lake onalaska Fishing Report 2025

Nov. 8

                Long range fishing.  We're back.  We departed today on a wonderful 10 day trip.  An ultra limited load 10 day trip.  A fisherman's dream.  We got some bait.  We loaded up on half 6-8 inch beauts, and then half 4-6 inchers that will chum well and fish well enough.  The weather right now couldn't be better.  We're just rolling down hill enjoying life.  We got some rest and did part 1 of our 3 part seminars.  We did that today because we're fishing tomorrow morning.  It's been pretty darn good school grade tuna fishing where we'll be in the morning lately, and we're going to try and get a starter kit tomorrow.  We're just hoping the fore casted wind will hold up long enough for that.  Yup, the wind is coming and it doesn't look like it's going to be very nice for the next few days.  Oh well.  It is what it is.  We'll be doing some traveling through it on a downhill course but it's going to end up effecting some of our early fishing conditions for sure.  But then it goes away and becomes lovely again for hopefully the rest of the trip.  I'm looking forward to writing to you folks out there the next 10 days.  I hope I have nothing but good things to write.  Time will tell.

82 yellowtail 40 bonito 3 calico bass. Few good shots on yo-yo jigs, bait and surface iron.

~~Oct. 13-14
 Nothing to report on Oct. 13.  More of the same.  Though it was our last day so the cocktail hour was to a minimum.  We arrived to our destination around 1:30 in the am Tuesday morning.  We did a tour for flying fish (to use as bait) but we only caught a few.  We kicked the anchor over and most of us got a couple more hours of sleep.  Everyone got up at 0400 hours and got to work.  Some faster than others.  When I woke up George was the only one in the water so I thought I'd give him a hand.  I threw a sinker on a rig and dropped down a sardine and 5 minutes later we had our first tuna aboard.  About an 80 pounder.  It was our sashimi fish.  After that there was a whole lot of good shark and small tuna fishing going down so again during a time when no one was in the water (due to having to retie because of shark teeth), I dropped another bait down, this time on the rod Mark likes to call the OJ (no one knows why), and about 20-30 minutes later we had a 196 pounder aboard.  While that was going on George got hooked up and brought a 218 pounder over the rail.  It wasn't even light out yet.  After that the sharks fully took over.  It was pretty much unfishable so we didn't give it much time, we pulled anchor and got to trolling and for the next 8 hours or so it was steady striking on the wahoos.  Damn.  We caught about 5 per angler so I'd call that good for sure.  For the last few hours we got steady strikes on one of this groups favorite fishing methods, trolling the yummy fliers.  We caught a lot of tuna today on those and on the marauders and some on bait.  They were all mostly in the 120 pound range.

 The weather today sure was interesting.  The wind never had much strength but it couldn't pick a direction.  One minute it was coming out of the northeast, and the next it was coming out of the west.  It did that all day so for that and the sharkies giving us grief we never tried another anchor job today and we're spending the night adrift.  It also rained a whole lot this evening.  I'd say it was raining cats and dogs when I went to bed but it's cleared up now at 0100 hour as I write this on my watch.  One more hour and I'm going back to bed until 5 when we'll all be going back into battle.  Hopefully tomorrow these dang sharks leave us alone.

Something a little bit different for the first day of our 2 day charter. 26 Yellowtail so far with a few fat ones this morning up to 30 pounds and some Calicos to go with it.

170 yellowfin 93 skipjack. Good weather and great fishing, didn’t feel like November today.

Sep. 9

It was awesome yellowtailing this morning. As soon as we got to the grounds it was on and that time was dark 30. That's right. It wasn't even daylight yet and we were gettin um. Nice big fat yellows. As soon as daylight hit we were still gettin um and we kept gettin um for a few more hours too. And after that, we made a move and we were gettin um there too. So lunch time came around and Chef Shawn made yellowtail sandwiches and guess what, they were awesome. After that we worked up up up to get us in position for bluefining tomorrow. The weather coming up is not good. As I write this at the Charger halftime my legs are 6 feet apart for balance. Sometimes my butt is against the wall and I can barely reach the keyboard. The weather man is calling for better weather tomorrow. Should we believe him?