Capt Art’s Blog

Good morning anglers,

We arrived on scene here at about midnight and started seeing fish right away. It was pretty tough for us to get a bite on the flat falls in the dark. Since then we’ve been scratching away a little bit. We had one long drift that started in the gray. The fish we’re seeing and catching right now are 50-200lbs, with a few 20lbers as well.  The biggest one we’ve landed was 184lbs.  We lost a bigger one at gaff and have had multiple heart breaks. That’s bluefin fishing! Anglers are fishing 80lb but our casualty rate is still pretty high due to tangles, bite offs and pulled hooks.

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers,

We scratched away all day on mixed grade bluefin. The majority of them were 50-180lbs with some smaller ones mixed in. The majority were caught on the sinker rig on 80lb.  We see good sign in the dark here of 100lb+ fish, but the anglers are burnt out and we only have a few people fishing. We’ve got one of these 100 lbers, with only a couple anglers fishing. We still have a good sign of fish. We’ll check back in the morning,

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good morning anglers,

We’re still seeing good sign of these 40-180lb bluefin here again today. It’s been pretty tough to get a bite, but we’re scratching away here. All of the fish we’re catching today are coming on the sinker rig and the shiny lures primarily the yoyo lures. We’re hoping they turn on this afternoon and start snapping. We also had a few on the flat falls before the sun came up.

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers,

We scratched up a couple more handfuls of bluefin this afternoon.  Most of them were the 50lb class but we did land a few more big ones as well.  All but one came on the sinker rig on 80lb test. We’re just starting to get on the fish again. There’s a very good sign right now. We currently have one heavy hanging, and good fish swimming around the boat.

Hoping to sack up a few more tonight before we have to go home. (photos to come later today!)

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good morning anglers,
We’re off to a great start! We’ve been plunking all morning on 50-130lb bluefin.  There is an incredible sign of fish down here. We got on the right one at 7am, it’s 9:30 am now and were up to 11 over 100# on this drift. We have 2-5 fish going the whole time.  Pretty fun fishing.

We caught a few on the flat falls, but  most of the fish are coming on the sinker rig. Anglers are having no problem getting bit on 80lb outfits, but the anglers fishing 60lb are struggling to land them.  I highly recommend fishing nothing less than 80lb.

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers,
We’ve been picking away at these big bluefin this afternoon. Most of our bites are coming on the shiny yo-yo lures like the Tady 4/0 and the Salas 6xjr.  We lost quite a few due to pulled hooks and bite offs, however we are managing to land some.  The sun’s down now and we’re starting to catch a few on the flat falls.  We’ll check back in the morning.

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good afternoon anglers,
We had a little action in the dark last night, And in the morning we hit several schools for some more tuna action. As it slowed down we decided to make a  move to the northwest. Along our travels we were looking for kelps to stop on for some possible yellowtail. We began to see bird schools in the distance. As we got closer we noticed that there were bluefin on the birds. We just got into the area and are actively searching, so we have to get our eyes in the binos.

Armando and the Searcher crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers,

We are wrapping up our Izorline-sponsored Memorial Day Weekend 3-day trip. Many thanks to pro-staffers Norm F. and Howard F. for their sponsorship and giveaways

We traveled up to a new zone this afternoon. Along the way Sean climbed up to the mast and was able to spot two very nice kelps for us. So we decided to give it a try. We were able to capture some good quality yellowtail on them. Once we got it into the zone we caught some more incredible bluefin tuna.

We had an amazing  time with some great people. We will be at the dock in the morning. We can’t wait to get back out on the water.

Armando and the Searcher crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good afternoon anglers,
We had a very exciting morning on the bluefin tuna. Right before the sun began to rise we found a very cooperative school of mixed grade fish everywhere from 40 to 200 pound fish. Of course with bluefin there were some heartbreaks. The key seemed to be fishing the deep jig, like the flatfall and the sinker rigged sardine on 60 to 80 pound test. Throughout the morning we have been seeing nice schools and hooking a few every stop. We are on the hunt for a few more this afternoon!

Armando and the Searcher crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers:
We left this morning on our 3-day Memorial Day trip with Izorline pro-staffers, Norm and Howard on board. We picked up an amazing load of bait, ate lunch and headed down south. By evening we were able to locate a nice school of large grade bluefin tuna. It took awhile to get with it, but then those famous words we all love to hear came….”BITER!!”

We had some bites on the jigs and on the sinker rig. Randy was able to land this 170 pound fish with a flyline sardine on 100lb test! That is pretty impressive. It’s dark now and we are on the hunt for a night bite. We are very excited for our next upcoming days of fishing!

Armando and the Searcher crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers,
Congratulations to Jeff L, who today captured his very first bluefin. Jeff captured his fish with a brand new Tady Teaspoon lure, with one of Searcher’s awesome loaner setups.

The daytime bite was a little slow today but with the sign we saw, we know things are going to just get better and better. We saw school after school but the fish are still not incredibly eager, however we did catch some nice ones. It’s dark now and we are currently pulling on one fish and seeing huge schools. We will be at the dock in the morning to wrap up this trip.

It’s been an incredible trip with some amazing people!

Armando and the Searcher crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good afternoon fellow anglers,

We left yesterday evening for a 2.5 day trip, with 17 very excited anglers. The bluefin have been biting very well in the dark, so our goal was to reach the grounds extremely early in the morning. Everyone ate a delicious dinner, they got rigged up, and were on their way to their bunks for a very short nap.  Once we reached the zone we were able to locate a very nice school of fish that wanted to stick to the boat.

Thanks to some good information we knew what we were up against, and so the anglers were advised to fish no less than 80 pound test and that really paid off! We landed some some beautiful bluefin tuna in the dark. Not one fish was was under 100lbs, including the amazing 192lb bluefin caught by Steve R. Once the sun came up we looked at a few more schools of tuna that would not cooperate, so we spent the later morning looking for kelps and have had a lot of fun catching some quality yellowtail. It’s been a great trip so far and we still have so much time left to go!

Armando and the Searcher Crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good evening anglers,

We had some very fun fishing this afternoon! We found school after school of the 200 pound range bluefin. It’s great to be able to say that the kite is back in action. Although it was tough to get on the right school, we finally found one that wanted to play. We managed to land three kite fish in the 200 pound range and one jig fish right before dark. We also hooked quite a few on the sinker rig but those proved difficult to land. But that definitely did not end the day of fishing.

As I am writing this at 9pm we just hooked our first fish in the dark. Lately that has been the best fishing. Doug had 2-100lb bluefin last night on the knife jig. Do not forget your heavy gear! We have to get back to work and try to hook some more.

Armando and Searcher crew

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips

Good morning anglers,

We relocated the fish we were on yesterday and stopped on very large school this morning, We were able to plunk up almost what we needed to get our limit.  Still a very good sign this morning and all the fish but one came on the fly-lined baits.  They were 25-70lbs. We’re going to give this a break for a few hours and do some scouting and come back to it in the evening.

Captain Mike and the boys

Check out these tackle suggestions: Tackle for Offshore Trips