montana fly Fishing Report 2025

~~Sep. 6
 I think I'm going to start naming my reports.  This one is called "We should have stuck with the game plan".  The plan was to start where we did, and if it didn't look good run up 40 miles to the next spot arriving just after lunch when it's bite time there.  Well we started off slow.  Conditions were a little funky.  We saw some fish, but they didn't really bite.  We caught a few yellows and the biggest ling cod I've ever seen brought up on this boat, but it wasn't good enough to stick around.  So we started off sticking with the plan when we left and went north but then we decided to do some radio fishing.  I heard 4th hand and then 3rd hand that a boat had a couple really good dorado kelps the day prior almost in striking distance and then really good yellowtail in the afternoon definitely in striking distance.  Then I saw on my water temp chart that same water just a few hours below us so we made the move.  Obviously by my whining you can tell it didn't work out.  We didn't find much kelp in the good water.  We found one OK kelp but we only caught a handful of flats.  There was a few wahoo swimming around it but we didn't catch any.

 So that's OK.  We're not worried.  We still have yesterdays afternoon yellowtail hot spot to fish.  Not today.  Should have been here yesterday. Maybe that should be the name of the report. We saw some and caught a few but it was nothing good.  So here we sit.  I'm not sure if we stuck with the game plan that it would have worked out.  There already was a boat on the spot we were headed to and it's kind of a one boat spot so maybe we didn't miss anything.

 It's funny.  I haven't written this long of a report in a long time.  If fishing was good today I probably would have written one paragraph.  I needed to rant.  Anyways we're going to stick it out here and regroup and try it again in the morning.  Hopefully we find some yellows to work with but either way we plan on looking for a dorado kelp in the afternoon.  Hopefully I only write one paragraph tomorrow.
       

 

Captain Ryan Bostian called in tonight with an update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in San Diego, CA. Today we had Mexican limits of Yellowtail for our 37 anglers. We have been fishing offshore and the fish are a fun grade. Please bring your 25 or 30 pound bait rod. You should also be prepared with a heavy rod for bigger Bluefin Tuna. We are starting to see them show up in the counts. Tomorrow's trip is cancelled but we will be back out it Tuesday.

Who could use a spread like this one tonight?

We had full speed fishing today offshore on kelp patties. However for the most part, the yellowtail and dorado we were catching were small. So we released all but a few. We did however get some nice grade yellowfin. No big hits, but good action as we picked away at 30 lb. yellowfin. Jeff prepared a great Cajun chicken with avocado, mozzarella and fresh salsa for lunch. And as we head in tonight he is serving us steak and lobster. We will hit the dock tomorrow morning at 8:00am. We will be departing tomorrow on an 8-day trip with "The Old Wild Bunch" headed up by Le Roy Belardes. If you are thinking of coming out fishing we still have some open spots with Larry Brown on his 10-day departing October 25th. Highly sponsored with lots of raffles and giveaways. Give Susan a call at 619-390-7890.

Thanks!

Polaris Supreme arrived August 2 under skipper Drew Henderson's hand. Drew docked at Fisherman's Landing and offloaded his fish and 21 anglers, following a five-day trip. "We fished offshore and at Cedros Island," he said, "and the water at Cedros was clean green and back up to 69 degrees. The yellowtail are huge at the island, and a lot of these guys had their best ever. Albacore fishing is still tough, but the water's gorgeous." Scott Oberg of El Centro won first place for a 44-pound yellowtail he bagged with sardine on a 2/0 ringed Mutu hook on 40-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon, 40-pound P-Line, a Trinidad 20 reel and a Calstar 760 rod. Russell Ortez of Garden Grove won second place for a 43-pounder, and Don Carson of San Diego won third for a 32-pound yellowtail.

The Annual SFR charter aboard the Apollo with Captain J.J Gerritsen and crew was a big success !! The Apollo is running out of Sea Landing on beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor, the closest harbor to the outer Channel Islands. Great weather meant an ideal cruise over to San Miguel Island for some of the finest shallow water rockfishing you'll find anywhere. 300 feet down you say, maybe 200, how about 100 feet ? No way. The offshore terrain around San Miguel is so rugged and marked with underwater pinnacles, we spent most of the day fishing in 25 to 90 feet of water. Lighter rigs, jigs, leadheads and swimbaits were the order of the day, and the San Miguel rockfish were in a hungry mood. We started catching fish before daybreak and spent the rest on the trip hauling up huge reds, chuckles and lings, all sporting some of the most vibrant colors I've seen on any fish in a long time. Awesome day!! We limited out on huge rockfish, slammed about 50-60 grumpy whitefish, 5-6 huge goats and 16 or so pre-historic looking lings before calling it a trip. Epic day !!!! The jackpot was a nail biter as Shawn Suhr's huge lingcod and Art Moralez's giant goat battled to a near dead heat. Captain J.J needed to come down and settle the score, with the final vote went going to Shawn's 12-13 pound ling. Great job Shawn. Captain J.J and his crew did an awesome job as always and the Apollo is looking as spotless as ever. The Apollo will be in Santa Barbara till around mid May before moving down to Fisherman's Landing in San Diego. Call Sea Landing at 1-805-963-3564 or log onto www.apollocharters.com for their schedule. Great trip everyone !!!. email me at [email protected] for any photos. Thats the word on the water. Don

~~This is the after picture of the port side navigation system. If you notice, the monitor itself is a daylight monitor. The sun is shining directly on it and you can still see the screen. This system has radar, a plotter, and a fathometer. And it's all AIS capable. (Automated identification system) All ships that have AIS, can be tracked on a website, called www.marinetraffic.com. All of the systems can be overlaid so you can have your plotter, radar, and depth viewed at the same time

 

 

~~
This is the starboard side navigation system. Which is identical to the port. In addition to the previous mentioned features, the monitor can be switched to a computer system which has Nobel Tech times zero catch navigation fish finding and my favorite, bottom mapping system on it. You can, and we have been, making our own bottom maps for the previous three years. Cool stuff. In addition it has live weather from Weather Works XM Weather. Also it has SeaView Ocean Imaging capabilities to where we can download water temperature, chlorophyll, sea height, ect. The port system also has its own computer.

 

~~The monitor on the left is a sound activated fathometer for fish finding. And the monitor on the right is a daylight monitor for our sonar, for fish finding. In the front is one of our pairs of Gyroscopic binoculars

~~All of these electronics need new antennas. And this is how they get there. We literally pulled out a third of a dock cart of old wiring

 

 

~~Say good bye to the old radars.

~~Drew grinding away on a little cancer on the deck.

~~The roto hammer is one of our favorite tools for chipping up cancerous areas on the deck, but the noise is unbearable to our neighbors in the boat yard.

~~The deck hatches had to be completely stripped

~~We re-skinned the outside of the galley doors. They now have a nice white formica finish.

~~Creative, yes. But I bet he spent a half hour looking for that office chair in the boat yard!

~~The boat looks kinda small in some of these upcoming pictures without Tommie in them for perspective.  ~~Jed's missing from these shots because he was taking the pictures.

 

 

~~Drew resealing inspection plates for exhaust

~~Tommie detailing wood work

~~Tommie prepping for paint

~~Final coat of deck paint. Looking good!

 

 

Jodie called in from the Apollo out of Sea Landing with this trip announcement. "We have an Open Party trip this Friday, the 31st. It will depart Thursday night the 30th at 9:00 PM. This is a Berkeley sponsored 1 Day Trip. The cost is $145/Angler.

If you are interested in this trip or need additional information call Sea Landing at 805-963-3564."