north shore trout Fishing Report 2025

Hello fishing friends,

We now have the Apollo in beautiful Santa Barbara for the rest of the spring. We are running two Berkley sponsored limited load overnight trips to the Channel Islands. The first trip will depart on Thursday night April 19th at 9 pm to fish on Friday April 20th. The second trip will depart at 9 pm on Thursday night May 17th to fish Friday May 18th. These trips will target Quality Rockfish, ling cod with the chance for some early season halibut or sea bass. Please come join us on the Apollo in Santa Barbara for some fun spring time fishing. Berkley will sponsor this trip and will be giving away swag on board. These ntrips are limited to 20 people and the cost is $185 per person. Please call Sea Landing at (805) 963-3564.

Thank you,

J.J.

What a delicious meal whipped up by Chef Roger and galleyman Gringo! Simply outstanding!

~~Sep. 16
 Yesterday morning I was looking at the positions and forecasts of positions and conditions of hurricane Odile and it sure looked to me like we'd be able to go around it that night.  So after consulting with Tommy, he did some research and he agreed.  And by dark yesterday I was 95 percent sure we could do it.  Not enough.  We need 100 percent out here.  So we headed straight west most of the night until I got an update on the storm at 2:00 am which made me 100 percent sure we could easily make it around the storm.  So we hung a left and we've been traveling all day heading for Alijos Rocks.  We had some choppy weather this morning but we couldn't tell by our ride because we were going with it.  Down swell = a good ride.  The weather is nice now that I write this and we're expecting the same the next few days at least.

 We usually expect a couple travel days on an 8 day trip and today was one of ours.  We did try really hard though to find a nice big dorado kelp but we were unsuccessful.  The only kelps we found weren't big enough to hold a school of mahi.  So we'll have to do it tomorrow or the next day.  Or the next, OK.  We'll be concentrating on wahoo first thing tomorrow. We'll be saying our wahoo prayers tonight.  I'll check back later.
         

~~Aug 30
 Today didn't go as well as we were hoping. The plan sounded so good in my head too. You don't believe me? Come inside my mind and tell me it didn't sound like a good plan, you'll be a liar. The plan was to start here and work there. We were supposed to catch a bunch of yellowtail, then catch a wahoo or two, then scratch at some dorado here and there along with another wahoo or two, then we were supposed to get a small hit on wahoo in the end before finding the motherload of dorado.

 Well, there wasn't much yellowtail. The little bit of dorado we saw either didn't bite or was small. And we didn't see a wahoo until the end. We did see a school of good grade yellowfin that wasn't in our plan. It didn't bite for long though. It was on the corner biting every bait for about three minutes. Just long enough for everyone to get one and then they vanished. I drove around thinking I would easily find the school again but we never did. We lost at least 6 wahoo on the last spot we checked and landed none. The wahoo won today.

 Cool things of note today- the sailfish we caught, a couple marlin hooked and the orcas we saw. In the 14 seasons I've been out here I can only remember a handfull of times seeing killer whales so it's not too often we see them. We also don't catch sailfish too often.

 Tomorrows plan- wahoo!

Today we went out with 16 anglers. Fish count for the day was 1 yellowtail 50 red rockcod 80 rockfish and 1 lingcod.

Myself and the crew would like to thank everyone who joined us for this past season. 2016 will forever be remembered as one of the most unique years. From huge schools of non biting yellowfin tuna to foamers of big bluefin that enjoyed eating surface poppers. This season proves that none of us know anything about the ocean. We will shut down for a month or so to handle our annual maintenance. We look forward to fishing with everyone again in 2017.

Today we had some decent Tuna and Wahoo fishing. It was for sure a grind but we were able to capitalize on a few shots on both Tuna and Wahoo. The Wahoo were good grade and really keyed in on the mackerel we caught last night. So it was as good thing we put in the work in to catch them! The shot at tuna yielded a great grade of fish . 20-40 lbers. The only downside is that they quit biting when the current died. Tomorrow we will try for wahoo and Dorado on kelps wish us luck ! Here we have Gary with his big Wahoo and a nice Supreme Sunset .

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Hi friends. Yellowtail fishing was off the hook this morning -- or, on the hook, depending on which way you look at it. Fifteen to twenty-eight pound fish just kept coming over the rail and we also had a few flatheads as well. It was all you could've wanted on fly-lined sardines, yo-yo jigs, and surface jigs too but we only took a few boxes to break up the morning and from there, we ventured offshore with the hopes of finding something floating for dorado and wahoo.

Let me tell you, trying to locate kelps in eighty degree water is a difficult task and although we did get lucky and found a couple scraps, they weren't holding all that much. However, we did troll up a few legitimate ball-slappers, a marlin (healthy release), and one really nice wahoo at dusk caught by Mike Henry. His wahoo looks to be in the fifty to sixty pound range and he coaxed that fat skinny into latching onto a purple and black Marauder. Good going, Mike.

For tomorrow, we'll be fishing for all kinds of species but our main target is wahoo. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Our weather is just splendid and the all-day bronze-a-thon continues. I'm starting to look like Hulk Hogan out here. Supreme guns. Later.