Captain Mike’s Blog

Hey anglers, Today we started our day at San Martin Island. We thought the group would like to fish a little rather than drive around in the fog trying to find kelp paddies. We caught some nice lingcod and rockfish. Everyone was at the rail fishing. At noon after the fog lifted we went offshore to look for yellowtail on kelps. We also had hope for some bluefin tuna and albacore. We saw several kelps that didn’t have any fish on them and then the fog came in again and made for a tough afternoon. We basically had given up all hope and right at the end of our day with 45 minutes of daylight left we got a blind jigstrike. It was a school of mixed albacore and bluefin tuna. These fish really wanted to bite! Everyone that had a bait in the water early had a fish on. Needless to say with very little action the past two days and a few beers after lunch there was a tangle or two. It was chaos in the stern for a little while! We managed to land 32 albies and two bluefin tuna. One of the bluefin tuna might weigh 50 pounds and the other one weighs 12 pounds. We had one albie that will weigh 40 pounds and some of the other albies are 12 pounds. We pulled off a miracle in the bottom of the ninth inning with 2 strikes and 2 outs. What an exciting way to end a trip! Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. More from our next trip, Capt Art

Hey anglers, We are on our Western Outdoor News-sponsored 3-day trip, with Penn reels as a supporter. We have Penn loaner gear for anglers to try and giveaways and raffle prizes thanks to several tackle manufacturers. In the fishing department, we had a tough day with very little action offshore. There were difficult conditions with almost no visibility all day due to fog. We had about a 3-hour window where the fog lifted and when that happened, we saw signs of fish (like jumpers) and caught a few yellowtail on kelps. We only landed one bluefin tuna today (though we saw more) and we had 11 small yellowtail. There are reports of bluefin tuna and albacore for miles with no big concentration yet. We will give it heck tomorrow. Capt Art

Hey Anglers, Today we spent offshore looking for some sort of tuna. We managed to catch the first albacore and bluefin tuna of the season for Searcher. Mark Seals of Cambria has been a customer of ours for many years. He has come on our first trip of the year every year for a long time and we depend on him to land the first tuna. Well he did it again! He landed one of the first tuna along with Allen Lemberg. They each caught a bluefin tuna and Mark caught the first albacore of the year. We only caught three bluefin tuna and two albacore, but we did see some fish on the surface today. The weather was great and so are the conditions–good color water with lots of bait for miles and miles. The table is set for the fish when the main vein arrives. What a great first trip of 2008! Looking forward to the next one, Capt Art

Hey Anglers, Excellent yellowtail fishing at Cedros Island today! About half of our fish are the good ones–25-30 pounds–and the rest are 14-22 pounds. Good fishing with a surface iron today and we got several fish on the yo-yo iron. Of course there were also plenty of fish caught on fly-line sardine by the people that aren’t expert in casting. The weather was great with calm seas and no wind. We are headed north tonight to try our luck with catching an albacore or some sort of tuna. More tomorrow, Capt Art

Hey Anglers, We had good yellowtail fishing today at Cedros Island. The majority of the fish were caught on fly-line sardines with a few fish caught on surface iron. All of the fish are good grade, averaging 20 or more pounds. The weather is great and we are looking forward to tomorrow. We are spending another full day here at Cedros. On the local scene today there was some good news. A boat at 65 miles from San Diego caught 15 albacore today. They saw fish on the meter and sonar, and it was mixed sizes–13-24 pounds. Another boat got in the area late and had a few fish. A little further south, around 150 miles from San Diego, a boat had six albacore today so hopefully this is the start to a great season. Some more good news from here is our new chef is doing a wonderful job with some new fresh ideas. Everyone has enjoyed his cooking so far! More tomorrow, Capt Art