san juan river fly Fishing Report 2025

The first half of our day today was spent traveling to the Island. We slept in, had a nice relaxing breakfast, did our tackle seminar and enjoyed the nice ride down. That was my take on it anyways. I'm sure the passengers we're very anxious to get a line wet. It was worth the wait. When we got our anchor down at 3:30 the jumbo yellows immediately were on the prowl. It was very good fishing for the next couple hours and then slowed down a little to a steady pick until dark. We are very pleased with our day and I can't wait to see what's in store for us tomorrow. The galley portion of the day was great. Pedro dished out a beautiful seafood Newburg and we're getting ready to chow down on Cornish game hens stuffed with something I'm sure will knock our socks off.

Managed to locate 4 different schools of yellowfin in strong Santa Ana wind. 26 yellowfin and 10 skipjack for 33 anglers. 20 lb bait, medium size Flatfalls and colt snipers and a few popper bites. One of our tuna will be worn as a mask tomorrow. Happy Halloween.

We departed on a 6 day trip today. After getting bait we're heading down planning on being at Cedros tomorrow afternoon. Weather for us is good right now but we're planning on it getting bad as we get further down. It's forecasting to get better but for the time being it will be behind us so we won't feel it either way. We'll be at Cedros for a couple days so check back soon for a report.

~~Sep. 5
 Here we go again.  Arrive/depart today.  Off with the old, out with the new.  5 days.  That's how long we have on this one. 5 days.  Weather forecast looks terrific for at least the next few days so that's wonderful.  We have another first for me this trip.  Before this trip I have never loaded up with straight mackerel for bait.  Other than the last trip but that was a 1.5 day trip.  This is long range.  Straight mackerel.  That's 3 top tanks, and 2 big slammers full below deck.  All full of mackerel.  So this will be interesting.  It looks like great yellowtail bait.  Not great for chumming but great for catching the yellows, and I'm sure the bluefin will eat them too, just not as well as the sardine.  Oh well.  It is what it is.  We'll just make lemonade, that's all.

 So to start things off tomorrow we will be fishing for those yellowtails.  And most likely, we'll be doing that for the next couple of days before getting in the hunt for the blues.  Action.  We want action.  Wish us luck.
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~~Sep. 19
 Today was mostly a travel day for us.  We did have a nice little surprise in the morning.  We had a double jig strike on wahoo.  Then we had a couple more singles.  Then we had one more single a little later along with a few dorados.  When we got to the yellowtail grounds in the afternoon we found mucho wind.  It was blowing 25-30 knots right through the grounds we were planning on fishing so we fished elsewhere.  We found a little spot with some current before dark and we captured 6 cow yellows, we're talking 30-40 pounders, to go along with lots of 10-12 pounders and some bonito.  Action is what we call that.  We now have to head north and we'd like to find some dorado tomorrow.  It's going to be a bumpy/windy ride up tonight and we hope for it to back off tomorrow for our fishing and ride home.
 

Another outstanding opportunity to fish aboard the Apollo with a great group of fishing folks! There are 4 Openings on a 2 Day Trip on September 22 & 23 (Thurs. & Fri.), departs Sept. 21 (Wed.). Limited Load of 18 anglers. Group has fished together for over 10 years. The cost of the trip is $600 per angler includes meals and Mexican permits. Contact Charter Master, Dan Freeman at 714.747.0573 or [email protected]

Fall Fishing Season doesn't get any better.

Captain Ryan Bostian called in this afternoon with an audio wrap-up for today’s trip at the Coronado Islands. Our final count is 109 Yellowtail and 35 Calico Bass for 33 anglers. Excellent fishing today at the Coronado Islands. Fly-lined Sardines and Surface Iron worked well. Just cast on the boil. Come on our and fish on the San Diego.

~~Oct. 11
 And here's what we did today.  The crew rigged up mucho tackle.  I'm talking the grande stuff for the grande fish.  After that and after breakfast we did our tuna seminar and I talked Tommy into doing a couple parts of the seminar.  All I know for the past 10 years is my tuna seminar.  It's nice to get a different perspective.  Anyways, after that we were finishing up tackle rigging when poof, all three trollers went off.  So we caught a couple meals.  3 nice dorado.  So then it was lunch time of street tacos.  And then some napping went down and the afternoon movie was Caddy Shack.  When 5:00 rolls around it's cocktail hour and it looks glorious.  Drinks, cigars, and friends.  Then we had baby back ribs for dinner.  Once again like the first 2 nights we tried for some giant squid to use as bait, but we were unsuccessful. 

 Still no storms brewing up down below and we're getting more and more confident we won't be getting pushed out of the fishing grounds until we say so.  2 more days of travel before we arrive.  Everyone is enjoying themselves now because in a couple days, it's going to be war.  We'll be battling it out with 200+ pound tuna and wahoo.