Captain Mike’s Blog

Hey anglers, Our second day at Guadalupe Island unfortunately wasn’t as productive as we had hoped. We landed 10 yellowfin tuna that were 30- 50 pounds. We saw a lot of fish but couldn’t get them to bite. Ed Cash from Idaho caught a nice tuna on the kite. Taryn Vidovich cauhgt her largest tuna to date. We are staying one more day with hopes of the tuna biting and getting everyone a quality tuna. More tomorrow, Capt Art

Hey anglers, We decided to try something different this trip. We had favorable reports from Guadalupe Island of 40 -50 pound yellowfin tuna biting a little, and unfavorable reports from Alijos Rocks where there was not much sign of tuna or wahoo. We opted for more fishing time and less travel time. We arrived at Guadalupe at 1 pm today and we immediately saw yellowfin tuna boiling on our baits. We landed 10 tuna from 30 -50 pounds and we saw a lot more fish today. Greg and Gordon Cash from Idaho each caught their first tuna today. We hope they bite a little tomorrow. More then. Capt Art

Hey anglers, Today we fished Cedros Island. We had good conditions in the morning but no sign of fish. We travelled toward the south end and we saw a few spots of small yellowtail on the surface. We stopped and had a little action but the size of the fish wasn’t what we were looking for. We released most of the small fish. We returned to the area whare the bigger fish have been and luckily we started to catch 25-35 pound yellowtail–exactly what we were looking for. They stayed around the boat for about two hours and we managed to land 65 of those nice big fish. Everyone had a chance and most everyone caught four or five of them More tomorow as we travel home, Capt Art

Hey anglers, We decided to stay on the Ridge today. We figured since we came all this way to try for wahoo we might as well put in the time to try and catch a few. We got lucky and caught 12 wahoo before we had to leave. For most everyone that caught one, it was their first wahoo. Even though we didn’t get everyone a wahoo we were at least in the right zone and had opportunity to catch one. We travelled north the rest of the day with no luck finding something floating, so we are in position to be at Cedros Island tomorrow morning to try for those nice, big yellowtail to finish the trip. Beatiful weather–calm seas and no wind. Capt Art

Hey anglers, Today we had a great day of fishing! We went back offshore to look for kelp paddies and we found two that were loaded with good-size dorado. We had a lot of fun catching 12 – 18 pound dorado with a few 20 pounders. There was a sign of wahoo, with a few bite offs, and we lost a few for various reasons. We landed three wahoo between the two kelps. Everyone got their fill of dorado so we went back toward the Ridge to try for some more wahoo. We had one wahoo on the troll on the way into the Ridge but no wahoo on the Ridge late in the day. We saw two whale sharks–30-40 feet in length–which was the first ones I have seen on the Pacific side of Baja. They are impressive animals. We saw another one close to the shallows that was the same size = BIG! Hoping for some wahoo tomorow. The weather is great, calm, hot and sunny. Capt Art

Hey anglers, We looked for kelp paddies today without much success. We did see a few kelps but there wasn’t much fish associated with them. There was some small tuna and dorado on one kelp but we released them all. We made it all the way to the Uncle Sam Bank by late afternoon and had a single wahoo jigstrike for our effort. We tried for wahoo on the 13 fathom bank with the last bit of daylight and had no success. We anchored in a couple of spots on the bank trying for yellowtail. We caught a few 10-14 pound yellowtail after dinner mostly on dropper loops on the bottom and a few on yo-yo lures. We are headed further south tonight to look for some kelp paddies that were seen by other boats and had excellent fishing for goood size dorado and a few wahoo. The weather is flat, calm and warm. More tomorrow, Capt Art

Hey anglers, Our decision to stay at Cedros Island another day paid off. We had excellent yellowtail fishing again and it started right at daylight with a big school of yellows. Most of the fish were caught on yo-yo irons with everything working including some jigs brought by WON rep John Beath. They are called Darts and we have seen them work really well for tuna offshore, but never really used them for yellowtail. They worked great. We got all the yellowtail we needed in a short time this morning. After that we drifted close to the island for halibut and we had some success. We landed 16 good-size halibut, with some fish weighing up to 25 pounds. We are heading north to fish the coast tonight and finish the trip. More tomorrow, Capt Art

Hey anglers, Another excellent day of fishing at Cedros Island! We had similar action today on the same grade of fish. All the fish are in excess of 20 pounds and today John Curtis from the UK landed a 41-pound yellowtail. We don’t quite have our fill of yellowtail so we are going to stay another day and fish for yellows in the morning and then try drifting for halibut and white sea bass for the rest of the day. We weighed all the options and got an update on the weather forecast for the next few days and decided to stay where the weather is calm and the fishing is good. Our only other option was to travel 320 miles noeth to try for albacore and the reports aren’t favorable and the weather is going to deteriorate offshore. So rather than ending the trip on a sour note we will end it here in calm weather. All the regulars from past WON trips want to say hello to the Balades brothers–we all miss you guys! Looking forward to having you back aboard next year. More tomnorrow, Capt Art