fort walton beach Fishing Report 2025

82 yellowfin 2 bluefin 19 yellowtail. When we stop on a school of tuna every bait that hits the water gets looked at by the fish. If it isn’t presented perfectly they won’t touch it. We highly recommend changing your bait often, the more presentations you make the more likely you are to make a perfect one. 20lb flouro and size 2 hooks are what worked best.

The big tuna are around and close! Be sure to have 80- 100lb gear ready with 130 LB leader so you land your fish of a lifetime! 

The last 1.5 Day produced this 190 lb beauty! 

The 3M private charter experienced both ends of the spectrum of tuna behavior. Many non biting schools made our mid-day aggressive school very special.

"Fishing today was absolutely excellent!" wrote Polaris Supreme skipper Tom Rothery August 23. "The albacore bit all day and the weather has laid down and is good. All the albies were in the 25 to 30-pound range. For lunch we had swordfish in a butter, lemon, and caper cream sauce. For dinner we had a rack of lamb with a blue cheese port wine sauce. Yummy! A couple of boats headed to Guadalupe to no avail. We still have a spot here and there on some of our upcoming trips. Give Susan a call in the office if you can get away and come fish."
Rothery docked his boat at Fisherman's Landing August 24. He spent his fishing time on the four-day trip on the albacore grounds, with a half-day at Cortes Bank, where second skipper Drew Henderson reported big numbes of large bonito biting. The bones were eight to 12 pounds, he said. John Windling of Portland, OR won first place for a 41.4-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Mutu hook tied to 40-pound fluorocarbon leader and 60-pound Line One Spectra. He used an Avet JX reel and a Calstar 765 XL rod. David Schulz of Yorba Linda was second, for a 38.6-pounder, and John Thompson of Phoenix, AZ won third place for a 37-pound albacore.

Captain Ryan Bostian called in tonight with an audio update from "The San Diego" out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. Today we had a group of first timers on the boat. We had 29 anglers catch 95 Yellowtail, 24 Barracuda and 11 Calico Bass. We had very good fishing today with plenty of opportunities. Fly-lined sardines, Surface Irons and casting on boils was the ticket!

22 Anglers, 22 Yellowtail, and 87 Bonito. Light loads and good action.