North Bay Fishing Charters

09/08/2026

You know its good fishing when you make the local news!

A Fort Bragg charter boat landed 165 albacore in four days, capped by a rough-weather trip full of 25 to 37 pound jumbo tuna.

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09/06/2026

Ft Bragg Albacore season is officially wide open. Four days of fishing resulted in 165 albacore, every day we fished until the clients had all the fish they wanted

Tuesday:We headed out with a two-client private charter. The fishing was a little slower, but we found some fish and worked an area and picked up 15 fish on the troll and maybe five or so on the jigs. The grade was really good, about a 22lb average.

Thursday: We headed out and found a few birds. Significantly more birds moved in overnight and completely gave away the location of the fish. Birds and fish were jumping for miles. Smaller fish, but wide open as it gets. We got 50 in the boat, then put the troll rods away and focused on jigs, ending with 70 fish, and about 40+ of them coming on jigs. 8lb average; we were back to the dock by 3.

Friday: went to the same area. No birds, green water. There was blue water inside and outside, so we headed outside. Got some big fish in there, but action overall was slow. It took a few hours, but we found some terns working on fish, then all hell broke loose. Got 35 fish in two hours, and the clients were happy with that amount of fish by 2pm. so we headed in with 45 total. The first 10 fish were 20 lbs. the last 35 were mostly 10lbs. We made some really good slide stops with probably 20 jig fish.

Saturday:We had a private charter of three. The weather bad. The forecast showed 5 to 10 knots offshore, the wind was more like 15+. Ocean was nearly unfishable, even with rain gear. I decided to turn back and fish the temp break closer to shore. I was getting tossed in my tuna tower, but still spotted some birds struggling in the wind. We rolled through them and had every rod on the boat going. Repeated 9 ways quickly stacked us up to 31 fish. The best part was the size; all jumbos. Our smallest was 25 lbs on the scale, and the biggest was 37 lbs and the average was 30. The fish were the biggest I've ever seen in September. Massive hookups with giant fish in rough weather kicked all of our butts, but it was by far the best day and honestly, one of the top days for me personally.

We are booked full entirely for albacore season.

-Capt Ryan

08/18/2026

It's been an epic week in Bodega Bay. We haven't posted much over the past week, but not due to a lack of fish. A lot of salmon pushed into our local area, and it's been steady limits or very close to limits every day for both boats, with almost entirely all the fish being at or over 15 lbs. Some days happen faster than others, but today was a fast one with limits by 11 AM for Captain Mike. Captain Josh leaves for Mexico, so we are slowing down operations to just the Bigeye for a couple of days per week, but it does appear some wind will be coming in, giving all of the crew a much-needed break after over two weeks of consecutive fishing for both boats. Once we complete the last of our salmon season, we will be focusing on tuna for the remainder of the fall, and it's sure looking epic. We do have some room left for october bluefin and its going to be busy.

-Capt Ryan

07/21/2026

Capt Mike Long and deckhand Cody struck gold yesterday when the salmon got stubborn. After a slow start on salmon they opted to fish for lingcod and caught a super rare Xanthochomic golden ling. A little research shows roughly less than one in 500,000 lingcod processes this mutation and fewer make it to adulthood. If anyone has ever seen one of these drop a photo in the comments as these are super rare. Ive only ever witnessed one diving many years ago.

-Capt Ryan

07/20/2026

Another week of salmon fishing with some wide-open days and some a little slower. Earlier in the week, Captain Billy and Captain Mike Long had some hit-or-miss days, averaging a fish per person most days. With the wind blowing, we took a couple of days off, then fished hard this weekend. On Saturday, we had early limits of big fish up to 25 lbs. Then on Sunday, the bite slowed, and we worked hard and searched all the way up the Sonoma coast and only had 4 salmon up to 20 lbs to show. Overall, the fishing remains hit or miss, with some amazing days and some slower days.

-Capt Ryan

07/06/2026

The 4th of july weekend consisted of absolutely insane, wide-open salmon fishing for us in Bodega Bay. On Friday, we decided to go on a scout mission and look in deeper waters away from the main fleet south of the harbor. After burning some fuel and hours searching, we eventually found a pocket of dozens of whales and birds in deeper waters. We managed to pick up 6 fish and lose several others, the life was there but the fish were finicky and not biting well, We returned to the area on Saturday with both boats, and Captain Josh put the hurt on them right away, per his post plugging the boat early. We took a little longer but still had limits of good quality fish up to 30 lbs by noon. On Sunday, we returned, and unfortunately, word had gotten out, and there was a lot of boat traffic in the area. Captain Billy and I found the bite was a little slower for us eith the traffic, so I went on the search a little ways away from the fleet and managed to find a hot spot eith some action all alone, and we managed to limit both boats out very quickly in less than an hour. We caught the same mid to large-grade fish as the day before, all before 10 AM. Overall, an epic weekend. We are booked through August but still have some September dates open and tuna dates have been added to the calender. We will be offering afternoon trips for weekends like these so stay posted.

-Capt Ryan

07/05/2026

Had my old friend, Jefe, in town for a minute. Ran a trip with him yesterday and it was like we didn’t skip a beat. We boxed 9 schoolies before anyone realized what was happening. Pumped another 7 into the hurt locker and headed back to the barn. Shot the photo backwards so they all look the same size. The front one is our smallest Salmon, our biggest was around 22 lbs. season is off to a great start!!!! P-Line Bodega Tackle XTRATUF hotspotapex

06/29/2026

Yesterday was our first day of the season, and with limiting weather conditions, we ran a light load of 4 folks to shake off the rust close to home in the small area away from the weather. We had a lot of chances with over a dozen hookups not making it to the boat, mostly due to weather constraints, but still managed a fish per person from 22" to a whopping 39". There are a lot of big fish out there and unfortunately most of them spit the hook. We are looking forward to a promising year. We are completely booked full through all of July and most of August for both boats. We will be running some afternoon trips when the weather improves, so stay posted. We are looking forward to a great year of salmon.

-Capt Ryan

06/27/2026

Had a great day fishing solo with the campion family!!! Picked up 4 nice halibut in the morning up to 36 lbs on the the scale. Then ran north for five lingcod and half limits of Rockies! The biggest halibut was caught by their 7 yr old son!! ~Cpt. Josh Bodega Tackle

06/22/2026

Wide-open halibut action out of Bodega Bay yesterday. We ended up with limits for three father-son combos of jumbo, clean ocean halibut. We had three halibut over 40", eight between 35" and 40", and our smallest outlier coming in at 30". So far, my personal best day of halibut fishing by a long shot, and some of the best halibut action I've seen in the area. Overall, an epic day and more action to continue this week.

- Capt Ryan