detroit lakes Fishing Report 2025

102 yellowfin tuna for the annual Gas Fisherman charter. One stop can make or break your day.

Thank you all for fishing with us this fine year! It was one for the books! Can’t wait to see what 2019 holds

"It was really good fishing wahoo at the bank," said Rothery at the sales. "We stayed there two days and then went in to the southern banks where the big fish were." All the big fish (there were 13 tuna over 200 pounds weighed on the certified scales at Fisherman's) came from the southern banks. There were just as many from 100 to 200 pounds as there were cows, and those were found in both spots. "The Baja tuna were real steady biters," said Rothery. "There were lots of ‚Дтem around, we could see ‚Дтem at the surface and on the meter most of the time." Research biologist Chugey Sepulveda got the big one, related his pal and fellow biologist Scott ("Scootch") Aalbers of San Diego. Chugey wasn't able to be at the weigh-in. The fish weighed 306.2 pounds. Chugey had two more cows, at 220 and 201 pounds. "Scootch" said Chugey got the big one and the others on one of the boat's heavy rigs and the kite. He used two sardines on 6/0 Mustad 7691 hooks, tied to 130-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra, on a Tiagra 50 W reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. "He got it on the next to the last day," said Scootch, "about four p.m. He fought it for an hour and 15 minutes, and it wrapped him around the anchor line about 15 times. The crew helped out a lot with the fork." Tom Bass of Newport Beach won second place for a 274.8-pound tuna. He also had a 232 and a 206-pound yellowfin. Tom said he got his fish on a sardine and an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook, pm 100-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon leader of 15 feet, tied to 130-pound Izor Spectra on a Tiagra 50 reel and a Calstar 6460 XXH rod. Hack Bernstein of Valencia bagged a 269.6-pounder. He fished a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook tied to 130-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izor Spectra on a boat rig: Tiagra 50 reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. Pat Jaeger of Bishop posed with his daughter Maggie, three, and the 268-pound tuna he got with a double sardine rig on the kite. He said he used 100-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izor Spectra on a Penn 50 W reel and a Baja Boomer rod. Ryan Gillette of Orange was another who used a double trouble sardine rig on the boat's rod and reel to take a 246-pounder. Robert Kalatschan found a brace of cows, at 226 and 213 pounds. There were two more cows that appeared at the scales without tags, said Susan Rothery. One weighed 214 pounds and the other went 202.

Say what????? Limits of Yellowfin (25-45 pounds) the last day of November and after our last storm. Yup! Great sign of 100-200 pound plus Bluefin too, but the couple bites we had got away quickly. We have a few more trips this week before we go to the boat yard.

Today we went out with 15 anglers. We started our trip this morning by searching the area where we caught our yellowtail yesterday. After a couple hours of looking without success, we decided to put the sinkers on and go rock fishing. Our rock fishing efforts were rewarded with 30 reds and 58 miscellaneous rockcod. With only a few hours left in our trip we decided to go looking for yellowtail again. At approximately 1:30 p.m. we located a very nice school of yellowtail along the bottom. This school responded very well to our chum, every sardine that hit the water was desperately swimming for his life creating a very impressive show of boiling yellowtail. After a chaotic 15 minute drift we had two 25 lb. yellowtail.

Come fishing on our Seeker 1.5 day trip leaving tonight! Only a few spots left! 

The boys are loading up for the seeker 1.5 day leaving this evening. With a light load and gourmet meals it will surely be the most comfortable way to fish for these Bluefin.

Bluefin are in the crosshairs. Everyone is ready for action. Go get em boys! 

Team Supreme

2 Yellowfin Tuna, 2 Yellowtail, 28 Skipjack Tuna.  Light loads and good weather all week.  We saw this floating yesterday.  Looks expensive.

June 28

I told you all we would be departing today on a 5 day trip on my last report and I have to tell yah, that's exactly what we did. We're out on a private charter with Mr. Pfleger and some of his boys. Things went alright at the bait receivers. We got two boxes of a mostly spanish mackerel with some greenies and about a 7.375 average of sardines mixed in. Things are looking a little scary with our sardine stocks of San Diego this year thus far. You may want to make sure you pack your bait catching rigs if you're coming out this year and also think about getting your anchovy fishing skills back. You may need them.

We're thinking about starting offshore tomorrow on a southerly track. We're not going to put the brakes on and fish locally where most the tunas been caught lately. We're going to put ourselves in position to do other things the next couple days after tomorrow. We may look for white sea bass and yellows somewhere down the line. It's not something we'd do on a normal long range trip but this is a special one. I'll explain later. You know how Pfleger is with his sea bass.

Tommy's running the boat but I'll still be your author so enjoy and I'll see you tomorrow.