kenai river alaska Fishing Report 2025

We departed today on the Dan Heil Memorial charter with his son Ron Heil as charter head. It's pretty cool to see some of the old faces. Dan's charter has been with me for over 25 years. We were in a panic rush to get out and get to the local fishing grounds before dark. We got about three good hours of fishing and snagged a handful of yellowfin, a bluefin and a beautiful opah. Our weather is absolutely gorgeous. Thanks for checking in. Tommy and crew P.S. Two spots left on the "Let's Talk Hookup" charter departing next Tuesday.

~~Aug. 21
 We missed again this morning folks.  I'm not very happy about it, but I've excepted it.  We've definitely put in our work this trip.  Not necessarily physically these last couple days but mentally for sure.  I am drained.  We didn't want to spend another afternoon like we spent yesterday so we left the grounds and fished the Coronado Islands this afternoon.  We didn't see much yellowtail.  Myself or the other long range boat here.  I heard some good analogies this trip by other captains on the radio that I'd like to share.  Looking at the fish reports is like watching sports center.  They keep showing you all the top tens, but they almost never show the other Joe's, and sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield.  Most guys the last couple days have been the bugs.

 There have been quite a few firsts for me lately.  First of all I've never spent this much time fishing this close to home other than my 3/4 day days..  I have never been anchored up right outside the harbor on the second night of the trip.  We were there catching bait.  I've never captained the boat to San Clemente or the Coronado Islands.  There's probably more.  Oh yeah, I've never seen the 5 freeway from the boat.  Mark thought it was a bird school.  In his defense, I had to give it a double take too.

 So that's it.  We're going home and we'll be leaving for 5 tomorrow.  Tommy is coming back out so he'll be deciding where to go.  I'll tell you though, it's tough to pass on this fish.  Unfortunately for us, it's the best grade of tuna around.  It's great for the 1/2 day boats though.
       

~~Sep. 24
 Well this day has to start with last night.  During and after dinner the military helicopters were up and they were blowing up San Clemente and it was rad. We could see the tracers which were very bright and flew just as fast as the 5 rounds in between each tracer with about each strafing run having about 12 tracers per, which is over 100 rounds.  We could see the glow of each tracer bouncing off the island. And after we thought it was cool enough we went to bed.

 In the morning we started fishing.  We had a little action.  We basically drifted for a couple hours hooking fish.  Sometimes we had one going, sometimes we had four, and sometimes we had none but for some reason it didn't add up to as much as we would've thought.  We were losing alot and we attributed that to the hammer head sharks that were swimming around.  We think that they were stealing a lot of the tuna we hooked.  When that dried up we went searching and a little after 10:00 we found a dandy school and went sideways(drifted) for a while.  I'd have to call it almost wide open for about 1/2 an hour and then a pick for 15 minutes after that.  During lunch we were drifting on tuna too but we weren't hooking a whole lot.  We only caught about six that time.  And after that the life vanished so we moved on.

 It took a couple hours but we found what we were looking for.  Tuna.  Unfortunately they were the non biting ones.  I'll tell you though, it was a sight to see.  Sonar schools, breezers, boilers, foamers.  You name it, it was awesome.  We did get a couple descent drifts there in the end and all and all we're calling this a very successfully trip.

 We'll be dockside until Oct. 3.  You guys didn't book.  My babies going to have to wear hand me down shoes now.  All of her friends are going to make fun of her.  Oh well.  We"ll get through it.  We'll do a little maintenance on the boat while we're in but we don't need to do much.  The boats been running great as soon as we got rid of those early season gremlins.  See you all Oct. 3rd.
        

Today we went out with 27 anglers and caught 30 yellowtail. These yellows have been a challenge to hook but well worth the work. The grade of this fish is as good as anybody can remember in the local waters. 25-30 pounders have become the norm rather than the exception. The wise angler would bring a 25 or 30 lb. bait rod a 40 or 50 lb. yo-yo rod as well as your surface iron rod with fresh 40 lb. Today we caught fish on all three techniques.

Hey guys, the yellowtail counts at the Coronado Islands have dropped a bit the past couple of days. There are a couple reasons for the slower fishing. First reason is the south wind we have had for the last two days. This south wind has dropped the water temp a few degrees therefore making the yellows a little less active. The second reason is the seal ions have stepped up there game. In the last three days we have lost at least 40 yellowtail to the lions. Good news is , the south wind is predicted to end by the end of today. Starting Tuesday we should start to see the water begin warming again. With the warming water the yellowtail should get more active making them easier to hook. With the seal ions acting as a tax collector it just comes down to the fact that we need to hook more fish. When we are hooking more fish both the seal ions and us can get our share. The best way to hook these yellowtail has still been a flylined sardine on 25 lb. test. The Coronado Island yellowtail have not gone anywhere , they are still there. We just need the water to warm a tiny bit so we can start catching them again. Look for better counts in the next few days. Today's photo is of a father and son with 3 yellowtail caught on Saturday. Quality family time in the outdoors is what it is all about ! Grab your son, daughter , grandson , granddaughter , nephew or niece and enjoy some time on the ocean with us.

Capt Mike Pritchard on the Tribute just called in from their 1.5 day trip sponsored by Okuma/Savage Gear, fishing was great. Lingcod was not quite as good as before, we ended up with 56 for the trip and limits of rockfish along with some sheephead and whitefish. The weather was the nicest he has seen and made it hard to get some good drifts in. We have another trip scheduled this weekend with a few spots left, give Seaforth Landing at 619-224-3383 or you can go to our web site.

Capt Ryan Bostain checked in with a report for the San Diego for their 3/4 day trip today down south, we ended the day with 103 Yellowtail for our efforts. Mixed sizes today with a couple in the 10 lb range and a couple around 28 lbs, most were in the 15 to 18 lbs. They were mostly on the surface action today, with a few on the yoyo irons. Come on down and bring a 40-50 lb setup for the yoyo and a 25-30 for flylining and a 8-10 ft jig stick for the surface irons. The Tady 45s, Salas 7Xs or Candy Bars are all working well for the surface irons. Come on down and get in on this Yellowtail action while it is hot.

~~July 31
 Good evening folks and welcome to the last July 31 of 2015 ever aboard the Polaris Supreme.  The water we fished today just didn't have that right feel to it if you know what I mean.  The whole set up changed since we were there 2 days ago.  It was 2 degrees cooler for one thing.  Maybe we weren't in the right zone , but I don't think so.  I think things were off as far as the tuna and Dorado goes.  We were finding bull kelp areas instead of nice bushy kelps and catching only dinker tuna.  I only saw one tuna over 10 pounds today and 10 pounds was a lunker.  Needless to say we let every single one of them go.  So at 7:00 pm, it was looking like we were going to chalk this one up as a travel day.  I was just about ready to shower.  I mean I literally had all my clothes on the floor with the shower water running when I heard the call.  "We have a real nice kelp up ahead".  I thought about it and decided I better suit up again just in case and it was the right move.  Easily the best kelp of the year.  Until well after sunset things were busy and exciting aboard the Polaris Supreme.  The whole boat was bit.  Every single person.  Wide open 14-25 pound yellowtails.  It was good.  4 fish per rod that stop.  Uh huh.  Dinner was much more satisfying than it was flling like it was going to be.

 Another reason dinner was so lovely would be a fella, my friend Herb Yamanaka.  Very possibly the nicest man in the world.  At least tied for the nicest man in the world.  Every year he spends I don't even know how much time behind the lathe machine, making everyone on board an original wooden bowl or things like it, and they're wonderful.  He works for the Oregon Ducks origination so go Ducks!!!

 Tomorrow we'll be arriving to Cedros at about 7 in the am.  We're going to plan on wind, and we're going to plan on some good tailing to go along with a good time.