clearwater river idaho Fishing Report 2025

"Fishing today was absolutely excellent!" wrote Polaris Supreme skipper Tom Rothery August 23. "The albacore bit all day and the weather has laid down and is good. All the albies were in the 25 to 30-pound range. For lunch we had swordfish in a butter, lemon, and caper cream sauce. For dinner we had a rack of lamb with a blue cheese port wine sauce. Yummy! A couple of boats headed to Guadalupe to no avail. We still have a spot here and there on some of our upcoming trips. Give Susan a call in the office if you can get away and come fish."
Rothery docked his boat at Fisherman's Landing August 24. He spent his fishing time on the four-day trip on the albacore grounds, with a half-day at Cortes Bank, where second skipper Drew Henderson reported big numbes of large bonito biting. The bones were eight to 12 pounds, he said. John Windling of Portland, OR won first place for a 41.4-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Mutu hook tied to 40-pound fluorocarbon leader and 60-pound Line One Spectra. He used an Avet JX reel and a Calstar 765 XL rod. David Schulz of Yorba Linda was second, for a 38.6-pounder, and John Thompson of Phoenix, AZ won third place for a 37-pound albacore.

Oct. 13

Good afternoon from the Polaris Supreme. We returned this morning from our 6 day trip and off loaded our candy of the ocean. I'm not kidding you. Those bluefin are so darn good I could just make a shake out of them and drink them. I had the pleasure of getting my hands on a few this year and had the big fat belly of one last time I was off and the way I did it was so darn good I'm going to tell you how I did it for the people who caught those beauties this year. Salt, pepper and olive oil on the meat side. Put the belly skin side down on the grill and cook it through. If you flip it at all only do it for a few seconds at the very end. On the stove mix soy sauce, maple syrup and a splash of water and heat warm. Pour on top of fish and enjoy.

Big fish goes as follows: The big bluefins of the trip went from 68 up to 123 pounds, the wahoo was 58 pounds, and I weighed a yellowfin at 51 pounds and we caught several of those so some good quality fish there.

We departed on Joe Gigliotti's 2nd annual 8 day accurate adventure excursion quest outing journey tour ride drive cruise stroll trek trip this morning. Our bait looked mostly good. The last box we took scaled up after our first few scoops so I had the pleasure of taking part in my first bait bucketing. That's where you use buckets to scoop the bait as opposed to nets to put it onboard. It has it's advantages and disadvantages and one advantage is that it's a good workout. Holy moly. After that we had a lovely lunch and some lovely tackle rigging. I had a lovely nap as well and I jumped on the band wagon. I now started the Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy. Richie and chef Shawn have book club meetings on them and I just couldn't be left out so here we go. Plus my David Lee Roth bio still isn't in, damn you amazon.

I'm handing the keyboard off to hopefully Richie for your reading sake, Tommy's out but I sure you want to read Richie's writing. I do. See ya!

Drew

We have another opportunity to jump on the Apollo with us. This one is a six day departing Oct. 13th returning Oct. 19th. This is an Ultra Ultra limited load trip. Only 12 passengers. Please call Fishermans Landing ar 619-221-8500 for more info or to sign up. Hope to see you there. J.J. Gerritsen

Today capt. Ray went out with 46 passengers and caught. 8 yellowtail 3 lingcod 2 sheephead and 118 rockfish. The yellowtail are still around but they only got active for about an hour today. Cold water yellowtail can be very moody. Timing is everything when it comes to catching these 59 degree water fish.

"So far we've had very good fishing for our morning down at 134 miles." Mike went on, "So far we have a little over 54 Yellowfin, 15 or 18 Yellowtail and a handful of nice Dorado. Very, very nice weather. It looks like the weather is going to be nice the next few days.

"If you'd like to get on a 1.5 Day trip, we have one leaving tomorrow night from Seaforth Sportfishing. If you have any questions or want to make a reservation call Seaforth at 619-224-3383, there is still plenty of room."

~~Sep. 15
 It was a rather slow day out here for us.  Not miserably slow but it definitely could've been better.  I'll just break it down for you so you know what I call a slow day.  We caught 68 yellowtail, 4 bonito, 6 barracuda, 4 calico bass, 8 sand bass, 6 Sheepshead, 4 oceanic whitefish, 5 vermilion rock fish and 6 unspecified rock fish.  We let some go too.  We threw in the towel around 3:00.  I may have a trick up my sleeve.  I may tell you about it tomorrow.  Anyways, we left the grounds because they're calling for wind here tomorrow and we hate wind with a passion out here on the ocean.  I don't even like it on land.  We're going to a less windy spot.  I'm just not sure where yet.  Find out tomorrow. 

 The weather now is fantastic.  Very little wind and along with that comes very little sea state.  It's nice.  Steamy too.  You should see Mark's shirt.  It looks like he fell in the water.  I offered anyone 20 dollars to wear it today but I got no takers.
       

Captain Ryan Bostian checked in late last night. We had very good fishing again today at the Coronado Islands. Today we had 21 anglers catch 85 Yellowtail and 51 Bonito. These Yellowtail are the coastal models and are much bigger than the Yellowtail being caught offshore right now. There are some fish that are in the 10 pound class. Then there are lots of fish coming in between 12 and 20 pounds. So they are nice quality fish. We are catching the fish on fly-lined sardines, yoyo jigs and surface iron. It really depends upon where we are fishing. Please be prepared with a 25 pound bait stick with live bait hooks (1 or 1o). Also bring a 40 pound outfit with Salas 6x Jrs. And a long rod if you what to fish the surface iron.

Hello Everyone, Today we had our sights set on Yellowtail. We started the morning picking at great grade Yellowtail. Shortly after lunch it really turned on. We finished the day with a excellent Yellowtail catch. The Yellows were all great size, 18-25lbs. It was a great way to fill the remaining slots people had in their limits. All the fish were caught on YoYo jigs and dropper loops. We could not have asked for better December Yellowtail fishing to finish up our trip. We may have time to fish tomorrow for some Rockfish or Calico Bass. Hopefully we make good speed. Will report again tomorrow, Team Supreme