outer banks nc Fishing Report 2025

Still heading up today. Prospecting for Tuna. Limited loads and culinary excellence is a huge factor in every long range fishing experience. From 1.5 - 23 days we always keep the standard set high! Here we have veteran crewmen Chris, nick name (Slider) dishing out some sliders on a recent 1.5 day trip for an afternoon snack, right before the delicious final night Filet Mignon dinner. Slider has been doing this since the early 90s and still has the same fire as he did back then. Right on Slider! We have a day and a half trip departing Friday July 20th

Hey gang:

This past week we got a taste of just about everything the offshore grounds have to offer. Wednesday and Thursday were spent drifting over the top of some of the biggest schools of bluefin tuna I have ever seen in the local waters. While we had a lot of fish around and under the boat we did not catch all that many of them. I have been saying for years that I believe a bluefin tuna is one of the hardest fish to hook in the ocean and they proved it as we caught 11 on Wednesday and 7 on Thursday. Monday and Tuesday were relatively slow days for us as we returned to the dock with 20-30 mixed fish (yellowtail,dorado). On Friday and Saturday we took out 2 separate rent rod charter groups and experienced some very fun fishing for yellows and dorado. The highlight of the week was our Saturday trip as we caught 68 mixed fish (46 yellowtail 22 dorado). If you are planning to come out with us this week , all you need to bring is a few bait rods. 25 lb. has been the most popular size as it is a nice medium between light and heavy. In the event that we run into a school of bluefin a 15 or a 20 lb. rod is a nice outfit to have. A 30 lb. rod can be used on kelps where the dorado and yellowtail are biting good.

Come fish for exotics with us!

Capt. Ryan Bostian

Sep. 8

We woke up this morning on the drift. I heard Tommy doing the stop and go on his watch early in the morning meaning he was seeing schools. He woke the rest of us up bright and early and it didn't take too long before we started hooking fish. They were the 15-18 pound bluefin and they weren't biting as well as you'd think they would judging by all the fish around the boat. We kept drifting though trying the patient mode. It's a lot easier to be patient with non biting fish when the other boats aren't getting stops. After a while and a few handfuls of BFT we gave up on these fish and went searching for some new ones. It took a while but around lunch time we found a nice big fat kelp and it was an aquarium underneath. Good viewing and catching on lot's of different fish from small throwback yellowtail to small tuna and tuna up to 32 pounds and lots of dorado. Yes it's that time of year. The water warmed up considerably in the last week or so and with that came schools of yellowfin and now the dorado in numbers. We'll take um. Crowd pleaser's is what they are and you know us, we like to please crowds. After a couple hours fishing there we went searching for something new unsuccessfully so we ended up back on our kelp and caught some more dorado and a few more tuna. We're now headed for the yellowtail grounds and everyone is fat and happy and we're planning on some good pulling on big yellows tomorrow.

I ate the escolar again substituting it for the prime rib in the fajitas we had for lunch today. It was smooth sailing John and I mean that in a good way. No problems down there. The fish isn't the best fish in the ocean. The flavor is great though the texture is a bit soft. Opening day for pro football so I'll leave you with this. Go Chargers! Let's do some competing this year. My Pad's couldn't do it so now it's up to you guys. Come on now!

11 Yellowfin & 145 Yellowtail. Steady November kelping, plenty of action.

July 17
    Our morning started off hot.  We had some very good tailing for about 1 1/2 hours on the 16-22 pound grade.  We managed to get a few fish per rod in that amount of time frame before things went dead around 8:30.  It's OK, we were expecting that.  We stuck with the plan and looked for yellowfin after that and it wasn't long before we connected.  We had 2 good stops and one great stop on the yellowfin tunas and scattered small stops the rest of the day.  They were a bit on the small side but that's what's around here so we fished them.  After that we drove out of the zone to put ourselves in position for tomorrow and didn't catch much the rest of the day.

    We'll be tailing it again tomorrow looking for the bigguns down below first thing in the morning.  The weather this morning was great.  It got a little windy in the afternoon but it was OK.
                                

 

Captain Ryan Bostian checked in tonight with an update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA. Ryan said, "The kids are back in school and the tuna are still around. Reservations are very light all week. Let the "locals summer" begin."

7 Yellowfin Tuna 169 Skipjack Tuna.  Weather is forecasted to be very nice this week.  Don’t be part of the “day after” crowd.  We still have plenty of good fishing ahead of us.

Today was greatly disappointing after such a great fishing yesterday. Our efforts for better quality fish did not pay off. We saw great signs of 80-100 lb. fish but they just didn't want to cooperate. They would boil up good and look promising, but we only got a handful of fish. We are going to leave this place and give it time to straighten out. We are going to look for a new area. Our weather is still absolutely premium. Warm, hot and balmy. Thanks for checking in.