va saltwater Fishing Report 2025

22 yellowtail, 65 calico bass, 1 bonito and 3 barracuda. Tony Brough and his charter group had good action fly lining sardines.

~~Aug 5
 The pressure is off.  We never made it down to any Island today like we planned.  At about 9 am or so the sonar went clunk, clunk and we went sideways for an hour.  It wasn't the best grade but it definitely wasn't the worst.  It was this years middle grade. 8-14 pounds with a sprinkling of 16-22 pounders in the mix.  Like I said, not the best but not the 2-6 pounders either.  But for a stressed out 4 day captain, it was lovely.  They bit good for about an hour and then they backed off.  After that we dedicated ourselves to that zone.  We figured that school of 14-25 pounders was just right over there.  It wasn't.  We didn't see another school of tuna.  However, we did find a nice kelp loaded up with big yellowtail.  They bit really well for a while too.  In fact , they were on the corner like tuna get on the corner for a good 20 minutes and when they backed off the corner, they still bit good for a while.  Other then that though we didn't see much other then the occasional small tuna on the trolling jigs but we're stoked for what we got today.  The pressure is off.

 We're going to stick with the plan and spend tomorrow at an Island hopefully drifting for hours.  The weather has finally backed off after a couple weeks of blowing.  Hopefully we get some descent weather for a nice long stretch and can get back to fishing where we please when we please.
     

Hello everyone, Today we spent the morning catching Yellowtail and Bluefin Tuna. The Yellows were a great grade 15-30 lbs. The trick was light line and small hooks. The Tuna were not the bigger grade we were targeting, so the search will continue. We will try a new area tomorrow. Wish us Luck, Team Supreme

Captain Ryan Bostian called in tonight with an update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA. We had very good fishing today with Captain Cameron at the helm. We had 102 Yellowtail (10 to 25 pounds) and 125 Pacific Bonito. We had excellent action today. We have light loads this week.

~~July 14
  We had a bumpy ride last night.  It was windy.  So we didn't make the best of speed which translates to not having a whole lot of time to fish our last day when we were coming from so far away.  We found our edge pretty quick after daylight and we were getting a few strikes on small tuna but like I said, we didn't have a lot of time to fish it.  We were able to follow it up the line for a couple of hours getting the occasional strike before we had to call it a day and call it a trip.

 

 

  

The weather has been getting progressively nicer throughout the day and now we have a pretty darn good ride.  Everyone is doing what you do on travel days.  We had a nice fish taco lunch and last time I was in the galley the passengers were taking it way back and were watching the  90's classic "Deep Color" movie staring Tommy Rothery and the Polaris Supreme.

  We'll be in bright and early tomorrow and we're going to be turning back around on another 5 day trip.  Tommy will be going home and I'll be taking her out.  Gunny is hanging in there strong like the Marine he is and we're hoping he'll be back within a month.
           

The Annual SFR charter aboard the Apollo with Captain J.J Gerritsen and crew was a big success !! The Apollo is running out of Sea Landing on beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor, the closest harbor to the outer Channel Islands. Great weather meant an ideal cruise over to San Miguel Island for some of the finest shallow water rockfishing you'll find anywhere. 300 feet down you say, maybe 200, how about 100 feet ? No way. The offshore terrain around San Miguel is so rugged and marked with underwater pinnacles, we spent most of the day fishing in 25 to 90 feet of water. Lighter rigs, jigs, leadheads and swimbaits were the order of the day, and the San Miguel rockfish were in a hungry mood. We started catching fish before daybreak and spent the rest on the trip hauling up huge reds, chuckles and lings, all sporting some of the most vibrant colors I've seen on any fish in a long time. Awesome day!! We limited out on huge rockfish, slammed about 50-60 grumpy whitefish, 5-6 huge goats and 16 or so pre-historic looking lings before calling it a trip. Epic day !!!! The jackpot was a nail biter as Shawn Suhr's huge lingcod and Art Moralez's giant goat battled to a near dead heat. Captain J.J needed to come down and settle the score, with the final vote went going to Shawn's 12-13 pound ling. Great job Shawn. Captain J.J and his crew did an awesome job as always and the Apollo is looking as spotless as ever. The Apollo will be in Santa Barbara till around mid May before moving down to Fisherman's Landing in San Diego. Call Sea Landing at 1-805-963-3564 or log onto www.apollocharters.com for their schedule. Great trip everyone !!!. email me at [email protected] for any photos. Thats the word on the water. Don

The day started well. We found a school right after daylight and had a couple good stops on 40 up to 145 pound tuna. The rest of the day stunk besides the weather. We found virtually nothing. When the sun went down I was giving up the hope of an evening shot but right as I had the towel in mid air I snatched it before it hit the ground. We found our late shot. W.F.O. some would say. The bite lasted well into dark. A definite day saver. Let's do it again tomorrow.

13 yellowtail and plenty of bottom grabbers for all. Couple shots in the bottom of the ninth on yellowtail.