque reel!! The price is $180.00 includes your mexican permit! Limited load to 16 passengers. Call me at 858-220-1593.

~~Oct. 4
 Last night I was planning my next move way too early.  I thought by 11:00 this morning we would be fixed up on both dorado and tuna so I was worrying about what I would do for the rest of the day.  The old counting your chickens before the eggs hatch scenario.  That never works out.  By 11:00 this morning we had 2 dorado on board and hadn't even seen a tuna fish yet.  It was an afternoon thing today.  I prefer morning things.  I like getting the sweat off early.  It doesn't always work that way though and have I ever let you all down?  No need to answer that.

 Anyways, before lunch we found our first dorado kelp and it was good for a round.  After lunch we found a school of those little tunas and did well while they were there but short lived.  A couple hours of looking later we bumped into that same school 5 miles away from where we originally saw it and maybe we got on the meat better that time because it didn't go away.  We left them biting.  The best way to leave a school.  Those things were chewing and coming on fast.  They were biting as good as is possible.

 After that we found a couple more kelps for a dozen more dorado and then poof, it was dark.  So we're headed home and we'll be spending Sunday night with our loved ones and coming back out Monday for 1 1/2 days.  Go Chargers!
       

~~Sep.21
 So we fished today on our open party 1.5 day trip.  What a morning.  We got on a school early.  In the dark.  I saw them on the sonar, then stopped, then looked out the window and there they were, swimming around under the lights.  So I dropped a bait in the water and a minute later I had a tuna on board.  So I woke up the crew and the passengers and we commenced fishing.  Before the sun came up we were finished.  I mean we had our daily limit of yellowfin so we passed the school off to another boat and moved on.  The reason we were able to get it done so quickly this morning was because the fish were small.  Unfortunately that's what the plan was all along.  The good grade tuna schools are missing here in 3 day range at the moment.  we've seen this before.  It's no surprise during a tuna season.  I don't believe it's over.  Just temporarily down.

 So we wanted to get our tuna out of the way early and then concentrate on finding dorado kelps, but we never found too much for dorado kelps.  The wind blew too.  It was perfect weather this morning, but by lunch it was blowing a good 25 knots.  Not comfortable.  Thing went back down though.  It didn't stay windy.  It's nice now.

 We get in tomorrow and we're going to take a couple of days off so we'll see you when we see you.  And by that I mean write and read.
   

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] .

Capt Mike Pritchard checked in with this report from the Tribute. "Another great day of fishing here. We have limits of Yellowtail. Now we are in search of some Bluefin. We have caught one so far.

The tuna have been popping up quickly in violent “formers”.

The angler who are able to get a quick cast into the chaos have been the most productive ones! 

The trip out now has tuna ranging in size from 30-115 lbs! 

Hopefully they start biting as good as they show.

Team Supreme

Mike Pritchard called in with this report for the Tribute. "We found a kelp paddy right at grey light this morning. So far we have about 35 Yellowtail and 2 Dorado so far. We'll keep you posted as the day progresses."

Capt. Ray Montera will be going out tomorrow in search of yellowtail. If you have ever wanted to catch a 20 plus pound yellowtail. This is the time for you.