dockside charters Fishing Report 2024

~~Sep. 12
 Slow morning, strong afternoon was how the fishing went down today.  We had 2 fish by lunch time and I was feeling the pressure.  Thankfully at noon the sonar went boom boom and we went sideways for a few hours.  Let me try and give you a picture of how things looked out here.  The fishing was wide open on a mixed school of skipjack and yellowfin.  We had 23 passengers and basically 23 rent rods.  Chaos out here on the Polaris Supreme.  And by chaos I mean fun, fun, fun.  At any given time we had half the passengers with fish on while the other half were tying on hooks.  It was pretty funny looking at 12 people at a time in the center of the boat tying on hooks.  Usually our customers have 10+ rods with hooks on them ready to go but all our anglers had one.

 Here is how I describe stand up tuna fishing.  It's not like freshwater angling.  Freshwater angling is more like an art.  It can be very peaceful and relaxing.  You use light tackle and  finesse.  With stand up tuna fishing, we can hook 24 fish at one time with every fish swimming a different direction with every crew member screaming out directions.  Gaffs are flying, reels are screaming and lines are snapping and it's some of the funnest $%^& in the world.  That's what today made me want to write.  We had a good time.

 We're on our way in already and we leave again tomorrow for 8 days.  See you then.
         

The San Diego checked in on March 16, with 25 yellowtail, 6 bonito and  100 rockfish catches.  Yo yo jigs have been the top producer so far but every school has boiled on our chum.Encouraging sign of fish for 1/2 the day today. Couple decent shots on all the popular presentations. We will try again tomorrow.

The Apollo has a two day trip departing on August 27th from Fisherman's Landing. The fare is $450 and meals and permits are included. We will be targeting Tuna and Yellowtail. Contact: Steph Franklin, 7945 Camp Chaffee Road, Ventura, CA 93001; phone #805.708.5276.

~~Aug. 21
 We missed again this morning folks.  I'm not very happy about it, but I've excepted it.  We've definitely put in our work this trip.  Not necessarily physically these last couple days but mentally for sure.  I am drained.  We didn't want to spend another afternoon like we spent yesterday so we left the grounds and fished the Coronado Islands this afternoon.  We didn't see much yellowtail.  Myself or the other long range boat here.  I heard some good analogies this trip by other captains on the radio that I'd like to share.  Looking at the fish reports is like watching sports center.  They keep showing you all the top tens, but they almost never show the other Joe's, and sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield.  Most guys the last couple days have been the bugs.

 There have been quite a few firsts for me lately.  First of all I've never spent this much time fishing this close to home other than my 3/4 day days..  I have never been anchored up right outside the harbor on the second night of the trip.  We were there catching bait.  I've never captained the boat to San Clemente or the Coronado Islands.  There's probably more.  Oh yeah, I've never seen the 5 freeway from the boat.  Mark thought it was a bird school.  In his defense, I had to give it a double take too.

 So that's it.  We're going home and we'll be leaving for 5 tomorrow.  Tommy is coming back out so he'll be deciding where to go.  I'll tell you though, it's tough to pass on this fish.  Unfortunately for us, it's the best grade of tuna around.  It's great for the 1/2 day boats though.
       

Captain Alyar called in this morning with a wrap-up report from the Pacifica out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. We ended our trip with 22 Bluefin Tuna, 41 Yellowtail and 6 Dorado.

We do have a 1.5 day trip departing Sunday night. We have a very light load and are a definite go. Call Seaforth or BOOK ONLINE.

Be sure to bring 20, 25 and 30 pound floor and small hooks. The Bluefin we caught today were between 15 and 40 pounds.

We look forward to fishing with you on the Pacifica.

Things definitely slowed down today! You can tell it's on the downswing. If a guy works at it though he could put together a day if you stay with it! Took off from the island heading to Ensenada early and our weather is definitely snotty to say the least! Should be in late tomorrow afternoon Friday, and on time into San Diego on Saturday morning. Looking forward to having Vernon and the boys out on their annual five-day charter to Guadalupe Island! Don't have much more to say just hanging on trying to stay in my chair and not fly out of the wheelhouse.

This morning was slow and the weather was rough. We lost a couple of nice fish because of the weather, but as the afternoon came so did good weather and really good fishing. Roger got a pair of bookends now as he landed another big tuna weighing in at 255 lbs. Most of the fish were 120-170 lbs. Fun afternoon. Dinner was an incredible roasted duck, my favorite. We are hoping for good weather and more great fishing tomorrow.

~~Sep. 8
 Today was not a bad day at all.  We tailed it.  The yellowtail bit a little.  We fished a fun little pinnacle rock most of today.  Conditions weren't perfect for drifting today.  For starters it was windy as heck here last night and yesterday.  We didn't see any of that because we weren't here but we got some of the after effects of it.  We had no wind at all yet we were rolling our pa toots off for the first couple hours of the morning.  Because we had no wind we were drifting with the current so it made fishing that spot difficult.  The fish wanted to be right on the edge of it and we would end up drifting right on top of the pinnacle and we were losing a lot of the fish we would hook.  The simple solution would be to anchor up off the edge but we tried that and the fish wouldn't bite on the anchor.  So it was really good fishing but landing them was tough but we were still able to land plenty.

 After lunch things straightened out and we were able to make a few good drifts but then I watched the entire school on my meter swim to the deeps and vanish.  After that we couldn't find the fish on that spot anymore.  They swam away.  So we looked else where and we were unsuccessful at finding any more yellers.  That was fine though.  We still caught plenty today.  It was a good day.

 Tomorrow we're going to finish the trip off looking to top off on dorado.  If we can get it done early enough we may have some time to try for some more yellows.  Otherwise we'll just be rolling on home after wards.