Trip Reports

Hello anglers,

We have had great fishing for bluefin tuna this morning with plenty of opportunity to land a tuna! Live bait with 25-30 pound line and fluorocarbon and a 2/0 circle hook is the method of choice.
This is our fifth annual ladies trip and the women are having a great time! As soon as they get onboard the festivities begin with gift bags for everyone and a cocktail to get the trip started right.

We’re enjoying some really great weather, with calm seas and no wind.

Captain Art and Team Searcher

Hello anglers,

Great fishing today and lots of opportunities to land a bluefin tuna! Live sardine with 25-40 pound line and a small circle hook was the key! Here are two new lady anglers from Las Vegas, NV with their fish landed using our “hook and hand” outfits.
We are spending the night and trying again in the morning. Great weather.

Captain Art and Team Searcher

p.s. Head over to our YouTube channel for all the latest tackle tips!

Good morning anglers,

We’ve had a great morning on the bluefin today. We caught our limit of 25-40lb bluefin before lunch! The key today was 25lb fluorocarbon and a small circle hook: 1 or 1/0. We’re off to go look for some yellowtail this afternoon.

Captain Mike and the boys

Good evening anglers,

We were able to scratch up some yellowtail this afternoon. Conditions were not quite right, but the ones we caught were all quality. The go-to set up was a fly-lined sardine on 40lb. We also caught some on the yoyo jigs.

Captain Mike and the boys

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Hello anglers,

We stayed in the same area and had our chances at landing yellowfin tuna and dorado today. We saw the same sign of fish for most of the morning, but there was a better percentage of nice size tuna. Here is Rich and Dave with a couple of 30 pound fish one landed on live bait and the other on a surface lure.

The weather is tremendous with no wind and calm seas. We had good fishing, great people and tons of fun. Thanks to Bob Bower and Mike Wicen for gathering and raffling off all the goodies. it was all for a great cause in honor of our great friend Dick Uranga. We’ll share all the totals donated to PanCan after the trip. We can’t say enough thank you’s to our sponsors: Fishermans Processing, Melton Tackle, Seeker Rods, and more, plus all the hard work of Dick Uranga’s friends for keeping his spirit alive on Searcher!

Captain Art and Team Searcher

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