south jersey saltwater Fishing Report 2025

When it comes to Wahoo. You should always have at least one of these! Black and orange Marauder tried and true, year after year!

Thursday, April 11th, 2013

Hi friends. We're still traveling down in decent weather, with plenty of sunshine to make for an enjoyable trek. Although, the travel days can be very monotonous, we always find something out of the ordinary to do to break up the boredom. Today was a unique day, even by our standards; and even after all of the sea time that passengers and crew members alike have accumulated over the decades, we still found ourselves in activities, scenery, and fishing that we don't experience everyday.

Now, I'm not trying to make roses out of you-know-what; we caught Yellowtail today. That's all. We didn't run into the first wave of Albacore or run up on a breezer of giant Bluefin tuna. Nope, we simply caught beautiful 18-22 lb. Yellowtail. Before I go any further - I am not bashing the Yellowtail fishery in any way shape or form. We had a great time doing it today and in all honesty, typing out words to explain the amount of fun we had for an hour would bore everyone half to death. What garners this report is simply the hour-long spectacle that was associated with our Yellowtail fishing. Having wide open fishing and not really trying to compete with other boats or boost our own egos is fun enough, trust me. Just good old fashioned yankin' and crankin' is what we did today but add in the sight of breaching Humpback Whales (two adults and one cute little calf, literally within casting distance) with the backdrop of one of the most beautiful destinations that we fish in one of the most isolated places in the Eastern Pacific was something I'll never forget. Like I said, it was Yellowtail fishing; but add in the group of gentlemen that we shared this experience with, it was hard not to just stop for a moment and take everything in. All in all, it was a super fun day.

I'm sorry for the lengthy report. I'm reading three books at the moment and one of them is 83 Neurobic exercises to increase mental fitness and it encourages you to do some off-the-wall stuff - things that you normally wouldn't do to keep your brain healthy. It's a fascinating read and I'm applying a lot of the little things that the book says to do. I'm sure that I'm driving the crew crazy with how stoked I am to do these things; from switching my watch to my other hand, to navigating my way around the wheelhouse with my eyes closed and let my senses other than sight guide me around (don't worry, I'm not driving), to putting different types of tape on the keyboard (don't ask) - it's all really interesting to me and it's keeping the travel days fresh and exciting. So, I apologize for this whacky report but I'm helping to keep my brain stimulated and hopefully yours too.

Anyhow, With this particular trip -- or any 17-day trip, for that matter -- there is always something new to do to keep us on our toes. From rigging up "Bruce" our new anchor (insert circus music here) to finding a good book to read to learning a new way to rig tackle or just enjoying the ride with some good friends, the entire experience of traveling down to our destination can be looked at in multiple ways - today was one of those good travel days and I felt like sharing it with everyone because we're pumped. Other than good weather and good food, I'll leave y'all with a few more clues as to what in the heck we're doing with our time. It involves: five grown men, a food processor, Yellowtail Milt, a deck brush, and a bait scoop. Stimulate your brains. We'll chat with you manana.

P.S. Devon, Alayna, and Lyall - I caught y'all a delicious Calico Bass today. I wanted to release it but mortality was imminent. I am deeply sorry. Scootch didn't even try to save it either so it's half his fault. Sorry.

Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013

Hi friends. Well, the morning started out pretty well for us. Got an early wake up from Riddler after an all night freeze in our crew staterooms. The new A/C works too well. We all slept in socks and sweaters and were still freezing. We felt like Sinka in "Cool Runnings" when John Candy throws him in the ice cream truck to simulate what the temperature would be like for their bobsled race. Anyhow, with The Outfields "Use Your Love" stuck in my head, we started hooking some bluefin tunas in the 50 lb. range, give or take a few pounds, and we managed to boat six of those beauties. A good start to our morning but that was it for our day on the BFT. Nice to see 'em, but not a whole lot of substance to it, so we continued on our journey south.

Throughout the day, we stopped on multiple kelp paddies for a few handfuls of quality 14-25 lb. yellows and we even snagged a few 18 lb. yellowfin tuna as well, so that was sweet. We didn't have a banner day by any means but we scratched a decent day out of it and everyone had a shot at a quality offshore gamefish. With that, we didn't see a whole lot to keep us offshore so we'll be heading elsewhere to try and locate some sabas (greenback mackerel) and some yellowtail as well. We'll be in the zone around 23:45 hours and the passengers are downstairs enjoying barbecue ribs, corn, and cherry pie.

Just a quick bit of news before I sign off: fishing in the day and a half range picked up late in the day on bluefin tuna. Good scores for the guys and granted we're further south than those guys, we're keeping our eyes on that developing situation. Be sure to check our schedule as we have a couple of day and a half trips on the schedule.

So that is all. Weather is chilly but the sea state is plenty fine. We'll be at it here in a few hours so we better get some sleep. Take care.

The season's fourth 300-pound tuna arrived November 29 aboard Polaris Supreme with owner-skipper Tom Rothery at the helm as the 90-footer docked at Fisherman's Landing. The trip was 13 days for the boat and ten for the anglers who flew home from Cabo, and was sponsored by Rothery's partner Tom Pfleger, who heads PIER (Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research). A small group of 14 anglers including Pfleger was aboard.

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.
                    

 

We had an ok day here at Guadalupe. Caught some yellowtail with 3 hitting around 30lbs. We also got some excellent grade yellowfin tuna 55-60 pounders. Dinner was a scrumptious Cornish game hen with a rosemary glaze. Martin who works in the office at the landing supplied Pedro with bags full of fresh herbs and peppers from his garden. Thanks Martin! We've had great weather here and certainly enjoyed fishing the island. We will fish tomorrow until about 9am and then head for home.
We should be at the dock Thursday morning at 8:30am. Two spots open on the Sept. 8 if you can get away. Boss won't let you go? Heck, bring him with you.

Captain Ryan Bostian checked in from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing. We have been targeting Yellowfin Tuna. Please be prepared for the bigger Bluefin Tuna too. We had excellent fishing today on nice school sized Yellowfin (18 to 25 pound). We had 41 passengers catch 133 Yellowfin Tuna. The hot rod has been 20 pound mono and 20 pound flurocarbon. Please be prepared and bring a 15 pound outfit, a 20 pound outfit and a 50 pound outfit.

Weekly Fishing Reports

Fishing reports for south jersey saltwater are updated each week, usually by Thursday morning. The reports are compiled by an outside contractor who receives the information from bait shops, marinas and fishing guides.