central illinois Fishing Report 2025

Putting away the Bluefin gear for now. Our sights are set on warm water fish next. Possibly Wahoo or Yellowtail! Glassy seas and great weather here traveling down on our Beck / Emerson / Wagstaff 7 day! We have new shorter trips on line for the weekend after we get back departing Friday July 20 and Sunday the 22nd. Will report tomorrow, Team Supreme

Today was tough fishing. We were able to hook and land more fish today and they were all better grade. The fish today were also more eager to eat bigger line and hooks as opposed to the ones yesterday. Because of that we were able to put the wood to them and bring them to the boat quickly. We had some shark casualties but nothing too extreme. In fact the ones that were getting chased by the sharks charged the boat to try and evade them. So as long was we were ready with a gaff and able to steer the fish clear from the propellers and rudders we had some fish that came right in. Overall a tough but fruitful day. Wee will be looking for kelp's tomorrow targeting school sized Tuna and Dorado.

We were on bluefin and yellowfin all day but they were difficult to hook. 8 bluefin tuna from 25-80 lbs and 2 yellowfin. Most of our fish were hooked on flylined sardines on 30 or 40 lb.

Nov. 12

                I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to start this report.  Well, the bottom line is the cows gave us the slip today.  We got hosed.  The 20-60 pounders were there though.  They weren't shy to nestle up under and around the boat.  They were a little shy to bite though.  We ended up with a few over 1 per rod on the tuna today.  More than half those were 40-60 pounds and the rest were 20 pounders.  Like I said, there were no lack of those fish.  This afternoon we couldn't be sitting any better.  The fish were under, around, and the school was right behind us where our lines were going, then at 3:30, poof, they disappeared.  And the cows never showed.  We looked around the bank for awhile after but there wasn't a scale around anymore.  So we left and we're not coming back.

 

                The weather today was fantastic so we can't blame it on that.  Oh well.  At least we still caught some nice tuna and made jackpot easy to figure out.  We're going to try and catch some bait tonight and fish for all of the above tomorrow.

                                                                                                               

Captain Ryan Bostian called in at 4:12 PM with a wrap-up from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. Today we had 19 anglers catch 53 Yellowtail and 93 Red Rockfish. We had very good Winter fishing at the Coronado Islands Today with Captain Cameron Cribben at the helm. We caught Yellowtail using all four techniques: surface iron, yo-yo jigs, fly-lined baits and dropper loop!
We are a go tomorrow with a light load!

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

36 yellowtail 1 calico bass. Did a lot of driving to get a few good shots. Conditions seemed to be improving today, hoping for a big hit in the near future.

After two trips in a row without seeing yellowtail. This morning we were pleasantly surprised when we located a nice school first thing in the morning. After a hectic 10 minute drift with our 48 anglers we had four 13-19 pound yellowtail on the deck. All four of our yellows were taken on yo-yo jigs. The rest of our trip was spent catching whitefish and rockfish with a few sheephead mixed in. Our afternoon yellowtail hunt came up empty. Fish Count = 4 yellowtail 14 sheephead 1 lingcod 215 whitefish 107 rockfish.

"What an absolutely, fantastic, unbelievable day," wrote Tommy Rothery aboard his Polaris Supreme November 2. "We had more marlin than you can imagine. We hooked and are released over 220. The wahoo fishing was also fantastic. The group had a blast pulling in "crocodile" size wahoo. And we topped off the day with even bigger dorado than yesterday. The weather is good and we just had an awesome day on all three: wahoo, dorado and marlin." The next day Rothery wrote, "Well if we thought yesterday was phenomenal, today was even better. I know I'm repeating myself but the fishing was just great again on the wahoo and dorado. And yes, the marlin are still here and wanted to play. We have good weather and this is a nice way to end the trip. Great group, great fishing, great crew." Rothery docked at Fisherman's Landing November 6 after his Larry Brown charter with 22 anglers. "The place was thick with marlin," he remarked. "There's lots of bait and the water where we're fishing is 78 to 79 degrees." Dr. Chris Minnick of Pasadena won first place for a 71.6-pound yellowfin. He said he bagged it in about ten minutes,, after it bit on a sardine pinned to a 3/0 Hayabusa hook. He used 60-pound Soft Steel Ultra line and 80-pound Izorline Spectra backing on an Avet EXW 4-2 reel and a Calstar 765 L rod.
Mike Mayes of Rnancho Santa Margarita won second place for a 54.6-pound wahoo. Ron Stafford of Minot, ND won third place for a 53-pound yellowfin tuna. A gentleman identified as "Duke" posed in the lineup shot with a typical dorado from the trip.