With one of the windiest falls in recorded history hopefully behind us, a whopping 2 days of nice weather allowed us to get back on the tuna. I haven’t been posting much because we haven’t been able to fish very much at all. Persistent north winds has plagued this tuna season, but we are staying optimistic that calm seas are going to happen and the fish will wait for us.

Bodega Bay Albacore Tuna Report 10-13-24

We fished on Friday for bluefin behind the islands, in short 0 fish for 12 boats running out of bodega, lots of bait and life but no tuna not making anyone feel good about where the fish are or if they are even here. On Sunday the 13th we ran due west of the harbor, our group was determined to look for tuna, but I had low hopes. The vote from the group after running a few miles was to hit the ledge and then troll down to Cordell or Rittenberg for rockfish, unless we found tuna, if we found tuna then we would stay with them for the day. We headed west and as the sun rose I looked over the rail and noticed the water was decently blue and temps were climbing to 60 pretty quickly over the ledge, a good combo for albacore, we set 4 clones in close and 2 madmacs way back then trolled at 8 to 9 knots out to the 50 west line with no clue what might bite. After running into 61.5 degree water we turned southeast toward cordell. After 2 hours we went from 61 degrees to 58 degrees in a hurry, and to my disbelief 2 clones started screaming, we threw in two 20lbers and set back as fast as possible as we scrambled to get the madmacs back to the boat and the albacore gear into the water. We screwed around for 5 minutes getting gear straight and hooked another double. Then as I thought it was going to get crazy, it slowed down and we only had 2 more short strikes and one more landed fish for the day all in singles. Ended with 5 nice sized fish, which we were all happy with considering the low probility of success on tuna. Lots of micro squid and fish marks out there. Numbers were 03×45, but lots of bait and decently blue water from bodega caynon to cordell. Hopefully we can get back on the longfins as the bluefin have not been treating us well out of bodega this year. It appears we will be having some flat weather in the forecast for next week while I am gone on a elk hunt, Capt Josh will be running those trips and with my luck he will do very well while I’m away. I’m hoping this is the beginning of a hot October albacore bite. Many years ago we got albacore all the way into thanksgiving, and I have even heard story of Christmas time albacore so anything is possible. The ocean seems to be about a month and half late in terms of wind, currents and fish patterns compared to last year. We are crossing out fingers and hoping for a good October albacore bite and maybe some good bluefin action going into November.