Boat Number 13: Team Deckhand Sports Fishes the 2026 Pelagic California Tuna Challenge

Pelagic Tournament Official Website

There's a particular kind of quiet that settles over a marina before a tournament starts… Dock lights humming, halyards ticking against masts, and a truck bed full of ice bleeding condensation onto the tackle. That was our Thursday morning before the 2026 Pelagic California Tuna Challenge. Rods went in the rocket launchers, reels got one last drag check, and fourteen bags of ice disappeared into the freeze holds alongside our Deckhand bags, the boat is rigged and ready for whatever showed up on the gaff.

Checked in at Pelagic HQ in Costa Mesa was done the Tuesday before for the Captain's meeting, now the marina was stacked three-deep with sportfishers, center consoles and other fishing boats all pointed at the same stretch of ocean for the next 36-and-a-half hours. With no boundaries and a midnight Friday departure, the format rewards patience as much as horsepower, and our plan was simple: fish the sunrise bite hard, work any color change or paddy we could find through the heat of the day, and be ready to run if the conditions changed.  He head NW out of San Diego for Avalon as a jumping starting safe harbor. Mooring ball for the night and a meal at the Lobster Trap had us ready for the tournament. 

Lines In

Lines went in after 5:30am under a sky just starting to blush orange, wake peeling off the transom, we were on the Farnsworth. This year's Tuna Challenge came with a stubborn El Nino pattern sitting on the grounds, warm water that scattered the tuna.  Blue Fin to the NW and Yellowfin at the banks. Paddy's were not hanging around as much, and either empty or picked over already by the crowds. We heard it the same way most of the fleet did: steady chatter on the radio about slow tuna scores and a hot local yellowtail bite on the beach. 

So that's where we leaned in. By Mid-morning found us glassing the horizon for birds and color, Stabies up, scanning every ripple for a sign of life. A patch of drifting kelp finally gave us something to work a paddy holding bait, with bait and color moving underneath it that had us grabbing rods before the boat had even stopped. It's the moment every trip is built around. Nothing! No bites. No takers. Wind them up!  We headed for the beach, went to the Barn kelp for home guard yellowtails, but the afternoon bite was not on at the time and we head for Dana Point Harbor. 

The Yellowtail Bite

The tuna stayed stubborn most of the trip, but the yellowtail didn't. We grabbed bait and a guest slip and targeted 4:30 AM toss lines for Salt Creek. Team leader, our angler Dave connected on a solid model yellowtail that came aboard clean and went straight into the Deckhand bag on ice.  We ran it in to the scale at Seaforth Landing later that day, where the crew from Seaforth Sportfishing and the San Diego Marlin Club had the official weigh station humming ‚fish coming across the scales all evening as boats trickled in from the grounds ending the tournament. 

Yellowfin Holding Under Dolphin pod

We made it out to the local banks, 267, nothing. 209, nothing. 312... Dolphin jumping and running. We slid ahead and played leap frog with the pod of dolphins and the other sport boats we ran them down, chunked some bait and slid a flyline sardine back.  The boat got bite 3 times, chewed off on 20# and 25# line quickly. Dave had 40# out got bit on the flyline.  He fought the fish, got it under control with its head coming up in big pinwheels, rod in the RAP pipe.  Fish felt good on 40# on a TTR MHX with Accurate BV2-400 reel.  Fish felt more 40-50 lbs, all was good,... until it was not. Just like that, the hook pulled out and the bent rod went straight and flat along with our chances to win the Tuna Challenge. It was 3 pm at this point, 40 miles for SD and we struck out in the bottom of the 9th. Heartbreak set in as a possible winning fish, or at least placing fish came off. Brutal.

Headed in to the Scales

Our fish weighed in at 18.2 pounds, a solid yellowtail and a good measure of a trip that had more to do with grinding out an honest bite in tough conditions than getting handed an easy one. Standing under that scale gantry with the Team 13 card in hand, surrounded by other crews doing the same thing, is as good a snapshot of what this event is about as any: not every team walks away with a check, but every team walks away with a story from an adventure and a genuine test of their skills.

More Than a Scoreboard

We didn't put a tuna on the board this year, and neither did most of the fleet, that's what an El Nino year on the SoCal grounds will do. But the tournament still delivered exactly what it promises: a hot yellowtail bite, quality dorado around the paddies for teams who found them, and 2-days worth of Fishing Hard And Far with no boundaries to hide behind. Watching Team Reel Housewives come back a year after a heartbreaking mechanical breakdown to win it outright with a 43.9-pound yellowfin was a reminder of why everybody keeps coming back to this event, perseverance counts as much as horsepower out here.

For us, it was a long day and night on the water, a good fish in the bag, and one more data point in why we build our gear the way we do. That Deckhand kill bag spent the better part of two days strapped to the deck getting soaked in spray, jostled in a following sea, and loaded with ice and fish, and it did exactly what it's supposed to do the whole time.

Big thanks to Pelagic, Seaforth Landing, the San Diego Marlin Club, and everyone on Catalina and in San Diego who made the weigh-ins run smooth, and to CCA California for the work they do keeping this fishery healthy for the next tournament. We'll be back on the water for the next one, same crew, same boat, ready to Fish Hard And Far.

-Team Deckhand Sports