west branch reservoir Fishing Report 2025

Aug. 11
    We had a great morning today.  I'd have to check with the big guy but I believe we had around 60 of the 15-25 pound yellowfin and 9 of those big 60-80 pound bluefins on our first drift.  I'd call that a good morning.  It wasn't full speed either.  It was just a nice scratch over a period of a few hours.  Nice drifting along there in beautiful weather once again.  I sure hope this weather lasts a while along with the fishing.
    
    After our first drift we did some others of course.  None producing as well as the first one but throughout the day we scratched at some more yellowfin and a few more of those big bluefins.  It was just what we needed after a day of mostly driving around seing a lot and  not catching much.  Needless to say we'll be hanging around here tonight and trying it again tomorrow.

    On a sad note, one of the greats in the sportfishing industry passed away today.  Most of you reading this wouldn't know who I'm talking about because he was a behind the scenes guy.  I'm talking about the great sardine fisherman Joe Machado, and if you've been fishing in the last 35+ years, you were using bait most likely caught or found by him.  As you all know, no bait no fish, so we'll be throwing some sardines over the side for him tomoorow.  RIP Joe.
                                                        

 

We stopped and fished briefly on some yellowtail this afternoon and had some great action. We then continued on traveling in smooth weather. However, if we were going the other way it would be snotty and rough. We had a tender cooked shaved beef with a Burgundy sauce, baby snow peas and roasted potatoes for dinner. Still rolling down to Alijos, and should be fishing by mid-morning.

The San Diego out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego,CA checked in with us today:

7 yellowtail 150 assorted bottom critters. Still seeing enough yellowtail to get a big hit just waiting for them to act up.

~~Nov.10
 OK.  It took until 4:00 this evening but I finally made up my mind of where we're going to go.  All day long it's been running through my head.  "rocks or ridge, rocks or ridge.  They both had there advantages and disadvantages but I believe I made the choice with the more advantages for this stage of the trip.  It's like a chess game out here sometimes with the rest of the fleet.

 So as you know we traveled all day.  We did a fishing seminar shortly after breakfast and I feel I got everyone on board super pumped on catching cow tuna so now we're going to have to do it.  No pressure though.  Tackle rigging, naps, relaxation, antsy.  Basically all the feelings.  Right now most of the boat is watching a batman movie loudly.  Some are lounging on the upper deck but dinner should be soon and off goes the movie.  It smells terrific too.  Baby back ribs tonight.

 So we have about 1/2 a day of traveling left to do and then we'll be in full fish mode for about a week straight.  Here we go.
          

Hello Everyone, Today we spent the day looking for kelps. The weather was windy with a lot of white caps. Through the chop we managed to find some kelps holding some Dorado. Never found the kelp with the mother load, but we were still able to scrape together some fish. Although choppy weather, the anglers still managed to have a great time during their annual Solex contracting 1.5 day charter. We look forward to next year guy! Back out for 2 days tomorrow. Wish us luck,

"The bluefin are still biting," said Mike Pritchard. "It's 8:30 in the morning and we have outstanding Bluefin fishing. It looks like everybody in this area is doing very well on the Bluefin. It's a good time to hop on a boat."

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

Hi friends. Big, beautiful 25-45 lb. yellowfin with a few handfuls of those beastly bluefin is what was on our plate today. We had a couple of good drifts in fantastic weather that made our day just dandy. Everybody is really amazed by this quality grade of yellowfin and I'm personally amazed that crewmember Mark doesn't have his own television show. Networks are missing out on what a goldmine following Mark around with a camera would be, 24/7. Some people might think that they're paying a healthy sum of money to come out fishing on a long range boat but I look at it like, people are paying a lot of money to come spend a few days with Mark Clark.

Anyhow, here is a short recap of our day: good morning (0545 hours), good breakfast (French toast, sausage, and eggs), good trolling rotations, good fishing, good weather, good sunshine, good lunch (chili), good fishing, good afternoon snacks, good galley assistant/chef-in-training (Shawn), good friends, good times, good dinner (roasted turkey with all the goods), good showers, good squid making, good night. It's alllllllllllll good. We allllllll bundle.We'll chat with you tomorrow.

P.S. Thank you to Jim Bostian for hooking us up with the San Diego merchandise. You're the man and if you're ever looking to hop on a 3/4 day boat, hop on the San Diego our risk losing us as friends forever. Thanks Jim.

July 16
    Arrive depart day today.  We did the whole routine, I hung out with my baby for an hour and it was time to set sail again.  We left on another 5 day with my buddy Archie and his gang and a few other regulars.  We did well at the bait receivers.  We loaded up on small sardine and left the bay and headed out to do some fishing in the afternoon.  We didn't do much.  A couple of yellowfin is all we caught.  We did see a couple of big schools of 50-80 pound tuna that didn't care we were there at all.  No bites.  We're eating prime rib and heading down in nice weather.  We're going to try for some yellows on the coast in the morning and then head offshore for the afternoon hunting yellowfin.