Trip Reports

Hello anglers,

We are having a decent morning with some action on yellowtail, dorado and yellowfin tuna. They are coming in as mixed sizes from small (released) to 30 pound tuna. Everyone is having a great time with great weather, lots of giveaways and raffle prizes donated by generous sponsors in honor of Dick Uranga.

Thank you to Melton International Tackle and Robert Aguirre for donations!

More later,

Captain Art and Team Searcher

Hello anglers,

We had a great day of fishing with action throughout the day. Yellowtail and dorado in the morning, and yellowfin tuna in the afternoon. Plenty of opportunities to catch a fish and have some fun.
The annual grand prize for our Captain Potatohead raffle is is a rod and reel combo donated by Seeker Rods and Searcher. It comes complete with line on it so whoever wins it can use during the trip. Our good friend Terry Onishi custom wraps the rod in the same colors as our friend Dick Uranga’s rods were wrapped! This year, the winner is longtime Potatohead angler, Matt Aguirre, and then he proceeded to land a yellowtail with that rod and reel combo.

Raffle proceeds will be added to other money donated to Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Dickie’s preferred charity. We are hoping for a record donation for 2020, and we’ll announce the Sportsperson of the trip who will receive $1000 credit on the trip next year. (This money was raised by a second jackpot and will be matched by us and added to the donation.)

And secret photos will prove that the schenanigans started by Dickie are underway on the trip too!

Captain Art and Team Searcher

p.s. Preparing for your trip? Check out our YouTube channel for loads of tackle tips: Searcher Sportfishing on YouTube

Good morning anglers,

After catching limits of bluefin tuna yesterday, the catching is much tougher this morning. We are still seeing signs in the bluefin tuna zone, it’s just harder to get a bite. We’re hoping it’s a time of day thing, and we’ll be ready for the afternoon.

Captain Mike and the boys

Good morning anglers,

We’re off to a great start here on the bluefin grounds this morning. We had a nice long drift on some biting bluefin tuna and have been scratching late morning early afternoon. Very good sign of 20-40lb fish. We’re catching them on the flyline and the sinker rig. We suffered quite a few casualties this morning but I think we’ve worked the bugs out.

Captain Mike and the boys

To access all our tackle tip videos, subscribe to our channel here: Searcher Sportfishing on YouTube

Good evening anglers,

We had a great day on the bluefin tuna! We ended up catching our limit for the day. They bit pretty much all day. The most successful ways of hooking them were on the sinker rig and fly lined baits on 30lb test. Here is Bryan with a 20lb bluefin tuna he caught on the sinker.

Captain Mike and the boys

Good afternoon anglers,

We headed out yesterday morning for an extended 1.5 day trip. Once we loaded our bait, we were on our way to the local fishing grounds. We found some great looking water, but unfortunately there was little sign of fish, so we decided to make a move. We traveled south throughout the night and woke up to some great weather and good water. At around 9 a.m. Bryce spotted a nice kelp. Once we pulled up to the kelp, the yellowtail and dorado started biting. Brothers Ryder and Hayden (pictured below) worked together to land their very first yellowtail, and it was a nice one. Greg also caught a great yellow with the assist from Justin. Everyone on board is enjoying a great lunch from Mike and Dan, and we are on the hunt for more fish.

Captain Armando and the Searcher

Good evening anglers,

After our good start on a kelp in the morning, we began to travel. We were pretty far down south so we began to move up to the north. There was a pretty good stretch of cold dirty water that we had to power through. The really great thing about these extended 1.5 day trips is that it allows us to cover so much ground. As soon as the water began to clean up it also started to rise in temperature and we knew we were back in a good zone. We began to see a lot of bird life which is always a great sign. We got on a great line of kelp patties that were loaded with dorado and yellowtail. The fish were a bit line shy, but we managed to put together a very fun afternoon. We are just wrapping up dinner and are on our way home. We had a very fun and exciting day with some amazing passengers.

Captain Armando and the Searcher

Hello anglers,

After a long ride up from The Ridge, we stopped to fish the coast for awhile. We had some action on yellowtail in the 15-25 pound range. Live sardine and 30 pound test was the most successful method. It was great to have a little action to finish the trip.

Headed north and docking Saturday morning.

Captain Art and Team Searcher

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

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

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