james river Fishing Report 2025

Hi everyone, We will be fishing the Channel Islands out of Santa Barbara this weekend and we have space on a open charter sponsored by Berkley. These are always fun trips to be a part of there will be give aways and swag. The trip will depart from Sea Landing at 9pm on Thursday night and fish Friday returning Friday evening. The trip will target Shallow water rockfish and if there is some sign of seabass or halibut around we will give those a shot too. The trip is limited to 20 people and the cost is $200. Please contact Sea Landing for reservations or details. Thanks, hope to see you there. JJ

Who could use a spread like this one tonight?

We departed today on Eric Rogger's annual ultra light load (19 passengers) 5-day trip. Eric always puts together a great group of anglers and this year is no exception. We have a couple of father daughter, father son pairs. This year we have had a few of trips go out with multi generations fishing together and as well as having a great time fishing, they are building great memories together. So we are on the hunt for fish. Our weather is ok. Not flat calm, but it is ok. Tonight chef Jeff pleased everyone with a delicious rack of lamb, with a honey mustard glaze on the side. Fresh sauteed vegetables and roasted potatoes. Thanks for checking in. We will update again tomorrow. Tommy, Drew, Dave, Richie, Joey, Jed and Jeff

~~Sep. 5
 Here we go again.  Arrive/depart today.  Off with the old, out with the new.  5 days.  That's how long we have on this one. 5 days.  Weather forecast looks terrific for at least the next few days so that's wonderful.  We have another first for me this trip.  Before this trip I have never loaded up with straight mackerel for bait.  Other than the last trip but that was a 1.5 day trip.  This is long range.  Straight mackerel.  That's 3 top tanks, and 2 big slammers full below deck.  All full of mackerel.  So this will be interesting.  It looks like great yellowtail bait.  Not great for chumming but great for catching the yellows, and I'm sure the bluefin will eat them too, just not as well as the sardine.  Oh well.  It is what it is.  We'll just make lemonade, that's all.

 So to start things off tomorrow we will be fishing for those yellowtails.  And most likely, we'll be doing that for the next couple of days before getting in the hunt for the blues.  Action.  We want action.  Wish us luck.
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Hi everyone,

I have one spot open on a 5.5 day Guadelupe trip departing November 1st and returning, November 6th. The trip is limited to 10 people and the cost is $1800. There is a $200 permit and customs clearance fee, all other permits and food are included. Please contact Toke Aw (310) 454-1965 if you are interested in this unique adventure with us aboard the Apollo.

I hope you are all getting in on this great run of BFT. Good luck and thank you to all who have been able to make it out with this year.

JJ

June 29

We started our day today offshore tuna fishing. We were staying pretty steady jiggin em up. Onesie twosie for a few hours. We weren't seeing any volume though. Just handfuls of fish around here and there. No schools. The fish were also on the smaller side of things. We could've made a day out of it and ended up with a decent catch but the fish were on the smaller side of things. 8-12 pound yellowfin tuna and that's just not what we were looking for. So we decided to wind in the jigs and v line it down to the yellowtail grounds with the hopes of a sea bass mixed in.

The yellowtail grounds were very poor. There were two of us looking around there and we had a combined score of 0. Mr. Pfleger did get a white sea bass so we were stoked. Fish tacos in a couple days.

The weather today was fantastic and the forecast shows good weather for the rest of the week too so that's always good news. We're going to stick with the plan and go look for White Sea Bass tomorrow in some White Sea Bassy water. The ribs are smelling good so I gotta go.

 

We finished off our trip at the lupe and it was poor. No sign of big fish only small fish. Good weather on our way home. We'll be dock side for a few days and departing on Wednesday for 10 days.

The Ranta Charter started off fishing yellowfin tuna with a decent little score on school sized fish ranging from 10-20 pounds. Most of the fish were caught on the flylined sardine with 30 pound test and a 2/0 hook. We also had as handful of troll fish that came off of green and black zuker feathers. The next day we sought after some quality yellowtail between 20 and 30 pounds. Sadly, these fish didn't show like we hoped they would have. We saw a couple small schools of fish that came up and boiled in the chum, but nothing would stick with the boat. Fish were being caught on flylined sardine, yo-yo jigs, and everyone's favorite technique, the surface iron. We managed to pick away at some of these fish in the morning before calling it quits and moving on in search of a better bite. After hearing reports of the yellowfin bite picking up, We decided to make a run to the grounds to get in on the action. We arrived mid-morning with high expectations, as a couple other boats in the area had some big scores off big schools of yellowfin. It didn't take long for our dreams to turn to reality as a four way trolling hookup turned into a wide open bite. They were biting anything that was thrown in the water for a solid hour until most of the passengers had their fill pulling on these tuna, that averaged 15 pounds. We had a couple more stops for not as much success before pointing the boat towards something new. The last day of fishing was spent offshore looking for kelps, but dirty water and 20 mph winds made it hard kelp finding conditions/ However, we managed to pick up a few nice Dorado as well as a couple more yellowfin to add to our total. This was a great trip with some awesome people, a couple a which had their first experience out here fishing saltwater. A big thanks to Dan Ranta for putting this all together, we hope to see you all out here again sometime soon! Till next time, Team Supreme