Scallywag lands 8 bluefin, tuna return to Emeryville fleet

Scallywag put a clean bluefin mark on the Emeryville dock sheet, coming back from a full-day run with 4 anglers and 8 tuna. That catch stood out because Fish Emeryville’s June 23 totals were otherwise a mixed bag, with rockfish, striped bass, lingcod and halibut coming off other boats.

The score sheet read less like a one-fish story than a fleet snapshot. New Huck Finn, Pacific Pearl and Sea Wolf were all working other parts of the local fishery, which is exactly what makes Emeryville useful when the ocean is changing day to day. Anglers can stay closer to the Bay for rockfish and bottom fish, or reach for tuna when the window opens, and on June 23 Scallywag was the boat that made the tuna choice pay.

Just as important, the report was not a dead-end catch recap. It listed open spots for June 24, including 3 on Scallywag, 7 on Sea Wolf, 8 on Pacific Pearl and 10 on New Huck Finn, so the bluefin result landed right in the middle of an active booking cycle. For anyone trying to decide whether to burn fuel toward tuna or book a shorter run, that kind of live availability matters as much as the fish count itself.

The next day’s sheet gave the Emeryville tuna story some follow-through. Scallywag went back out with 6 anglers and finished with 5 bluefin tuna, while the rest of the fleet stayed on rockfish, lingcod, striped bass, halibut and sanddab. That two-day stretch does not read like a Southern California-style blowout, but it does show bluefin holding in the local charter mix long enough to matter.

The regulatory backdrop helps frame why that matters. NOAA Fisheries says the U.S. Pacific bluefin commercial catch limit for 2025-2026 is 1,872.85 metric tons, with no more than 1,285 metric tons allowed in a single year, a figure that is nearly 80% higher than the most recent biennial limit. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife lists Pacific bluefin among the state’s highly migratory species, and NOAA says U.S. fishermen mainly land them in Southern California ports.

That makes an Emeryville bluefin day more than a dockside curiosity. It shows Northern California charter boats still have tuna in the mix, and Scallywag’s back-to-back reports gave the Bay Area a small but useful signal that the window is open enough to book against.