rio grande fly Fishing Report 2024

Polaris Supreme arrived June 10 after a five-day trip. Owner-skipper Tom Rothery docked the boat at Fisherman's Landing and weighed the best of the catch. "We fished open water and found a new albacore area," he said at the scales. "We fished our first night out, and got a few. The albacore bit good, and we also got some nice yellowtail off kelps. On our first half-day of fishing we had an excellent bite on albies of 30 to 40 pounds." Chartermaster Paul Hess of Napa won first place for his 42.4-pound albacore, which set a new high mark for the species this season. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Eagle Claw hook tied to 30-pound Yo-Zuri line on a Trinidad 16 reel and a Calstar 800 M rod. Brian Schwartz of Napa won second place for a 40.8-pounder, and Casey Weaver of Woodland took third for a 40.6-pound albacore. "He came in after 15 minutes," said Hess. "It was a standard albacore deal."

It's late in the season, but Guadalupe Island is still holding and producing good catches of quality yellowfin tuna.

"We just returned this morning from another very successful Fall Guadalupe trip," said the report from the charter boat Apollo October 25. "This was another charter with 12 friends. We made good time getting to the Island and arrived at the south end around 9:30 am. There were good biting school size (25/40 lb) yellowfin tuna biting on the anchor. There were also a few schools of better grade (50/100 lb) fish to be found if one was willing to work for it. We were willing! We worked the Island for 4 days mainly targeting that better grade YFT and produced a beautiful catch of 127 Yellowfin tuna. The biggest was 108 lbs with 6 other fish breaking the century mark."

The good fishing at the island could go on until Christmas. It usually lasts until the water drops below 67 degrees or so. Old-timers tell stories about fishing yellowfin or bluefin tuna at the island when there was snow on the peaks. Guadalupe is the one destination that consistently produces yellowfin tuna of 50 to 100 pounds or more short of Alijos Rocks, another full day's cruise south.

Ryan Bostian called in to give his Coronado Island Fish Report, "We went out with 50 passengers,we came back with 19 Yellowtail, 3 Calico Bass and 25 Rockfish. Things are definitely on the upswing here at the Coronado Islands. We had a little bit of weather go thru late last week. We had phenomenal fishing right before the storm last week. When the weather went thru it knocked the water temperature down. Things are definitely on the upswing. The water is anywhere from 63 to 65.5 degrees. Very, very clean water. We've had pretty darn consistent Yellowtail fishing down at the Coronado Islands for the last two months.

If you'd like to catch a Yellowtail come on down. You can book your trip on line at Seaforth Landing or call our office at 619-224-3383. Bring a fly line sardine rod, 25 lb. test, a 2/0 hook. We also caught some fish on the yoyo lures 40 lb. test."

Polaris Supreme docked under owner-skipper Tom Rothery's hand June 26, after a five-day trip with 24 anglers for yellowtail and albacore. Tom weighed the fish at the certified scales at Fisherman's Landing, where a 48-pound yellowtail took top honors.
Terry Emmert of Douglas, WY had the first-place winner. "I got him in about 15 minutes," he said. "He just kept pulling and pulling, and he kept getting into a stringer of floating kelp. He's my best yellowtail ever." Emmert said he fished a sardine on the flyline, using a 3/0 Mustad 91450 hook on 40-pound P-Line. He had an Okuma 20 two-speed reel and a Seeker Black Steel 6470 rod, wrapped by Bill Boyce. Michael Giardino of San Pedro was second, for a 43-pound yellowtail, and Mal Wagstaff of Douglas, WY was third, for a 36.2-pound yellowtail. Three generations of Pattersons were aboard, and they posed with their fish. Liam Patterson of San Jose is eight, and he goes to Santa Teresa Elementary School, where he practices karate. Liam caught some big yellowtail, and he also got and posed with a 24.4-pound albacore, which will serve to start off this season's tally for the largest fish of that species.

Liam's dad Lane stood in with the boy, as did John Danis and John Patterson, also of San Jose and from the Patterson family.

The San Diego out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego,CA checked in with us today:

33 pass. 23 yellowtail 75 rockfish. Today we saw more yellowtail than we did on Sunday. Unfortunately we also saw acres of bait in the same zone. A couple of brief opportunities is all they would give up today. We will check back tomorrow.

Captain Ryan Bostian called in with an update from "The San Diego" out of Seaforth Landing. We have been fishing offshore for Bluefin lately but it is just not biting enough for us. So we are throwing in the towel! We will be fishing at the Coronado Islands tomorrow. Please be sure to bring your PASSPORT with you. You can call Seaforth Sportfishing at (619) 224-3383 to get in on the action or you can BOOK ONLINE.

A awesome sunset and some action on bigger Bluefin last night. But..... in typical Bluefin fashion lately, the big ones came through and bit baits flylined on gear from 40-60 pound. We had two fish at color in the dark (estimated @ 130 pounds) and somehow the last 4 fish of the day found their freedom (1 spooled, 1 broken hook and 2 pulled hooks). These things can be down right mean.

Sunday April 14, 2013

Today we had about 7-10 wahoo and several tuna. Four nice ones around 170 lbs., and some smaller ones (many released) 50-60 lbs. We lost 4 nice ones, 2 thought to be over 200 lbs. The guys are pretty tired putting in 36 hours of fishing time. Most only had 3-4 hours of sleep.