billings gazette Fishing Report 2025

Fishing here remains slow. However the quality of fish is still great, and we are capitalizing on the fish we are hooking. Still some losses due to sharks but still chipping away at some great quality tuna. We were able to make a tank of Tube Mackerel tonight along with 3 milk crates of chunk. We are looking ready for tomorrow!

We started in the rain, loading passengers and loading bait. Now we're full steam rolling down in nice weather. There is reports of bad weather down below but we're traveling the correct direction for it not to effect us. We hope this trip is in perfect time with the perfect weather. We'll most likely start the trip off with an afternoon of yellowtail fishing before we decide on where we're going from there.

July 30
    We had a great day.  Of course the morning had us worried.  We started in the day befores hot spot and it was ice cold.  I felt disgusted but what we do in those situations as a group of boats is find them and that's what happened so in the afternoon we had a couple very good drifts on yellowfin tuna.  Our first drift was at 2:00 after lunch and it was a long plunker bite of 1-3 going at a time.  After that we already had a good day and a good trip.  We had the whipped cream and the nuts but I wanted the cherry so after an hour or so of hard looking we found our sun downer school.  It was a little more fast paced this time and it lasted almost until sunset on the yellowfin and well past dark for the 3 bluefin we hooked.  They were 50-80 pounds estimated.  We'll find out at the scale tomorrow.  They'll make jack pot go quickly because I'll only need to weigh 3 fish.
    
    The weather today was fantastic.  We're headed in and we'll be dockside tomorrow at 7:00 in the AM.  I'll be handing the keys over to Tommy and I'm finally going home for the first time this season.  I'm looking forward to getting to know my baby again who will be turning 4 months this Saturday.
                            

Great Guys!

Captain Ryan Bositan checked in with an update tonight from the San Diego. Today we fished at the Coronado Islands. We had 18 anglers catch 2 Bluefin Tuna, 1 Sheephead, 7 Yellowtail, 6 Calico Bass, 90 Bonito, and 13 Rockfish. Check out the beautiful Sheephead we caught today that weighed in at 18 pounds.

Monday, September 10th, 2012

Hi friends. Just a real dandy of a day for us today. We started it out in the morning with the yellowtail snap and then we followed it up in the afternoon with Monday night footballs. The footballs were all you wanted and we also added a small handful of dorado to our days count. We did all of this in flat calm conditions and the boys are all wore out from the excellent fishing that we had today. Everybody's pumped and I screamed myself hoarse today.

For tomorrow, we're looking for tuna with a little more size as one of our code boats had a nice afternoon on those premium grade offshore yellowfin tuna so we'll be in the area looking around for a few ourselves. The boys enjoyed a twenty-two year old Cabernet sauvigon tonight and I think Robin and Wayne might have shed a tear together while talking about it. I still haven't had any but the dudes looked pretty glossy-eyed so I imagine it was pretty darn good.

Anyhow, the Blue/White gang is having a super duper fantastic time catching fish, drinking cocktails/wine, and eating Chef Shawn's culinary creations. Our weather forecast is looking good for tomorrow so hopefully we can get on a big ole' school of big yellowfin. Wish us luck.

First things first !! I think a hearty Sportfishingreport.com congratulations are in order for J.J Gerritsen and the crew of the Apollo for their clean #1 sweep in annual SFR fishcount standings for 2006. Yellowfin Tuna # 1!!!!!!!!!!!, Albacore Tuna # 1!!!!!!!, Dorado #1 !!!! Very impressive numbers indeed !!!! Way to go guys, awesome year !!!!So when good friend and Santa Barbara local Doug Browand called and said a bunch of local firefighters and friends had chartered the #1 boat in the land for a little Island Freelance trip, I was packing my gear and clearing my schedule in a hurry. We loaded up on time and headed out of Sea Landing in Santa Barbara straight to Santa Rosa Island in case the squid and WSB wanted to show. J.J promised us some outrageous rockfish and lingcod action if the seabass were still MIA. We gave it a solid effort but with no signs of squid or WSB we motored up and headed out to some of Captain J.J's secret rocks and reefs. The first drift of the day produced monster reds and chuckles that rival some of the nicest and biggest rockfish I've seen and caught in many years. The Channel Islands Rockfishing is on Fire !!!!!! Throw a bunch of nice legal lings into the mix and you're talking a really fine day of fishing and a great time for all. The fishing at the Islands is only going to get better and J.J and the boys on the Apollo will be there fishing for them everyday. Check their website for their open party schedule and don't forget about the upcoming SFR charter on the Apollo.

6 yellowfin tuna 4 bluefin tuna. Tough conditions on the grounds today. Lots of wind and current made it very difficult to land the 30-70 lb tuna we had under the boat. Weather is forecast to be nicer tomorrow. Come out and enjoy the calm before the storm.