coastal nc Fishing Report 2025

Tommy Rothery returned Polaris Supreme to Fisherman's Landing November 18 after a ten-day Ocean Tackle Research charter. The boat had 13 anglers aboard. Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen of Hood River, OR saw his father, Bill Mikkelsen of Olympia, WA land the season's first super cow; a tuna over 300 pounds.
"It was full-speed fishing," said Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen. Bill Mikkelsen's big fish won first place after it weighed in at 308.8-pounds, caught on a fly-lined sardine. Bill used the boats gear, including a 6/0 Mustad 7691 hook, 100-pound P-Line, and a Shimano rod and reel.
"Tommy said it was tail-wrapped from the beginning," said the elder Mikkelsen. "And he was, but he got lose and went on another run. He took me around the boat twice." "We started with yellowtail fishing on the ridge that turned out to be a real good bite," said Rothery. "We easily could have got limits on yellowtail and dorado, but these guys normally release most of their fish. We had one day of awesome marlin fishing, which this group enjoyed quite a bit." "I think we had maybe 200 hookups on marlin," said John Esler of Portland. "But our yellowfin bite was pretty amazing. Once Tommy would find them, he'd shut the motors off and just drift. They didn't need a lot of chum either, they were boiling all around the boat." Esler landed a 206.7-pound yellowfin.
Matt Kiesse of Cederville, CA was second place with a 279.8-pound yellowfin.
"The trip was just spectacular," said Kiesse. "We got everything." Lon Mikkelsen was third with a 277.9-pound tuna. The trip scored five tuna over 200 pounds.

Sunday, June 3rd, 2012

Good evening, friends. Sorry for the lack of reports. Not a whole lot of excitement going on the with us on the Supreme but around the fleet, is an entirely different story. More on that later.

For us, it's been a lot of work down in the guts of the vessel, ensuring that the Polaris Supreme is running at tip-top performance. On Friday, the day finally arrived: Coast Guard "top side" inspections. At times, the thought of Coast Guard can be somewhat daunting for some boats. For us, it's no big thing. With our weekly maintenance schedules that we perform throughout the year and quality of care that Tommy has given to his beautiful ninety-two foot sportfishing yacht, Coast Guard is no big thing. We appreciate what these people do for us, which is make sure that the vessel operates properly and continues to take our passengers time and time again and return safely. On this day, they also made sure that our crew could properly handle a man overboard situation. In short, we passed with flying colors and as for the operation of the vessel, all is fine for the exception of a couple "minor" things, we passed. We're pumped. This next week Drew, Tommie, Mark, Jamie, our electrician guru Greg Hibbs, master carpenter Steve Russo and myself will take care of the few items that we need cross off the list before our follow-up appointment with the USCG. Our fishing season is nearing and things are starting to get very interesting on the water.

I'm sure most of you read the reports from the boats our on trips right now. Bluefin tuna in the 25-40 lb. class as well as some beauties in the 60-100 lb. category are biting, the Royal Star has captured the first Albacore of the season, a couple Bluefin have also been captured in the day and a half range and spotter planes have been flying around some of the local waters and have seen a few fish as well as some tasty looking conditions. Bottom line, it's time. It's time to get yourself on a trip. Call Susan ASAP, ask what trips have openings and get on a trip now. This crew is ready to go. Let's make it happen. It's just around the corner and you aren't going to want to miss a shot at what is shaping up to be a tasty summer season.

Take care everyone. We'll report back in a few days.

-Richie & Team Supreme

Captain Ryan Bostian called in with an audio update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. We have been fishing offshore for about a month now. Just recently we are seeing the fish starting to bite full speed. Today we have a rent rod charter with 100+ Yellowfin Tuna. Be sure to bring your 25 pound outfits and a 40 or 50 too. When the bite really good go heavier.

The Sea Diego is running OPEN PARTY trips everyday. Please call Seaforth Sportfishing at (619) 224-3383 to get in on the action. Or BOOK ONLINE at www.thesandiego.com.

Aug. 21
    Judging by how our trip has been so far, if you would have told me we would have 6 bluefin as of 1:00 this afternoon I wouldn't have believed you.  But sure enough, those darn bluefins were laughing at us.  We saw plenty of them but they didn't give two you know whats about us.  Our buddy Brian on the Spirit Of Adventure called us and told us he was seeing the 30-50 pound grade around where he was so we took a little ride down there.  It wasn't really biting that well until we got there.  Again our timing is on.  For the next few hours it was game on.  It actually took a while to get them to bite but during the best of it I couldn't get the balloon rigs out fast enough.  They were snapping!!  We ended up with a couple rounds of the 30-50 pounders with one going around 90 pounds and we also got a handful of 30-35 pound yellowfin there as well.  

    After it dried up we went looking for another.  We found several schools but none that would hang around and bite our baits.  Around 6:30 we bumped into another school that stuck and we picked up 21 more of those beauts.  And now we drift and do it again tomorrow.  

    The chefs are getting better and better at there sushi spread.  This afternoon it was terrific and I'm pretty sure I heard it's veal chops for dinner tonight.  Sweet dreams.
                                

 

Late Post .... Sorry my Internet was dead today. Captain Mike Pritchard called in this morning with good fishing. He had 53 fish of the kelps by 9 AM.

Hello fishing friends,

We now have the Apollo in beautiful Santa Barbara for the rest of the spring. We are running two Berkley sponsored limited load overnight trips to the Channel Islands. The first trip will depart on Thursday night April 19th at 9 pm to fish on Friday April 20th. The second trip will depart at 9 pm on Thursday night May 17th to fish Friday May 18th. These trips will target Quality Rockfish, ling cod with the chance for some early season halibut or sea bass. Please come join us on the Apollo in Santa Barbara for some fun spring time fishing. Berkley will sponsor this trip and will be giving away swag on board. These ntrips are limited to 20 people and the cost is $185 per person. Please call Sea Landing at (805) 963-3564.

Thank you,

J.J.

Good evening everyone, We spent the day traveling up the line through some snotty weather. However it did ease up after dinner. Hopefully we have the makings for a nice night of sleep tonight before our 530 am eta tomorrow morning. This was a tough trip but everyone kept their head up and persisted through and fished hard the entire time. Although we only had a few windows of biting fish we made the most out of it. There were many familiar faces on this charter and many new faces who decided to join us. We enjoyed having all of you out with us and look forward to seeing you out with us net year. Until next time, Team Supreme

The San Diego checked in tonight with an update from Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. Captain Cameron Cribben ran the boat today! We had 31 anglers and caught 56 Bluefin Tuna and 91 Yellowtail. Today was a big day and it looks like the fish are back on the bite.