stampede reservoir Fishing Report 2024

~~Sep. 24
 Well this day has to start with last night.  During and after dinner the military helicopters were up and they were blowing up San Clemente and it was rad. We could see the tracers which were very bright and flew just as fast as the 5 rounds in between each tracer with about each strafing run having about 12 tracers per, which is over 100 rounds.  We could see the glow of each tracer bouncing off the island. And after we thought it was cool enough we went to bed.

 In the morning we started fishing.  We had a little action.  We basically drifted for a couple hours hooking fish.  Sometimes we had one going, sometimes we had four, and sometimes we had none but for some reason it didn't add up to as much as we would've thought.  We were losing alot and we attributed that to the hammer head sharks that were swimming around.  We think that they were stealing a lot of the tuna we hooked.  When that dried up we went searching and a little after 10:00 we found a dandy school and went sideways(drifted) for a while.  I'd have to call it almost wide open for about 1/2 an hour and then a pick for 15 minutes after that.  During lunch we were drifting on tuna too but we weren't hooking a whole lot.  We only caught about six that time.  And after that the life vanished so we moved on.

 It took a couple hours but we found what we were looking for.  Tuna.  Unfortunately they were the non biting ones.  I'll tell you though, it was a sight to see.  Sonar schools, breezers, boilers, foamers.  You name it, it was awesome.  We did get a couple descent drifts there in the end and all and all we're calling this a very successfully trip.

 We'll be dockside until Oct. 3.  You guys didn't book.  My babies going to have to wear hand me down shoes now.  All of her friends are going to make fun of her.  Oh well.  We"ll get through it.  We'll do a little maintenance on the boat while we're in but we don't need to do much.  The boats been running great as soon as we got rid of those early season gremlins.  See you all Oct. 3rd.
        

Captain Aliyar called in with us today from the Polaris Supreme:

We just got tied up this morning from a 3 Day trip. We finished with 15 Bluefin Tuna. The first day we saw a good sign of fish bit it was hard to get a bite. Yesterday the fish were more scatted and it was tougher fishing. The biggest we landed was a 197 pounder and we had a couple in the 140-150 pound range. We put in the effort to scratch up 15 of them.

We have some spots open in May for some 1.5 Day trips, Call Wednesday in her office at 619-706-3634 or go straight to our website and check out the schedule. We are back out again tonight for a 1.5 Day.

Oct. 17th

We had some good yellowtail fishing today. It took a little while to get going this morning but we had a couple hours of good tailing before it shut off before lunch like its been doing in the zone we were in. After things shut off we made a 4 hour move and had some good fishing again for about an hour before dark. The weather once again was great and we're currently traveling north to look for the bluefin tomorrow. Things have slowed down tremendously up there lately but we're going to look in some newer grounds where we see some good looking water on our sea surface temp charts. There will be a few of us spread out looking tomorrow so hopefully between the three of us we can get something located.

I told Mark today I didn't think he could go one hour without talking. He didn't think so either but he tried and was surprisingly successful. He can not talk for one hour. I think he might die if he tried to do it all day though so I'm not going to challenge him to that.

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

Today was one of those days that make you appreciate biting fish. We saw plenty of fish but, it was hard to get close to them or when we did get close getting a reaction was even harder. Tomorrow is a new day !

Aug 12
    Today was awesome.  We woke up drifting catching fish and that's about what we did until dark.  I'm not kidding you.  We moved the boat just a handful of times but never for more then 10 minutes.  It was drifting with always at least one on the hook.  In the morning until after lunch it was mostly bluefin in the 30-45 pound range with the occasional 60-80 pounder.  I have to tell you that that's a much more manageable grade.  It's a much better fish to start off on than those 60-80 pounders.  Don't get me wrong, you know I love catching those beauts but they make a much better cherry than ice cream if you know what I mean.  We had that kind of day where if we catch them tomorrow it will be the cherry on top.  The rest of the day we got into yellowfin tuna mode and it was game on for those fish.  Tommy decided to save our sardine on board it being they were feeding on the anchovy that went over the side so that's what we used.  Chovy baby.  I can't ever remember fishing anchovy for tuna on this boat.  I have to go back to my mission bay days to remember that but I didn't forget how to do it.  I wrote this in the beginning of the season and I'll write about it again.  If you're coming on a future trip, please remember to bring the lost art of anchovy fishing skills.  A big part of that is an anchovy rod and reel.  Something light that's meant for 20-25 pound test with a nice free spool to help you toss those anchovies away from the boat.  I hate to say it but if that means you need to bring your coffee grinder so be it.  
    The weather is still good!  Man I hope this can hold up for at least my buds on the upcoming Heil 5 day trip leaving the day after tomorrow.  We're staying put right here for our last day fishing tomorrow.  We're hoping we can get more of the 60-80 pounders tomorrow but we will be stoked with the 30-45's as well.