james river Fishing Report 2024

FANTASTIC 1.5 TRIP WITH CAPT. J.J.!!!! APOLLO recent trip with 24 anglers brought in 26 Yellowtail(ranging 22 lbs to 30 lbs), 78 Lings, & limits of Rockfish. Next available trips will be Feb 2nd & 16th. Book now before it's too late. Call Fisherman's Landing @ (619)221-8500 to get your reservation.

Captain Ryan Bostian called in today after 2 PM with an update from the San Diego. Today is my day off and Cameron is running the boat. We are up to 80 Yellowtail. We are having light loads even though the fishing has been great. Most of the fish medium grade with fish up to 25 pounds too!

Ryan Bostian talks about the gear you will need fishing at this time of year
Hey guys:

I'd like to check in and give you guys a recap of our last week at the Coronado Islands as well as prepare you for what you can expect this week. This is the time of year when surface fish are the target species. Yellowtail , barracuda , calico bass , sandbass and white seabass are all on the menu right now. Most of our trips last week we caught between 5-15 yellows 50-150 barracuda and 30-70 calico bass. An area of squid has moved into the island area and some of our trips have started out jigging live squid to use for bait. Squid jigs will be provided by the boat if we decide to stop for squid. Having the live squid opens up a few more options for us.

I want to give you guys a list of rods and reels you should bring out this time of year. One 15 lb. rod with a bass rod and reel like a Calcutta or curado for fishing anchovies and plastics for calico bass and sandbass. One 25 lb. or 30 lb. rod for fly lining sardines . One 30 lb. rod for fishing a live squid with a small sliding egg sinker. The fourth outfit is optional and it is a 40 lb. jig stick for fishing the surface iron.

While everyday is different on the ocean and we need to be prepared for a variety of fish this time of year. These 4 outfits will have you prepared. A wise man once told me " the definition of luck is when preparation and opportunity collide".

Capt Ryan

41 yellowtail 1 barracuda 1 calico bass. Steady picking all day long.

~~Aug 2
 Today was a bit on the slower side.  Until the end but I'll get to that.  We woke up in hopes of getting a sea bass bite going but that was only a fairy tale.  We got a few yellows is all.  After, we made some grouper drifts and caught some more of those Broomtail Groupers.  Something like 4 or 5 of them along with some calico bass and yellows while we drifted along.  And for the rest of the day we pretty much hung out in the lee of the island and drifted here and there and caught a handful of yellowtail here and there.

 Like I said, we fished the lee today.  No wind for us.  It was lovely.  We had plans for dinner at 7:30, so at 7:00 i hopped in the shower to get cleaned up because I was serving, and while I was in there, I heard some cheering, and then again some hooting and hollering hen I was getting out.  It turns out the first round of cheers came because of a nice sea bass they brought in.  The second was for a yellowfin tuna that was landed.  I went down and got the tables set and while I was doing this they kept catching yellowtail, tuna and seabass.  After we made first call we had a whopping 1 person come in to eat.  Team galley understood though.  We knew that there may possibly be no fishing time for the next day due to bad weather running up the line.  So we kept catching fish and one by one, passengers would come in and scarf down some dinner, which was a lovely meatloaf that was fantastic, and then go back out and catch some more fish. 

 This lasted until after 9:00 and then we took off.  We ended the stop with 30 yellowtail, 5 white seabass up to about 40 pounds, and something like 6 or 7 on the tunas. We prepared the deck for a rough ride home, and set sail toward the beach  to try and improve our conditions.  The swells always less on the coast rather than offshore.  I doubt we'll have any time to fish tomorrow.  Travel day.
      

Once again we stopped on enough fish to fill up our fish hold 10 times. Unfortunately we only had 1 brief moment of biting fish. 2 bluefin tuna (40-50 lbs) 11 yellowfin tuna. Hopefully these fish get out of their funk soon.

Good morning everyone, We got a great early start on our Simpatico five day trip. Our intentions were to have an opportunity to catch some of these larger local Bluefin Tuna. However the action slowed and it did not pencil out as we hoped. There is some pretty bad weather rolling up today and is supposed to be here tomorrow. We are probably going to try some inshore fishing somewhere tomorrow to stay clear of the weather and pull on some fish at the same time. Wish us luck, Team Supreme

~~Oct. 13-14
 Nothing to report on Oct. 13.  More of the same.  Though it was our last day so the cocktail hour was to a minimum.  We arrived to our destination around 1:30 in the am Tuesday morning.  We did a tour for flying fish (to use as bait) but we only caught a few.  We kicked the anchor over and most of us got a couple more hours of sleep.  Everyone got up at 0400 hours and got to work.  Some faster than others.  When I woke up George was the only one in the water so I thought I'd give him a hand.  I threw a sinker on a rig and dropped down a sardine and 5 minutes later we had our first tuna aboard.  About an 80 pounder.  It was our sashimi fish.  After that there was a whole lot of good shark and small tuna fishing going down so again during a time when no one was in the water (due to having to retie because of shark teeth), I dropped another bait down, this time on the rod Mark likes to call the OJ (no one knows why), and about 20-30 minutes later we had a 196 pounder aboard.  While that was going on George got hooked up and brought a 218 pounder over the rail.  It wasn't even light out yet.  After that the sharks fully took over.  It was pretty much unfishable so we didn't give it much time, we pulled anchor and got to trolling and for the next 8 hours or so it was steady striking on the wahoos.  Damn.  We caught about 5 per angler so I'd call that good for sure.  For the last few hours we got steady strikes on one of this groups favorite fishing methods, trolling the yummy fliers.  We caught a lot of tuna today on those and on the marauders and some on bait.  They were all mostly in the 120 pound range.

 The weather today sure was interesting.  The wind never had much strength but it couldn't pick a direction.  One minute it was coming out of the northeast, and the next it was coming out of the west.  It did that all day so for that and the sharkies giving us grief we never tried another anchor job today and we're spending the night adrift.  It also rained a whole lot this evening.  I'd say it was raining cats and dogs when I went to bed but it's cleared up now at 0100 hour as I write this on my watch.  One more hour and I'm going back to bed until 5 when we'll all be going back into battle.  Hopefully tomorrow these dang sharks leave us alone.