orange beach Fishing Report 2024

~~Sept. 4
 About mid morning today I was pretty bummed. I felt we should've been here yesterday. I was thinking we were going to have to run in tonight to catch our tuna for the trip. I was wrong. Before lunch we had our best stop of the year on yellowfin. Not just number wise but size wise too. 20-30 pounders with a few 18's and a few 35's. That's right, feeling pretty good now. It didn't take very many of them to fill up a fish hold. We pretty much have 2 full fish holds and fortunately/unfortunately, we have to prepare another fish hold for tomorrow. I only say unfortunately because we'll be forced to use the beautiful sardine we've been saving. Out here we've been catching our own bait so we wouldn't have to use our stock but we have no room to put the bait we catch now.

 The bluefin weren't in the biting mode today. We still saw the schools as we have everyday since we've been fishing in this zone, but some days are bite days and some aren't. Obviously we're hoping tomorrow is a bite day. Some bluefin would be the cherry on top of this wonderful sundae.

 The weather sure was nice today and to top it all off, it looks like we'll have the same tomorrow. Sweet dreams. Life is good.
 

59 bluefin 37 yellowfin. Quite a few bites on the 30-40lb flylined baits today. Sinker rigs, colt snipers and flat falls still getting plenty of action.

~~Aug 25
 Once again, today we had a good day.  We started our day off fishing bait.  Wide darn open on the small greenies.  I was singing the Who song "rain on me" because it was raining bait.  It didn't take long to get what we needed for the day and we headed off to the bluefin grounds which is right there.  We had one OK stop but right before lunch was our good one.  I remember because I ordered my lunch when we didn't have anything going and when I walked outside we had 4 going.  I can power down a meal pretty fast though and that's what I did.  We were able to drift with that school for hours before it stopped biting.  We had a couple per round of those 30-40 pounders.  I call those the perfect grade.  They are manageable, meaning they're fairly easy to bring to the boat while at the same time when you do you always end with a smile because they're big.  The perfect grade.  After they stopped biting say around 5:00, we looked for another school unsuccessfully for an hour so we ran back to the bait grounds and had a little start on our re-bait.  We'll finish in the morning.  Having this perfect bait right next to the fishing grounds is the most special thing about this area.  It's more special than the beautiful bluefin we're catching.  Sometimes where you caught your bait is more important than where you caught your fish.  No bait, no luck.
         
 

Today we went out with 35 passengers and the yellowtail pulled a no show. The conditions at the Coronado islands were actually nicer today than yesterday. I honestly believe that the yellowtail are still at the islands however we never found them today. We will give it another shot tomorrow. It would be a good idea to start bringing out your bait rods. 25-30 lb. is perfect for live bait fishing.

125 yellowfin for our 45 passengers. We had 2 drifts today both of which took a finesse presentation to get a bite. Size 2 or even size 4 hooks on 20lb flouro carbon is still the recommended set up when the tuna are picky. And special thanks to Captain Todd and crew of the @voyagersportfishing for letting us double team a very nice school with them.

Jodie called in to let us know that the Berkeley 1 Day Trip is a go. It will leave tomorrow night at 9:00 PM.

If you are interested in that trip call Sea Landing or call Jodie at 858-220-1593.

Steady stop and go action on school grade yellowfin. 59 yellowfin tuna 1 yellowtail. Private charter tomorrow tomorrow then back to open party on Monday.

Aug 13

Once again we weren't holding the lucky horse shoe in the tuna grounds today. We saw some fish in the morning but not a lot. Around lunch time up until after 6 we saw several schools that for us, wouldn't stick with the boat. Some of the boats found some that stuck which for a boat that didn't can be quite frustrating. We're going to stick it out here for our last day tomorrow. We have plenty of time tomorrow to locate biting fish and that's what we'll do. The weather was good today. A little windy late but the forecast for tomorrow looks great.