Captain Mike’s Blog

Hello anglers,

We ended our stay on The Ridge after some action this morning on yellowtail, yellowfin tuna and some bottom fish. Everyone had fun with a chance at variety of fish and different fishing methods.

Many are using a dropper loop set up: 80 pound line, a sixteen ounce torpedo sinker, and a 5/0 J hook with a nose-hooked live sardine. Just go to the bottom and wait for a bite! It’s important to have a snug drag to get that first 20-30 feet of line in, so you get the fish off the bottom. The yellowfin were caught using a live sardine , a 2/0 J hook and 30 pound line. Flyline a bait out to get a bite.

We are headed north today and tonight to try the coast for some more yellowtail to finish the trip.

Captain Art and Team Searcher

Hello anglers,

We have had steady action this morning with a few yellowtail before sunrise and a few yellowfin tuna as well. We relocated and found a school of yellowtail that kept us busy so everyone had a chance to tag a few.

We trolled around a little to try and get the people who hadn’t landed a wahoo yet a chance. Lori, Saltwater Tackle Manager at the Turners in San Marcos, landed a wahoo!

Hoping we can stay busy today and we are off to a good start!

Captain Art and Team Searcher

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Hello anglers,

We had steady action this afternoon on 10-20 pound yellowfin tuna. We landed a couple more wahoo also. There was lots of action and people are approaching their limits of tuna. We are spending one more night here on The Ridge and we will focus on wahoo and yellowtail tomorrow. Then we will start heading north tomorrow afternoon. Lots of happy anglers!

Captain Art and Team Searcher

Tune in for all the latest tackle tips on our YouTube channel!

Hello anglers,

We arrived on The Ridge this afternoon to nice conditions and 73 degree blue water. We trolled around for wahoo and had a few fish on the troll, as well as casting lures and live bait. Almost everyone caught a wahoo this afternoon, and that was our goal when leaving the dock. We hope to accomplish that goal tomorrow. We also had some good tuna fishing late in the day before sunset. The average tuna was 15 pounds with a few smaller and a few in the 20 pound range. We released a lot of small ones today and just kept the ones big enough to keep. Hoping for a repeat tomorrow.
Captain Art and Team Searcher

Get wahoo ready here: Must-haves for Wahoo

Good evening anglers,
We are on our way back to San Diego after wrapping up our extended 1.5 day trip. Throughout the morning and early afternoon the fish were not cooperating. We saw a lot of good signs with bird schools  all over with fish boiling beneath them. However they were very difficult to hook. We had quite a few stops with some decent reaction and a few bites. As the day went on we remained positive and finally got our shot. We found a large school underneath a large spot of terns and the bite was on. We were able to pick up some nice bluefin and some nice grade yellowfin. We had a great time with some amazing passengers.

Captain Armando and the Searcher

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Good Evening anglers,

We departed this morning for our extended one and a half day trip. After departing the bait receiver we had a quick run to the local bluefin grounds. Once we arrived on scene we began to see the bird schools and foamers. With only a few hours to fish, we managed to land 20 very nice bluefin tuna. The majority of our bites came on the fly line sardine on a 25 or 30 pound test setup. We have an entire day in this zone tomorrow and are very excited to put some more fish on the deck.

Captain Armando and The Searcher Crew

Check out Capt Armando’s very own tackle tip video on sinker rig set-ups: Sinker Rig tips