ovens river Fishing Report 2025

Skipper Drew Henderson docked the Polaris Supreme June 17 after a five-day trip to the mid-Baja islands, on the Pacific side, of course.

"It was windy until the day we came home," he remarked. His 18 anglers managed a good catch of yellowtail and rockfish, however.

George Farnsworth of Kenwood won first place for a 27.6-pound yellowtail. He said it bit on a sardine pin ned to a 3/0 Gamakatsu hook. He used 30-pound Yo-Zuri line on a Saltiga 30 reel and a Calstar 870 M rod to beat the fish in 12 minutes.

"We had a great crew," he stated. "And that made a great trip."

Regular long ranger Joe Beck of San Pedro won second place, for a 27-pound yellow. Michael Robbins of Santa Cruz, one of three generations of family members on the trip, won third place, for a 25.4-pound yellowtail.

Plenty of room at the rail this past weekend ! On Saturday our 8 passengers caught 25 quality calico bass and another 25 miscellaneous rockfish. On Sunday our 7 passengers caught 20 nice calico bass and 20 rockfish. The highlight of the weekend was a 15 lb. white sea bass caught on Sunday. We also released a short sea bass. If you are one of those people that do not enjoy fishing with a crowd. This is the time for you ! Our next trip is Friday December 7. Make those resos !

Drew Henderson docked Polaris Supreme at Fisherman's Landing August 12 after four days of fishing. His anglers had near-limits of yellowtail, mostly from Cedros Island, where he found mackerel to be superior bait, and fish biting at both ends. Drew said his anglers released some 200 fish. Henderson's posting for August 10 read: "We started our trip making the long haul down to Benitos Island due to the bad weather and bad offshore report. We got to the Island at about two thirty. We got held up with a giant school of 3 to 4 foot giant squid. I can't say it was bad there, I mean we caught a lot of fish we just had to go through lots of little ones to get the bigger ones. We gave the night bite a couple hours only getting ten fish and took off towards Cedros. "The morning was great. Everyone woke up to bent rods. After a couple hours the current slowed and the slime (barracuda) took over. We did a little scouting and found some large model yellows and had a couple of long plunking drifts. Then we took off to the northern head to gain some time for tomorrow and give it a check and found the honey hole. Mucho Fisho. All the beautiful grade, and they chewed until we all got our fill. We're traveling up tonight to do some offshore tomorrow until it's time to go home." Dave Betz of Huntington Beach won first place for a 27.6-pound yellowtail he bagged with a sardine on a 1/0 ringed Gorilla hook and 20-pound P-Line. He said he fished with his favorite Accurate 270 reel, and a Calstar six-foot rod. The fight ran to 35 minutes, he said. Forrest Broyles of Kelseyville got a 25.4-pounder. He was tied by Ken Wan of Oakland for second place.

49 yellowfin tuna 11 yellowtail. We also saw a few schools of 50-100 lb bluefin. The wise angler would come prepared with an assortment of line sizes from 20 to 40 lb.

Sept. 25

Today we got nasty aboard the Polaris Supreme. And I mean nasty. When I use the term nasty I mean it in a good way. Unless I'm talking about the weather. If I say the weather is nasty I mean it was nasty. And by the way the weather was nasty today. It was windy windy windy and the swell was up and it was steep and we were rolling baby. It didn't bother us though because we were getting nasty on those bluefin tunas. Shortly after firing up after daylight Jed called down from above "tern birds pickin starboard bow". So I turned toward starboard bow and there was tern birds a pickin and when we rolled up on them, wouldn't you know it there was a big school of bluefin under them. I love those beautiful little white tern birds. They're the best of the fish finders. Find tern birds and you usually find game fish. For two hours it was game on. I mean they were snappin! 35-50 pound tunas? Yup. After the initial two hour whack things became civil and we scratched at them for another five hours. We could of kept picking at them but we had enough and the weather was getting worse so we headed east for the rest of the day and found nice weather in there. Night and day compared to what we had out west. We didn't catch much in there, a few small yellows and dorado but we didn't care. We had a heaven of a day already. We're on our way in. We have one night in and then we're back at it again. See you then.

 

Hi friends. This morning's action on Yellowfin tuna was just the type of fishing we were looking for. Steady jig strikes and some bait fish to go along with the trollers. One problem; no size. All of the tuna we hooked this morning were successfully released and it was back on the prowl for bigger and better things. We once again found good water conditions but the lack of any sign of pelagic species was somewhat unsettling and we decided to do make the run to the "Numbers" around lunch-time. It took us a while to get the proper deal located and when we did, it was game on for Yellowtail in the 12-20 lb. range. To add some color to our Yellowtail catch, we also caught three Bluefin tuna, a couple of 30 lb. Yellowfin tuna, a handful of Dorado, and Garry Roberts caught a Gold Spotted Sand Bass. Pretty cool looking fish. Anyhow, this group took what they needed from the Yellowtail garden and began just having fun catching and releasing 'tails. I'd estimate that we released well over seventy-five quality Yellows, we even released a good majority of the 20 pounders. I have three highlights from this spot. One; On our way into the spot, two Killer Whales charged the boat and had Drew as excited as I've ever seen about whales. They checked us out for a minute and then were on their way again. Two; We had a Whale Shark get close enough to the boat that I'm sure if we tried, we could've successfully and safely boarded all passengers and crew on top the beast and then return back onto the boat. Simply amazing, humbling creatures. Three; "Big John" Korgy, Fisherman's Landing gate security person re-wrapped my 9'3" Ulua with an all yellow wrap, greenish guide wraps, and a Chiquita banana sticker. I call this gem "the Big Banana" and I brought it down for some of the passengers to test their skills. It was pretty fun watching the guys get their butts handed to them and Jed took some great photos of Mr. Roberts pulling on a Yellowtail with the long rod. I must say thank you to John as the rod is simply stunning. Just an awesome day. Once again the weather was A , with once again having premium bronzing conditions all day with sunshine and a light breeze.

 

To round out our day, a gigantic kelp paddy floated by and with just an hour of daylight left in our busy day, we managed to capture a box-full of beautiful Dorado as the sunset. Great half-day of fishing for us on the Supreme. Tomorrow, we'll be looking for tuna and wahoo and we'll decided our next plan of attack from there. Wish us luck and take care.

 

-Team Supreme-