norcal bay area Fishing Report 2025

The Annual SFR charter aboard the Apollo with Captain J.J Gerritsen and crew was a big success !! The Apollo is running out of Sea Landing on beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor, the closest harbor to the outer Channel Islands. Great weather meant an ideal cruise over to San Miguel Island for some of the finest shallow water rockfishing you'll find anywhere. 300 feet down you say, maybe 200, how about 100 feet ? No way. The offshore terrain around San Miguel is so rugged and marked with underwater pinnacles, we spent most of the day fishing in 25 to 90 feet of water. Lighter rigs, jigs, leadheads and swimbaits were the order of the day, and the San Miguel rockfish were in a hungry mood. We started catching fish before daybreak and spent the rest on the trip hauling up huge reds, chuckles and lings, all sporting some of the most vibrant colors I've seen on any fish in a long time. Awesome day!! We limited out on huge rockfish, slammed about 50-60 grumpy whitefish, 5-6 huge goats and 16 or so pre-historic looking lings before calling it a trip. Epic day !!!! The jackpot was a nail biter as Shawn Suhr's huge lingcod and Art Moralez's giant goat battled to a near dead heat. Captain J.J needed to come down and settle the score, with the final vote went going to Shawn's 12-13 pound ling. Great job Shawn. Captain J.J and his crew did an awesome job as always and the Apollo is looking as spotless as ever. The Apollo will be in Santa Barbara till around mid May before moving down to Fisherman's Landing in San Diego. Call Sea Landing at 1-805-963-3564 or log onto www.apollocharters.com for their schedule. Great trip everyone !!!. email me at [email protected] for any photos. Thats the word on the water. Don

Hello everyone We are wrapping up our Beck, Wagstaf and Emerson and Friends 5 day trip today. This trip the Joe Beck, Mal Wagstaf and Emerson and friends charters joined forces on this summer time five day trip. We had some great fishing on some great quality yellowtail. Most of the fish were well into the 25 lb class with some pushing 30lbs. The fish were up high and very surface oriented. They were being hooked on the fly line sardine and surface iron. It doesn't get much better than yellows boiling around the boat and chewing on the surface iron. We had very few small fish mixed in with these biting yellows, the vast majority were great quality fish. It was a great relief getting into these big biting fish after a few trying trips with tough conditions. The next leg of our trip was spent offshore and lead to fantastic kelp patty fishing. The kelps we found had great sized yellows on them school size tuna and also some trophy Dorado. We were able to top off our yellowtail count and mix it up with some Dorado and tuna as well. The water was blue, the fish were biting, and the weather was flat calm. Everything one would ask for during an offshore fishing day. We Depart on our Steele 5 day charter tomorrow Wish us luck, team Supreme

The offshore beat goes on! Funny how things just seem to work out when you try as hard as possible and keep a positive outlook. 2 weeks ago when the fleet received word that we had to check in at Ensenada in order to fish the Mexican coast. Many boat owners including myself were very concerned about the remainder of the 2012 season. With our backs against the wall and very little options we headed offshore. Our first few trips we scratched at bluefin tuna and yellowtail.

In the past five days we have been averaging 20-40 mixed fish, a nice mix of dorado and yellowtail. Today we had a very welcome visit from an 18 lb. albacore. While the political issues concerning the Mexican coast are being worked on we will continue to fish offshore. These offshore trips are 5:30-7:00 and are limited to 50 passengers cost is $115 and includes a fishing license. Past history shows that the offshore bite should only improve for us as we move deeper into the summer and into fall. Come join us!

Hello Supreme Fans, We started our morning off at one of the lower banks. Having talked to one of our code group boats that had fair fishing on bigger grade tuna. At first light we started to catch skipjack tuna and a few grouper. By mid morning we pulled the pick and started to go look around for that boomer school, and we found one! but it was not to be for us as the school didn't want nothing to do with us. After lunch we dropped the anchor and started to get some school size tuna to bite. We stuck it out there for the rest of the day and it paid off Tom Studley hooking and landing a 110 pounder. Just before dinner we pulled the anchor and headed for the bait grounds to restock our bait supply. Wish us luck. The Supreme Team.

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 08-07-2016 Hello everyone, Today was mostly a travel day. We spent it most of our time rigging up and getting ready for our 3:30 eta fishing time. In transit however we caught a rare glimpse of some Killer Whales around the boat and playing in our wake. A truly amazing sight seeing these animals in the wild, merely feet away from our spectating passengers. This does not happen often and we are excited to have seen the oceans ultimate predator in its natural environment. Fishing started immediately upon our arrival to our destination. Loads of life in the area. Ranging from bait, birds, yellowfin tuna, and yellowtail. From 3:30 until dark our eager anglers put together a Great afternoon of fishing on both Yellowfin Tuna and Yellowtail. A rare Killer Whale sighting and some nice fish on the boat is a nice way to start off our trip. We are eager to get back at it tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by, The Supreme Team

36 passengers on todays adventure with a catch of  43 yellowtail and 53 bonito. We had a couple of short opportunities today.

This past week was all about yellowtail and warm water. 40 - 115 yellowtail per trip with a sprinkling of dorado sums up the past week. I attached a photo of the terrafin chart for our area to show you guys all the warm water. Anything over 70 degrees is considered warm and as you can tell we have plenty of it. As a matter of fact finding the cooler water has actually been the key to catching these yellowtail. The most common question this week was "when are the yellowfin going to show up". While I don't have a crystal ball to tell you exactly when they are going to show up. I can tell you that they have made a major northern movement over the past week and there has been yellowfin tuna caught as close as 60 miles. With all this warm water in the area the table is definitely set for some phenomenal fall fishing. If your looking to get off the beach and chase exotics with us. Call Seaforth at 619-224-3383.

Captain Ryan Bostian

June 28
We found some action early this morning on a kelp with some yellowtails.  Mark found it but I don't think I can give him credit for it.  "twelve  oclock, a trash can lid.  Oh I lost it. oh nine o'clock. ile in a half.  No, half mile.  Two trash can lids.  Oh I lost it".  The second time he lost it he looked ion the wrong side of the boat so i found it and  it was a good sized kelp.  Oh Mark.  Anyhow, everyone on the boat got to pull and tug on a little yeller and tag one or two if they chose.   We hit it a couple times before getting in tuna mode.  Things looked very similar to yesterday.  Many spots of yellowfin around, just no meat to it.  I'm talking 6-12 fish schools mostly and they weren't very interested in us.We worked very hard for just a handful of fish.  The good news is it wasn't boring as I think I mentioned last night.  The fish kept us on  our toes.  Good sight seeing.  Good fishing, bad catching.  Oh well.  We still had a good time out here on our first trip of the year and we have our passengers to thank.
Please excuse the spelling.  I'm sitting back in my chair as I write this and the letters on the screen are to small to see and the E on this keyboard keeps falling off.  We'll get everything under control real soon.