northwest florida Fishing Report 2025

Skipper Tom Rothery docked his Polaris Supreme after a five-day Stern Hog Chartered trip. The boat's 18 anglers got off at Fisherman's Landing August 8. Chartermaster Tom Chaparro, of San Clemente recalled one offshore stop that produced almost a hundred fish.
"It wasn't even that big of a kelp," said Chaparro. "But it was full of dorado and yellowtail. We had a great time, a good group of guys. This is our ninth year chartering this trip." Ron Rose, of Jacksonville FL took first place with a 31.8-pound yellowtail. Ron used a 3/0 Eagle Claw hook on 30-pound P-Line, a Pflueger Reel and a Calstar 970 rod.

Rich Vandenoord of La Jolla was second with a 30.6-pound yellowtail, and Pat Kennedy of San Francisco was third, for a 30.4-pound yellowtail.
"We had great quality yellowtail at Cedros," said Skipper Rothery, "and one real nice white sea bass. We had that one big kelp bite yesterday, and the tuna are around but they're not bitin'."

On the second of May we hauled the boat out of the water and started boat work and today on the 10th of June we are still hard at it. Our main goal this year is cosmetics we have painted the whole exterior of the hull above and below the water line the inside boat works the house bait tank storage racks and the wraparound and the decks. We're now starting on interior cosmetics carpeting all the floors ceilings and walls of the whole boat. Quite the extensive maintenance definitely the most boat work we have ever done at one time.
Captain Tommy Rothery

Covered a lot of water for 6 yellowtail. Saw both bluefin and yellowfin but we’re unable to connect. Getting the lay of the land and putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Back at it tomorrow.

Aug. 17
    Today almost went as planned except for the lack of yellowfin.  We were supposed to scratch pretty good at the yellowfin in the morning, like 40 or so and then get on that big bluefin, and then scratch out another 30 or so yellowfin in the evening.  Well we did the middle part but the numbers were lower on the sides.  We saw plenty of that yellowfin, it just didn't bite well.  On with the cool part.  We found a mega school of that 70-100+ pound bluefin mid morning.  It's been a long time since I've seen a mega school and every time I do I forget about the time before and I think it's the biggest school I've ever seen and that's how today was.  Of course it didn't bite, but for me up in the wheel house where I can see it well it was incredible.  Just the area of fish was monstrous, and when you add in all the shiners and thousands of black backs swimming through, it's amazing.  We fished it for 4 hours on different attempts.  On the first, the youngster Brendan hooked up and landed about an 80 pounder.  On the second, his dad Scott hooked up and lost it and we hooked and lost another one.  On the third, Scott hooked up again but this time he landed his 107 pounder. So far it's looking like we'll have a father- son jack pot.  On the next few tries we got no reaction so we let it regroup for a while and a couple hours later we found it again and we hooked two more and lost them both and we missed a bite on the kite.  We tried it one more time after that for no reaction before we left it for good.  We're going to fish again tomorrow.  We'll make a small move and relocate but as things are right now, we don't need much more yellowfin so we'll concentrate on the other kind of tuna.
                                    

 

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

Hi friends. Typical day aboard a long range boat today. All of the deck crew was up at 0230 hours dealing with a maintenance issue that took a couple hours to resolve, back to bed for roughly an hour, wake up and start our day--hey now, that Ice Cube tune just came on 90's on 9 as I type again and yes, today was in fact a good day--off with some jig strikes on those beautiful 25-50 lb. yellowfin with only a handful of those 12-18 pounders in the mix. We hit a couple of schools throughout the day, had our normal slow time around lunch and in the afternoon time, just as I was half way through my strawberry popsicle, we got on a breezer, I reluctantly ditched my popsicle, and we drifted the rest of the day nailing those big yellowfin tuna. After drifting for the rest of the day, we put out the sack with a couple hours of daylight and the six people who were at the rail continued to catch fish on the sea anchor all the way until dark.

Excellent fishing on that really good grade of tuna. With only a few handfuls of that small fish and dorado, those big fish really were on it today and we'll be here tomorrow to try this all over again. Hopefully tonight we'll make some squid and this weather will come down a little bit. It's a little rolly out here but as long as we're catching beautiful tuna, we won't complain too much. See ya.

-The Supreme Team

Yesterday we hit the wahoo in the morning and had a steady tuna all day on 45 to 75 pounders. Weather was still great. This morning we are heading up offshore to the albacore. Weather is ok. Not a bad ride up so far. Chef Tommy kicked butt again yesterday with a seafood pasta for lunch (lobster, scallop, shrimp and crab) and for dinner we had the classic steaks and baked potatoes. Very good. Passengers are all having a ball. Crew too. It's been a very good trip.

ISLANDS ARE ON THE MEND ! 35 yellowtail (12-25 lbs) on the boat so far for just 20 anglers. Flylined Sardines on 25 & 30 lb monofilament has been the best. Stay tuned for a final report.

Hello Everyone, Today we had an excellent day of fishing for both Yellowtail and Blue fin Tuna. The Yellowtail were all excellent grade 15-35 lbs, most of the Tuna were 12-20 lbs except for two standouts. One Close to 100 lbs and one well over 200 lbs. An excellent start to the trip with an incredible variety of fish. Hopefully it continues tomorrow. Wish us luck, Team Supreme