westport tuna Fishing Report 2025

Mike Pritchard called in with this update for the Tribute. "The great fishing we had this morning, did continue on. We've had very good fishing. We've caught limits of Yellowtail, limits of Yellowfin tuna and we had a nice Dorado lunch. The weather has been nice, but there is a light breeze. The Yellowfin really loved the surface lures.

"We'll be back out tomorrow night on another 1.5 Day trip. See you on the water."

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 San Diego checked in with us today. 

62 Yellowfin, 27 Dorado, 34 Yellowtail. Anglers changing their baits often had most of the bites.

Drew Henderson docked Polaris Supreme September 22 following a six-day trip with 22 anglers that visited Cedros Island and the albacore grounds with a look for very little at Guadalupe Island on the way through. "The day started up very well for us," he wrote September 18. "It was good scratching up until just after lunch and fishing took a dump. We looked around the Island for a bit and after making a few stops for a few more fish we took off from there and are now heading west to the big Island. We have a great catch of jumbo yellowtail on board and we're hoping to get some jackpot-settling, trophy size yellowfin tomorrow. We had Portuguese style yellowtail for dinner tonight. We had it last trip for the first time and I must say it was by far the best yellowtail I have ever eaten in my life."

Today was a tough day. The fish were there and the conditions were good, the fish were just less eager. Everyone was on the right program when it came to hustling the fish in to avoid the sharks. So the opportunities we did have we were able to capitalize on. Pictured here are fishing buddies Sean with Mark, and Dennis with Travis showing off their captures! Good going guys!

Today our 22 anglers landed 44 Yellowtail and 19 Bonito.  Tomorrow is a definite go with a light load.  Get out and enjoy this fishing before the bad weather starts.

Thanks for the amazing response to the OPEN Shimano Charters we scheduled for the Channel Islands this spring. The response was so positive that I spoke with the folks at Shimano and they agreed to put another trip on line. This one will be set for fishing on March 13. That would be departing at 9pm on the night of the 12th. This trip will be just like the others. Shimano will provide a bunch of outfits for fishing butterfly and lucanus systems. There will be give aways of tackle and goodies as well. Please email me if you would like to join us on this trip.

~~Oct. 24
 We fished today with all our buds.  Obviously it was the best game in town.  We had boats from San Diego up to Ventura all nestled in sharing the same honey hole.  15 of us to be exact.  It all worked out though.  It was a nice spread of fish.  Everyone was able to scratch.  Scratch, scratch, scratch.  From after daylight until after lunch.  Then things went dead for the most part, so we pulled anchor and found a nice school to drift on.  After a long drift the day was pretty much over.  We drove around, made another anchor job but the fish were done.  Just like us.  We're done for the week.  It's up to you whether or not we fish this next up coming weekend.  Halloween weekend.  See you there?

 Oh, the fish today were tuna.  Yellowfin.  Smaller.  We had a couple handfuls of 30-40 pounders first thing, but as soon as the current picked up, for some reason the bigguns split.  So we stayed busy with the smaller ones.  Veal.  Oh, and they found sardine again.  Loaded up.  So don't worry 10 dayers.