The July tournament for the 2025 season is the MONTH LONG YELLOWTAIL TOURNAMENT, July 1 through July 31.  This tournament is limited to MBMC members only.  Member entry fees have been eliminated for this year. Yes!, the tournament is open to all MBMC Members by just submitting an Entry Form. This is a Largest Fish Prize Tourney; Cash/Gift Card worth $500 for 1^st Place, $250 for 2^nd place, and $100 for 3^rd place. Click here for Entry Form and Rules

Reminder: MBMC will not be accepting membership after July 1, 2025.   You have until July 1, 2025, to renew your membership and be able to fish the tournament.

Greetings! Just a reminder about membership closure.

As stated in the June OopsLine, MBMC will not be accepting membership after July 1, 2025.  We currently have 51 returning members signed up so don’t miss out, get your Membership Renewal sent in before the 7/1/25 deadline.

Since this is the final year of our Club, the Board has decided to reward its supporting members. Current 2025 members get:

• FREE Tournament participation and
• FREE lunches/dinners at most club scheduled events. 
• Fuel Discount @ Dana Landing Fuel Dock.

You have until July 1, 2025, to renew your membership and take advantage of these perks.  Click Here to renew.

Regards;

MBMC Board of Directors

June Tournament

The first tournament of the 2025 season is the MONTH LONG HALIBUT / WHITE SEABASS TOURNAMENT, June 1 through June 30.  MBMC Member entry fees have been eliminated for this year. Yes!, the tournament is open to all MBMC Members by just submitting an Entry Form. This is a Largest Fish Prize Tourney; Cash/Gift Card worth $500 for 1^st Place, $250 for 2^nd place, and $100 for 3^rd place.See attached Entry Form and Rules for details.

This tournament is open to MBMC Members only and all fishing must be from a Member Boat. There should be no excuses not to participate.  You can’t win if you don’t have a bait in the water!

June Seminar

The first seminar features Mike “The Beak” Hurt to be held on June 7, 2025, at Bay Park Fish Company. Often considered the “Godfather” of modern sport fishing in Southern California, Captain Hurt was one of the first captains to consistently catch billfish in his native waters off San Diego before the days of depth sounders and GPS. Today, Hurt continues to shape the industry by sharing the knowledge and experience he has gained from 50 years on the water.

The seminar includes a Taco Bar Lunch FREE to members and $20 fee at the door for non-members. See attached flyer for details. 

Greetings MBMC members!

April hasn’t been the kindest month as far as fishing opportunity goes as the colder than normal sea temps combined with several strong and consistent wind events have kept most boats at the dock or on the trailer save for the avid rock cod angler. There has been no reliable surface action at all other than a rare yellowtail showing off La Jolla and the ocean has been too cold to get the Calico Bass going either. The Lower 9 mile bank has been hot and cold recently with strong underlying currents making it difficult to get your bait down on the right spot on some days.

The Bluefin Tuna came within 1 to 1.5 day range early in the month around the 1010 Trench/295 spot but the fish didn’t really turn on until they moved up to the Butterfly Bank a week later and 2 – 3 day limits on 40-80 pound tuna were common with most fish taken at night on jigs @200-300 feet. A few fish were taken during the day on flyline and sinker rigs however the fish were still hesitant from showing on the surface after being chased and netted by the Mexican Seiner Fleet as the annual quota was increased 80% recently as the Global Fish Councils have determined the Bluefin have rebounded from their previous decline. The American Commercial take has also been increased up to 65% over last years quota however I believe it’s doubtful for them to increase our measly 2 fish daily recreational bluefin limit.

No fish were submitted for the April Fish of the Month.

As Scott mentioned in last month’s OOPSLINE, this will be the final year of the Mission Bay Marlin Club so the Board Member’s primary agenda will be to get the Club’s Financial Records and Non Profit Corporation Status closed out and reported properly while determining the best way to redistribute the existing Club Funds back to the participating members via Club Tournaments,  Free Seminars, and amazing Club raffles including the Grand Raffle as part of the MBMC Marlin Tourney scheduled for September 12-14. 

There will be no reason not to enter any of the 6 proposed tournaments this season as all MBMC Member entry fees are eliminated. Tournaments are open to Members only and all fishing must be from a Member Boat. To spice things up a bit the Board has recommended a $500 largest fish gift card prize, $250 2^nd place, and $100 3^rd place prize. You can’t win if you’re not in. More Tournament Info in an additional email later this month. The 2025 Tournament schedule is as follows and all Tournaments, except the MBMC Marlin Tournament, are of the entire month variety:

• June 1-30                                     Halibut/White Sea Bass
• July 1-31                                      Yellowtail
• August 1-31                                 Tuna (Except Skipjack)
• September 1-30                           Marlin
• MBMC Marlin Tourney                Friday 9/12 Captains Meeting – Saturday 9/13 Lines In –  Sunday                                                                             Awards Dinner & Raffle
• November 1-30                           Rockcod  (With a separate Lingcod Division)

Seminars – So far we have scheduled 2 seminars. The first is with Mike “The Beak” Hurt to be held on June 7, 2025, at Bay Park Fish Company. It will also include a Taco Bar Lunch FREE to members and $20 fee at the door for non-members. See attached flyer for details.  The second seminar will be with Kenny Shilling on August 23, 2025, also at Bay Park Fish Company, with details to follow in future flyers in the OOPSLINE. Just another way your Club has chosen to give back to its members so please take advantage of it!

May your May be filled with many hook ups and few break offs – Let’s get this thing going!

Jeff Meeker

Greetings Members

On March 15th we held the MBMC Annual Membership Meeting at Sardinas restaurant. With the beautiful weather, we were able to hold the event on the patio. The food as always was excellent and plentiful.  We had 9 members present for the meeting. Of which 5 were existing board members.

As of today, 3 members have stepped up to fill Board of Directors vacancies.  Longtime member Jeff Meeker has volunteered to take over my spot as OopsLine editor and assist with tournaments. John Kirhoffer has also volunteered his help after his return in July. And longtime member Billy Vitale has also volunteered.

Facing continued lack of member participation and not filling out the full Board to run the club, a motion was made and approved by the members in attendance to SADLY end the 51-year run of the Mission Bay Marlin Club. 2025 will be the last year. 

We will have seminars and tournaments this year. Watch the flyers /dates/emails for future events. We welcome your comments and urge your participation.

Fishing has been limited again due to weather. Hopefully April will bring better weather and more boats will be out looking for the bluefin.  Rock cod fishing will be open to US waters April 1st. Remember to check fish and game regulations for 2025.

No FOM weighed in for February or March. Hopefully with improved weather we will see more participation.

The Board has set the tournament and seminar schedule for 2025.

Tournament Schedule:

• July – Month Long Yellowtail Tournament
• August- Month Long Tuna Tournament
• September- Month Long Jerry/Roy Lively Marlin Tournament
• September 12,13,14 Mission Bay Marlin Tournament
• November Month Long Rock Cod Tournament

Seminar Schedule:

• June 7th   – Legendary Marlin Fisherman Mike “Beak” Hurt will provide us with all his secrets for landing local marlin. The seminar will be held at Bay Park Fish Company from 11-3pm. Members will be treated to great food and seminar at no charge.  Non members 20.00. As always Ray Fear will be putting together an extremely generous raffle. 

Remember lets get our membership up. Time to renew and get your friends on board. It’s also not too late to donate your time to the board to help out your club.

Want to thank outgoing board member Kevin Yamamoto for all his hard work throughout the years in running our tournaments and serving as Weighmaster.  Billy Vitale will become the new Weighmaster.

I have also stepped down as Secretary and Social Chairman. My duties will be taken over by Jeff Meeker. During my term on the Board, we have had several challenges and some trying times but my term on the Board has allowed me to meet and work with great people that I can now call friends! 
             

Tight lines,
Scott Paul
sec/social