gambler Fishing Report 2025

JJ is running a rare OPEN PARTY overnight trip departing Friday night for fishing on Saturday. Call Sea Landing now at (805) 963-3564 to make your reservation. The fare is $125 and the load is light.

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! 

We departed today on Lon Mikkleson's annual, limited load 10-day charter. We loaded up some great looking bait while Pedro prepared a delicious pork tenderloin for lunch. The weather is slick, flat calm and the our anglers and crew both are excited about the upcoming prospects. The passengers are preparing their gear and for dinner Pedro put out a yummy lobster and rack of lamb dinner. We will keep you posted.

The first annual Ocean Tackle Research trip aboard Polaris Supreme returned with skipper Tom Rothery and chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen November 19. The ten-day trip had 20 anglers. "We caught a lot of variety and had good fishing," said Mikkelsen, from Hood River, OR. "We also caught a lot of 40-pound Humboldt squid. The best fishing was on kelp paddies in the warmer water. "We're testing some new OTR jigs," he continued, "and they got bit." Rothery weighed the contenders on the Fisherman's landing certified scales. Clint Campbell of Bozeman, MT won first place for a 65.95-pound wahoo he caught ona silver and pink Raider jig. He said he used 40-pound P-Line, a Daiwa Saltist 30 reel and a Seeker Black Steel 6470 rod. Jon Collins of Menifee won second place for a 52.6-pound skin that bit a pink Catchy Tackle bomb. Collins brought his son into the photo to show off a big dorado. Randy Walker of Huntington Beach was third, for a 48-pound wahoo that snapped up a gold Raider.

A pretty slow couple of days. We saw plenty of fish in tuna zone only finding one school that would react. We hit it a couple times before it scattered and we had to try and find something new. The next day we hit a couple of the shallows along the ridge. It was slow there too. We hooked a few marlin, a couple handfuls of dorado and a skin trolling around. We tried various anchor jobs for a few yellows here and there but we weren't going to get the job done there. We will be kelping tomorrow, way out far.

27 yellowtail 130 assorted rockfish 5 calico bass. For a brief period this morning the yellowtail reacted a bit better than the last couple of days. Hoping it’s a sign of things to come.

DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE!!! January starts Rock cod season here at Fishermans Landing. APOLLO has trips scheduled to start January 1st. You can get on these trips by booking Online or giving us a call at FISHERMAN'S LANDING at (619)221-8500.

Aug 14
    As I write this, it's the morning of the 14th.  When I was awakened for my watch and day at 3:05 this morning I couldn't tell if we were running or if we were anchored up in the bay.  You can't really hear the engines from where I sleep but I couldn't tell from the ride because it was so nice going up last night.  I seriously asked Tommy as he was still up reading.
    
    The fishing slowed down for us today as fishing does from time to time.  The bluefin didn't bite as well this morning nor did the yellowfin.  There was still yellowfin to catch this morning and there were some good scores had in the afternoon away from the bluefin zone but we caught enough yellowfin yesterday and hung out in the bluefin zone for a chance at some more of those trophies in the afternoon/evening.  We still had a decent morning.  I mean we still caught 14 nice bluefin and some yellowfin, but the bf's never made it back around for the afternoon snack fest.  We had a great trip and will be off loading a nice catch tomorrow morning at 6:00 and turning right back around shortly after that for 5 days.
 
     One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the amount of these toad bluefin being caught on jigs.  More then I have ever seen ratio wise but that could also be because more people were doing it but that could be because it was working well.  The shimano butterfly jig is the jig that caught most of our jig fish. But that could be because that's what most people were using but that could be because it was working so well.  And 90+ percent of those were caught on the sink.  No retrieve necessary except to bring it up to sink back down.  They loved it.  So if I were coming out this year I would throw a couple of those in my box.
                                
    
    PS- Shimano gave me nothing to write that last paragraph.  It just worked.