rockport Fishing Report 2024

Aug. 18
    We fished today in the local bluefin zone.  We scratched at the yellowfin and picked at the bluefin for 5 hours this morning.  Scratch means we were getting a few here and there and pick means we were getting one here and there.  In the morning the blues were mostly 25-45 pounds and we caught half a dozen or so 60-70 pounders.  Between noon and 5:00 PM we drove around looking for fish with not much luck and we went back to the blue zone for the evening session and had a real good evening.  We picked up 7 more 60-80 pounders and the yellowfin got on us a couple times and we couldn't stop catching it until after dark.  One post it note I made today was BBB.  It's a reminder to tell you about a regular passenger of ours by the name of Bill Byler.  If you don't know Bill he is one of those loud mouth, smart mouth old retired fireman guys and he's awesome.  He is a load of fun.  Anyways he was hooked up onto one of those big Bluefins late today and I heard Gunny tell him his boots were on back wards.  I thought it was just a joke but sure enough, his darn boots were on the wrong feet.  He said he was wondering why his feet hurt so much.  I never seen that before.  He ended up catching 2 of those tonight.

    The last couple days have been choppy out here but today it was very nice.  We get in tomorrow and leave again for 4.  See you then.
                    

Ladies are absolutely killing it today! The OTR charter is really getting in on these great grade Yellowfin Tuna!

Aug. 25

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bluefin are the most unpredictable fish out there that we fish for. If you would have told me yesterday that we were going to have a day like we had today, I would have laughed in your face. Never again though. I will never trust this fish. For the last several days the bluefin fishing was very poor. I really thought that it was over for the year. I was wrong. Today we experienced the best bluefin tuna fishing I have ever seen. This is on a quantity to quality ratio that I'm talking about here. In my 13 years of long ranging, today was the best for the Bluefins.

Just after 6:00 this morning we stopped on a single fish mark under the boat. Just after 6:00 tonight we left them. The whole time we drifted it was pretty much wide open. The fish were from 25 up to 75 pounds. Most of them being in the 30-40 pound range. Once again we went into battle and we won. Oh yeah, we fished in the rain. At around 11:00 it started raining and it never stopped. Everyone on board was absolutely drenched all day and it was awesome. By the end of our stop no one was fishing so Mark and I grabbed a couple of rods and boated 3 of them ourselves. It was only Mark and I fishing and I was bringing one in and wouldn't you know it, when the fish was at gaff, there was Mark's spectra tangled all over my fish. 2 anglers fishing and he manages to make a big tangle. MAAAARK!!! I would have made him put on the dunce helmet but he was already wearing it. Heres why. There was a 2 fish tangle and Mark grabbed 1 of the rods to unwrap it and he dropped it right in the water. MAAARK!!!. Unbelievably another person fishing managed to hook one of the guides on the rod and we got it back. Fish and all. I immediately tossed Mark the yellow dunce helmet and he wore it all day.

Needless to say everyone on board is beat tired and we will not have any trouble sleeping through the night tonight. We're headed for the yellowtail grounds now and will be there first thing in the morning.

Sep. 1

Today was kind of a disappointing day. We woke up catching yellowtail but it quickly stopped biting after daylight. We trolled up the place for several strikes on wahoo but the catching was slim. The ratio of hooked to land is never good with wahoo but this morning it was especially bad. We lost 3 marauders today. That's about what you lose when you have a 100 fish day on these things and we did not. Anyways, after that we weren't getting strikes anymore so we kept her rolling to a couple of spots I've been real excited about trying for the last couple of weeks and it really bummed me out. No wahoo, no tuna, not even any dorado. A few yellows was all. So we ran back up to this mornings honey hole and had a strike where the odds were in our favor. I'm not sure if we lost a fish. 8 lucky anglers caught a nice wahoo. We trolled it up till dark for nothing else. We're going to give it one more chance tomorrow looking in a different wahoo, dorado zone and if it stinks we're going to finish up the trip in the closer to home zone. We're keeping an eye on the storm so there's nothing to worry about ladies. I'll bring you hubbies home safe and sound.

Drew