Fort Bragg Albacore Tuna Report 8-30-24

We headed southwest toward arena canyon in the morning and found the break at about 40 miles away from the harbor. We searched all around and started hitting singles on smaller fish by 7:30am. At 9am I got a call from a buddy boat that the fish were biting north so we headed to 18 X 35 and started picking away at singles and doubles of good grade fish, we happened to hit a double on yellowtail and got one 8lber to the boat which was pretty exciting since I’ve never caught a yellowtail this far north. At noon all hell broke loose and we couldn’t keep a single rod in the water. Every time we got up to trolling speed every rod in the water would get bit so we started only fishing 4 rods to keep things under control, we quickly put 30 good grade albacore in the boat within the hour with a few coming on irons while fish were getting reeled in. We pointed toward home at 1pm with 40 fish in the boat and started filleting fish while we trolled home and picked up an additional 10 fish on the way in. WE hit the dock with 50 quality albacore and one yellowtail. It was truly an epic day with a bite that was as nearly as wide open as it can get.

Fort Bragg Albacore Tuna Report 8-31-24

We headed out to the same numbers as the day before and found a steady pick in the morning on smaller fish. We found a log and managed to pick up a double on yellowtail. One jumbo 20lber and one smaller 10lber. We tried jigging on the log for a while but never got them to play again even though i could see them on the sonar. By 10am the bite sped up and went completely insane as the day before. We had a group of guys who really wanted to get some hands on fishing instead of trolling so we started tossing jigs with 20lb flouro on very light spinning reels and really started to stick them good. It was chaos chasing fish on jigs and having 4 jig fish hooked up at once. The grade was a little smaller on the jig fish with about a 10 to 12lb average but a lot of fun. One of the best jig fish days I’ve had in a long time. Also I got word that the bodega bay albacore bite went wide open and boats were doing just as well as we were with lots of big eye tuna landed as well.

Fort Bragg Albacore Tuna Report 9-1-24

With the same group as the previous day, we headed out and instantly found an insane bite. We started jigging up fish immediately and slammed 30 fish on jigs into the boat by 10am. We could’ve sank the boat with fish if we stayed trolling as jigs are significantly slower to get fish to the boat due to the lighter line we were using. Our buddy boat had 62 fish by 10am as well who was trolling and called it quiets due to low ice and tired arms from his 6 passengers. Our group was completely stuffed out with tuna decided they wanted to do a drift or two for lings while we cleaned fish. We set up a drift south of the harbor and landed 2 lingcod and a handful of nice reds. Another epic day and the weather was insanely flat all day. It truly doesn’t get to much better than days like this.

Fort Bragg Albacore Tuna Report 9-2-24

We headed out with high hopes and big dreams of plugging the boat and getting home early before the winds picked up in the afternoon. We were sure that was going to happen when we tossed the first clone in and it got hit before we put the rod in the holder at first daylight. We gathered up 8 fish and then the bite died, there was little to no bird life and the bait we had seen in days past was gone. We looked north and inside but never found any biters so we circled back and picked up another 9 fish by 2:30pm. They seemed to prefer the spreader bars and daisy chains. The fish were defiantly picky and we had lots of singles and doubles. We headed home as winds making things unpleasant by 2:30 with 17 fish in the box of good grade albacore. Overall a tougher day coming off the past 3 days of incredible fishing, but still an ok day. The boat is getting prepped for Capt Josh to run out of Bodega Bay on Thursday to look for bigeye and albacore so things are looking exciting for the future.