port aransas tx Fishing Report 2025

Skipper JJ Gerritsen returned with his Apollo to Fisherman's Landing November 21, after an eight-day, ultra-limited trip. The boat's ten passengers fished Guadalupe Island before taking off for Magdalena Bay to fish big tuna on their final day. "All of our long range trips are ultra-limited," said JJ. "It takes away competition factors, we won't do more than ten passengers. We got limits of yellowfin, Guadalupe's been great our last six trips, but we did something different this time; we headed out for a shot at these big ones. All of our fish are kept in refrigerated saltwater, so they still look great." Matt Bowland of Encinitas took home the best tuna; a 224-pound yellowfin that fought "long and hard." Matt used a 6/0 Owner ringed Super Mutu hook, on an 80-pound P-Line topshot, 100-pound Spectra, a Tiagra 30 reel and a Calstar Grafighter 765 H rod. "I butt-hooked the sardine," said Matt. "The fight lasted two and a half hours." Drew Card of San Diego was second with a 196-pound tuna, and Craig Biddick of Rancho Santa Fe was third for a 164-pounder.

The 3 days of wind dropped the water temp a couple of degrees. Ended our day with full Mexican limits of yellowtail 4 dorado 3 skipjack. Conditions should improve with a few days of good weather.

Aug. 23

Let me wine for a few sentences please. With the exception of a 3 day window in the second week, we haven't had two days of good weather in a row in the whole month of August. It's tough to even make it a full day with good weather. Windy August 2013. Screw you August. Needless to say it's not very comfortable traveling right now. Good weather early turned to blown out pre lunch, then backed off for an hour , now blown out again.

OK, I'm done now. Slow fishing today. We had three deals today that didn't bite all that well. 8 out of 1, 14 out of another and then we had 1 for 1 and then we called it a trip. Oh well, we still had an awesome trip. We'll be in tomorrow after 7:00 in the morning and the big guy will be taking it out for a 5 day trip.

For everyone on board this trip who is reading this report later, thank you. You make our world go round.

1 yellowtail 31 calico bass 82 whitefish 2 sheepshead. Conditions seem to be improving daily but the fish we see are still in a funk. What we’re seeing as far as water temperature, color and current is “text book” for good fishing, only time will tell.

Plenty of bites and opportunity today as we landed 4 nice bluefin.

Tip from the crew: make sure your spectra is put on your reel properly with a line winding machine.

Oct. 15

We had excellent yellowfin tuna fishing today. It wasn't a one stop shop or anything like that, but rather a short stopping thing for six or eight or more per stop but we did this every hundred yards or so and we did this all day. Normaly we would be 100% stoked with this fishing but unfortunately the grade was not great. We were looking for the 25-35 pound fish and would never think twice about keeping an 18-25 pound fish but the fish we were catching were as small as 8 pounds and not very many exceeded 12 pounds. We had good action though. We were kept busy all day long. Nobody had time for a nap. We were kept on our toes. Anyone who wanted to keep some yellowfin tuna had that opportunity today and many did though we released about as much as we kept but like I said it was still fun none the less. The weather wasn't ideal. The wind was blowing some and the current was going straight into the wind which calls for rolly conditions but the sun was out and it was ok. Everything seemed to smooth out after dark.

We're going to go do some yellowtail fishing tomorrow. .

~~Oct. 4
 Last night I was planning my next move way too early.  I thought by 11:00 this morning we would be fixed up on both dorado and tuna so I was worrying about what I would do for the rest of the day.  The old counting your chickens before the eggs hatch scenario.  That never works out.  By 11:00 this morning we had 2 dorado on board and hadn't even seen a tuna fish yet.  It was an afternoon thing today.  I prefer morning things.  I like getting the sweat off early.  It doesn't always work that way though and have I ever let you all down?  No need to answer that.

 Anyways, before lunch we found our first dorado kelp and it was good for a round.  After lunch we found a school of those little tunas and did well while they were there but short lived.  A couple hours of looking later we bumped into that same school 5 miles away from where we originally saw it and maybe we got on the meat better that time because it didn't go away.  We left them biting.  The best way to leave a school.  Those things were chewing and coming on fast.  They were biting as good as is possible.

 After that we found a couple more kelps for a dozen more dorado and then poof, it was dark.  So we're headed home and we'll be spending Sunday night with our loved ones and coming back out Monday for 1 1/2 days.  Go Chargers!
       

22 yellowfin 3 bluefin(2 over 100lbs). Always a good idea to have a rod to fish 40-60lb line, never know what we might encounter.