cowlitz river Fishing Report 2025

Captian Ryan Bostian reported that the San Diego had a good day at the island. Today we had 62 Yellowtail and there were some nice quality. Look at the photo!

Mike Pritchard called in with this report from the Tribute. "We had a little bit of the choppy weather hear today. We have a little over 50 mixed fish. So far we have caught some Dorado with Bluefin mixed in. We still have plenty of daylight left and we're hoping to pull in some more Bluefin. We'll keep you posted as the day progresses.

~~This is the after picture of the port side navigation system. If you notice, the monitor itself is a daylight monitor. The sun is shining directly on it and you can still see the screen. This system has radar, a plotter, and a fathometer. And it's all AIS capable. (Automated identification system) All ships that have AIS, can be tracked on a website, called www.marinetraffic.com. All of the systems can be overlaid so you can have your plotter, radar, and depth viewed at the same time

 

 

~~
This is the starboard side navigation system. Which is identical to the port. In addition to the previous mentioned features, the monitor can be switched to a computer system which has Nobel Tech times zero catch navigation fish finding and my favorite, bottom mapping system on it. You can, and we have been, making our own bottom maps for the previous three years. Cool stuff. In addition it has live weather from Weather Works XM Weather. Also it has SeaView Ocean Imaging capabilities to where we can download water temperature, chlorophyll, sea height, ect. The port system also has its own computer.

 

~~The monitor on the left is a sound activated fathometer for fish finding. And the monitor on the right is a daylight monitor for our sonar, for fish finding. In the front is one of our pairs of Gyroscopic binoculars

~~All of these electronics need new antennas. And this is how they get there. We literally pulled out a third of a dock cart of old wiring

 

 

~~Say good bye to the old radars.

~~Drew grinding away on a little cancer on the deck.

~~The roto hammer is one of our favorite tools for chipping up cancerous areas on the deck, but the noise is unbearable to our neighbors in the boat yard.

~~The deck hatches had to be completely stripped

~~We re-skinned the outside of the galley doors. They now have a nice white formica finish.

~~Creative, yes. But I bet he spent a half hour looking for that office chair in the boat yard!

~~The boat looks kinda small in some of these upcoming pictures without Tommie in them for perspective.  ~~Jed's missing from these shots because he was taking the pictures.

 

 

~~Drew resealing inspection plates for exhaust

~~Tommie detailing wood work

~~Tommie prepping for paint

~~Final coat of deck paint. Looking good!

 

 

The old adage “I’d rather be lucky than good” was the story for us today. Before we even fired up the Binos our autopilot found us a kelp patty that kicked out 66 yellowtail (12-25lbs). After our kelp the weather kicked up substantially making it very difficult to work. We did however see some tuna but did not get a bite. A 40 lb flyline setup was the best today.

Friday, October 19th, 2012

Hi friends. Happy Friday to all of you back home. How are you? Good, thanks for asking. Let's get down to business.

We awoke today just like any other day. Tommy woke us all up very peacefully but at the same time gave us way too much information and had our eyes crossed before we could even get the boogers out of them, or open them for that matter. I got out of the rack, put on my fishing shorts, came out to the bench in the wheelhouse, grabbed my boots, and proceeded to put on my socks. But these just weren't ordinary socks, oh no. I pulled these particular socks over my heels and up to my calves and when I pull my socks all the way up to my calves, you know what time it is - business time.

I pulled my socks all the way up so that when my boots are at full pop-dog--rather than semi pop-dog, the way I normally wear them with shorts--they don't rub me raw. I know what you're asking yourself right now, "Richie, why on earth have you spent an entire paragraph talking about your awesome business socks and boot length?" Well, the answer is simple - we got down to some major business on yellowfin tuna, flatheads, and wahoo and I don't like getting my legs all dirty and wet. That is why my boots were at full pop-dog today.

After looking around all morning at dry kelp paddies, we got on some ponies (common dolphins) and landed 14 of those beautiful 25-45 lb. yellowfin tunas. Unfortunately, that was our only go-around on those things and they vanished. It didn't take us long to locate a beautiful kelp paddy and it was on like Donkey Kong. The mahi's bull-rushed us and they were a really nice grade too. I'd say that the majority of the fish were in the 15-22 lb. range and they put on quite the show. Not quite a kelp paddy off of Mag Bay action but plenty close enough. No matter where they are, they're the hardest fish to gaff and they get us all wet. After finishing up our Mexican limit on those things, the tuna got in on the action and bit very well for us. For the most part, they're footballs, but a couple standouts were landed after the initial melee had passed. Joe Gigliotti got himself another beauty and Jeff Hauser got himself a dandy too. Good job guys, way to give a hundred and ten percent. The two luckiest anglers of all were Hart Brauer and Skip Hess II a.k.a. "Skipper Jenkins". Hart and Skip were our luckiest of the lucky lambs today and landed themselves one wahoo each. Fine work, boys.

So here we are. About to wrap up our second annual Gigliotti/Accurate 8-day adventure and we're going to bypass the bluefin zone. I know, I know. I'm as disappointed as anyone, but there's no reason to bomb up from where we are to the bluefin zone where the scores have been quite unflattering. The weather isn't very sweet right now either. What was a beautiful morning of bronzing quickly turned into jacket/slicker weather after lunch. As of now, we're traveling up the line to look at another area for a few hours to try and locate some more of those big ole yellowfins. Our ride is OK. We're not pounding or scooping the bow or anything but we're doing a little bouncing, like our car is on hydraulics in the ghetto. Hence, I'm listening to Backspin, channel 46 on SiriusXM radio - old school hip-hop. Bumpin'.

Wish us luck tomorrow and we'll give you a wrap-up report tomorrow. Peace out, homies.

P.S. The Hunger Games epidemic is spreading through the boat like a wildfire. Star galley assistant Patrick is a closet Hunger Games reader. I caught him hiding behind the cooking area, sitting on a milk crate just reading away. He told me that at first, he wasn't all that pumped on reading about the life of a sixteen year old girl but once you get into the world of Katniss, you can't escape it, and Patrick is like a fish in a barrel. You don't have to make excuses to me, Patrick, even old men like you can enjoy the Hunger Games without guilt. Add one to the book club meetings. You know where the coffee is, Patrick.

Oh yeah, before I forget. The other day, Mark Clark celebrated his birthday and I totally spaced on it. He turned 86 years old. Happy Birthday, Mark. See ya.

Hands down the best fishing the AZTEC has ever seen!! Our standouts were a 321lb, 298lb, & 292lb. We also had 48 more Bluefin from 50-120lbs and 407 Yellowfin!!
***Call Seaforth to book the AZTEC 619.224.3383

Fishing report for the week of sept 16-22. This past week was all about looking thru the binoculars and praying that you find the lucky kelp. Scores for the 3/4 day boats this week have ranged anywhere from 0 to 150 fish. The highlight of our week was a kelp we found on Thursday which kicked out 44 nice size dorado and 100 yellowtail. On Friday we caught our first yellowfin tuna of the season. This season is showing no signs of slowing down so make those reservations and come on down.

Polaris Supreme docked at Fisherman's Landing August 26 under Drew Henderson's hand. The 24 anglers aboard had been fishing for five days, most of them at Guadalupe Island, where quality yellowfin tuna and yellowtail were caught. Matt Wheaton of Laguna Beach won first place, for a 57.8-pound tuna. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Mustad hook and 40-pound Izorline. He used a TLD 30 reel and a Calstar 700 H rod. Alan Romspert of Fullerton caught a 56.8-pound tuna, and tied for second place with Bruce Chisholm of Temecula. Floyd Spangler of Anaheim stood in with the winners in a lineup shot with his 35-pound yellowtail.