Wide open Albacore Bite out of Fort Bragg, Bluefin have arrived back to Bodega but remain hit or miss

8-20-23

With rumors of bluefin being back in town, and a boat full of SoCal commercial kite fisherman we decided to make the run south toward the islands to find bluefin. After some looking we sure found em. We spent all day kite fishing and marked a few solid schools. We did have one bite but the hook never set in its mouth good enough to stay on. I learned a whole lot from these guys on how to fly a kite in a commercial style, quick dirty and most importantly fast. They learned a bit about how the bluefin act up here when they are in deep water, finicky and spread out, they will be returning to master the kite game and I’m pretty excited to learn more, especially when the fish concentrate a little better in front of the harbor on the more shallow side of the shelf. The fish were there but pretty spread out but some guys did really well first thing in the AM, for us we didn’t find the fish until the afternoon and they didn’t feel like playing, we are hoping the weather and fish play nice and stick around for real this time.

8-24/25-23

I put the boat on the trailer and made the trek north to Fort Bragg in search of albacore. After a few stressful days of collecting my albacore gear and getting everything organized we got up there late Thursday night, and spotted this big old black bear hanging out in front of the slip as I was parking the boat. JP received a growl while trying to get by it to park the car in front of the dock, defiantly not in Bodega anymore.

We fished on Thursday and faced some pretty nasty weather, and had a hard time locating fish and staying on them due to the nasty wind chop, we managed 4 albacore, a pretty disappointing day, at least the fish were all jumbos, in the upper 20’s and lower 30lb range.

On Friday we headed to the same spot, knowing there was a morning bite again and plugged the boat with 30 Jumbos with a 25lb average. We kicked off with an instant triple on the first 3 lines in the water, and continued to work a steady pick of doubles and triples to have 20 fish by 10am with few above 30lbs. The afternoon slowed down on the bite but the size increased with single mostly 30+lb fish hitting the spreader bars. Headed home at 2pm with a boat full of fish and a flat ocean. What a difference a day can make with these fish, or even hours for that matter. Tuna fishing is hit or miss but it sure makes it all worth it when you get a hit.