Offshore Let’s go ! Who’s getting the first albacore outta MB this year ?
- Thread starter justin perkins
- Start date
We did about 85 miles of searching today. About 17 miles out of the harbor, 64.5 degree , clean blue green water, big flying fish flies right by my boat and went another 150’ past us before landing back in the water. Wow , flying fish it’s on ! Another 5 miles and we find a kelp and decide to give it a look, loaded with bait, what the hell is it, it’s following us, won’t take a sabiki and has a different look than anything we see regularly around here. My mind flashes back to 2016, when I saw the same shit, dropped my sabiki in and spooked 25 flying fish outta the water! We couldn’t spook Em enough to get em to fly, but they were definitely flying fish. Checked 4 more kelps, all holding large swarms of small flyers, and metered one big fish about 120’ down on one of them. We probably should’ve focused all our efforts around those schools of flying fish on the kelps. Another mile or so, and jumbo jumbo tuna jumps 3 times , I see it first, start screaming , and my buddy and I both watch it jump 2 more times before it disappears. We got pretty excited right about then, thinking we’d start seeing more fish , a d Wanted to get to the top back side of the Santa Lucia and see some tuna or signs of tuna, but at about 27 miles a wind line with little whitecaps all over on the other side, forced us north again, so we headed towards the lighthouse. A few Scattered, very small puddles of sauries , but no real signs of life. About 10 miles west of Sam Simeon we turned back southeast towards the rock and found some pilot whales, false killer whales, and humpbacks all feeding in the zone 5 miles off Estero, so we trolled some circles in that area, but never saw any tuna in that area, and not one blind strike all day.
Upvote
0
Great effort and good intel - thanks Justin. We'll take our turn tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
Upvote
0
You can see where we turned northwest, well short of the back of the Santa Lucia, if the weather had been a little nicer and we’d made it to the bank, I’m pretty sure we’d have found Em. Too much dessert with almost no life across the flatlands, so everything must be piled up on the bank.
Upvote
0
So, I kinda had the same idea as A-Town. got out of MB before light and loaded up on bait right away, super easy. Ran up near the Ab Farm and started fishing for halibut. I can't catch a halibut to save my ass. I have had good luck with the tuna for the past few years and after 3 solid hours on total fail halibut fishing I say to my buddy "screw this lets go catch a tuna". Put the Macs in when we hit 63 degree water with signs of life and within about half an hour we are on. Not a big fish but felt good to get one in the box after such a weird year. Boxed that area for about an hour, then ran downhill till we were about 15 miles straight out from the rock, then pulled 'em and ran. Anybody wants to trade some halibut filets for bluefin let me know - I have lots.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
From what I’m hearing it’s setting up like last year there a massive volume of fish down south we just need them to break the corner. Last year they sat there for a month and moved in to the central coast in October. Let’s hope it plays out the same
Upvote
0
Nice work Keith! Glad someone is catching !! I guess I’m taking the day off Friday, and trying again!
Upvote
0
Hey Keith,
Glad you got one. They have been very hard to come by so far. If you want to trade some bluefin for hali fillet I would be game. They are vacuum packed in the freezer if you are interested.
Glad you got one. They have been very hard to come by so far. If you want to trade some bluefin for hali fillet I would be game. They are vacuum packed in the freezer if you are interested.
Upvote
0
Anyone been out since the last post from Keith going out? Thinking about hitting it this Saturday.
Upvote
0
Hey Keith,
We are going to head out of MB towards the warm break off Estero up towards the light house. Will be on 68, Lets stay in touch for finding them
Upvote
0
I'm going to hold off and hit it on Monday. Good Luck Kevin, Justin and anyone else looking this weekend. FYI I got that last one on a 200 Madmac in the blue Mac pattern (I really don't think color matters much, I've got them on purple, pink, green, blue...), at 14 mph. Now here are a couple of interesting tidbits: I was trolling 3 lines, two run long down the sides and one run short down the middle. I've never been bit on the short line but that is the one this fish bit - I was running it just outside the bubbles like you would for Yellowfin. Also, most of the fish I've caught were found on the dirty/colder side of the break - this one was in clean blue 64 degree water. FWIW...
Went out yesterday and ran out about 15 miles off Shore and trolled up to off of San Simeon and the lighthouse. Didn't see any signs of tuna and hardly any signs of other activity. Saw a few dolphin and whales and a couple flying fish, but that was it. Tried both at the temp break and out further in warmer water. Decided to run into san simeon bay area and bounce ball for halibut. Picked one up and then went back out and trolled for tuna back downhill. When we got off estero bay we shot in off cayucos beach and bounced some more and picked up a 2nd Halibut. Cover a total of 100 miles . Seeing the Terrafin today of yesterday's images it looks like the warmer and bluer water moved up north of the lighthouse more near the CSM bouy.
Lots of bait in closer to shore, but didn't see much signs off shore.
Good luck on Monday.
Upvote
0
Got a bit of a late start today. Main goal was to spend time with my son, who is moving to Hawaii soon. I've never had much luck fishing tuna on a full moon so once again we had a dual strategy Halibut/tuna - which sounds good I guess, except I am without a doubt the worlds worst halibut fisherman so we were basically doomed before we left the ramp. Just to the left of the harbor mouth we found all the sardines and Macs we wanted for bait - beautiful stuff. Why is bait always so easy when the fishing sucks? Anyway as reported by others no signs of life outside not even a hint. We never even dropped in the Macs we just came inshore and proceeded to suck at halibut fishing again. One thing that was really cool - while searching for more bait in the kelp beds down past the shell mounds we got into some crystal clear water, unlike the nasty mud that most of the coast has had. It was so clear we could see almost to the bottom in 50 feet and we saw an incredible assortment of bait and rockfish swimming around down there - even saw a few lings come zipping thru chasing Macs and big sardines. Weather was beautiful, had a good time with the kid. If these storms up in AK hold off we'll take another look on the new moon.
Upvote
0
I went to leave a lengthy reply the other evening when we got back, and my phone died before I could finish. Long day, never saw any signs of tuna. The clean blue water that was 15-20 mile out the week before, was 25-30 miles out . We saw a mako shark, in the clean blue 66.5 degree water and that was about it.
Upvote
0
charliecat
on a fishin' mission
- Jun 2, 2015
- 1,017
- 959
- Name
- charlie cat
- Boat Name
- 14' -50' , bunch of boats
That made me laugh out loud.
Good job at least getting out there with your boy. If I could have just one more fishing trip with my pops…
Upvote
0
Touching back here on this thread. Haven’t been out in MB in a minute. Went down to Ventura 9/23 and fished back side between footprint and yellow banks and ran in to a massive square of BFT surfacing. Went one for two before the fish sank out and wind came up. Landed a nice 100+ pounder trolling madmacs. Nice volume of fish
Upvote
0
Way to go! I'm taking the Julia down to Catalina going to sit on a mooring for 5 days. Will probably get over to Santa Barbara Island for a day, and although I will look for bluefin they are not the priority for me. I've even put the single hooks back on the madmacs so I can release them. Wouldn't mind a few yellowfin but mostly looking to do some inshore stuff.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
