chicago Fishing Report 2025

For up-to-date information, look up the fishing report for the water of your choice. Field staff update the fishing reports each week through the fishing season, reporting on fishing success, lake levels, water temperatures, and other important information.

πŸ—ΊοΈ Location CHICAGO
🌎 Country US
⏰ Fast Updates Every day
🐟 Species All Species
πŸ—“οΈ Next Update Tomorrow
πŸ… Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You also can get helpful information from the Fishing Forecast.

January 21, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

Oct. 7

Hello out there in the internet world of the Polaris Supreme. It's been a while since I have been able to write to you all. This is because down there in the lower lower latitudes our satellite service isn't available therefor I am unable to send out any emails. So this will be a trip wrap up of our time spent down below...

First of all we had a great trip. Of our 5 1/2 days down here we landed 50+ tuna over 100 pounds. 15 of those went over 200 pounds and 1 of those will most likely go over 300 pounds. It taped off at 297. A real beaut. We also released at least 17 tuna over 100 pounds and threw in 50+ wahoo as hole fillers. That's not a bad fish count for 20 anglers. We had 8 anglers. Fantastic.

We got a little nervous when we first arrived down there at 4:00 a.m. of the 2nd. We stopped the boat first on some flying fish to try for some of them to put on the kite and during the drift we could see many sharks swimming around and chasing the flyers. We got the anchor down around 5 and it wasn't getting better. A big shark problem is what we had on our hands. They were making it unfishable. We had a 1 hour window that morning when the tuna were more aggressive then the sharks and managed a handful of big tunas with the Jer-Bear getting one over 200 pounds but it was short lived. The tuna backed off and the sharks took over again. We had enough and tried pulling the anchor but it got stuck and we lost everything. Damn. While we were putting one of our spair sets on we trolled it up for wahoo but we couldn't get past the 50-80 pound tunas to get to the wahoo. On most trips that would be good but on this trip we release those babies. After doing that for a while we got the anchor back down and things never really got rolling. We had a shark problem. Like I said we, were a little nervous after the first day.

Day number 2 didn't start off any better. We had a shark problem. Every bait we put out hooked a grinner. We didn't give it too long before we got to trolling again and this is what we found out. The cows were biting the marauders. We were trolling them up! ? That was a first for me. We were getting fish from small ones we would release to fish up to 215! You never know with fishing. It's a crazy game. So we had it all figured out. For the rest of the day this is what we did. We would troll around with our marauders and our yummy flyers on the kite and catch tuna and wahoo. The 4 remaining anglers not trolling were getting them fishing sardines on the slide. We stayed very busy. 15 fish over 100 that day with 2 of those over 200. The weather picked up that day and would stay windy for the remainder of our time here.

Day 3 was more of the same except the sharks disappeared and we were getting more tired. The fish were getting harder to pull over the rail. We also lost our Matt to an injured knee. We're not sure how it happened. To much of banging it on the rail scooping flyers and he may of hit it on a tuna some how but however it went down he was done. He could barely move about the boat let alone gaff a 200 pounder. Also our fearless leader, and I mean that, hurt his back prier to the trip and has had a hurt wrist for some time now was of little help gaffing 200 pounders as well so we were down to 3 of us and a "Gringo". That's our galley assistant. That's right Gringo fans, he's been back for some time now. Any hoo around 5:00 p.m. things started to really liven up with tuna flying out of the water everywhere so we threw the anchor over and had pretty much wide open fishing on the bigguns till about 7:30. We landed 12 over 100, most of those closer to 200 with 4 of them over that mark. Nice.

Day 4 was different. The tuna stopped biting on the troll and things got back to the way we're used to. Anchor fishing and we did well. The fish started biting at 1:00 p.m. for a little while then things slowed down until around 5:30 when things went ballistic similar to the night prior. 11 fish over 100 with 4 of those over 200 and George getting his personal best which went 297. We're hoping it goes over 3 at the dock. We'll see. When I'm giving these fish counts keep in mind we are releasing many fish if they aren't in the 200 pound range.

Day 5 was pretty much spent on anchor. We had a late night with Brian being stuck on a big one for hours. We didn't get to bed until 11:00 p.m. so when the crew woke up at 4:00 a.m. nobody was awake except Charlie. Here's why. He had a 186 pounder completely wreck him. I mean he got his but kicked like I've never seen him get his but kicked before. This happened the day before so he went to bed early that night and was up with us bright and early. Anyways he had a 207 landed before anyone else was even up besides the crew. He hooked another one shortly after that too but after a long battle the fish one and lived to fight another day. We had more action throughout the day but there were many lulls in between the action but it was a slower day for sure. Not a slow day though. We had 7 over 100 with 3 of those going over 200 pounds. Tommy had been keeping an eye on the storm that's been brewing the whole time we were down there and decided on this night to start heading north to keep us all safe. The storm became a tropical storm and was still getting stronger and closer so we had to take off leaving 1 day to fish somewhere north.

Here are some firsts for me and most others on this boat that happened while we were down there: I have never seen a shark problem that bad and then seeing them disappear like they did. One hour it was not fishable and that afternoon they were pretty much all gone,. I have never seen a 200 pounder let alone so many 200 pounders and just big tuna in general bite the trolled marauders like they did for a few days down here. I have never seen a 186 pounder jump completely out of the water right next to the boat after being on the line for 5 minutes or any amount of time for that matter. The fish must have thought it was a dorado. I have never seen Charlie not at the rail 100% percent of the time the fish were biting and it's because of A. he's reached the age of 60 but mostly B. I have never seen fish fight as hard as they fought on this trip. I mean they were brutal. Mean mean fish. I have seen 350+ pounders come in much easier then the 160+ pounders we were hooking. We lost a lot of big fish on this trip. We think about 50% of the big ones we hooked we lost. Not because of angler error but because these were just mean mean fish.

Here are some of the pricey things that happened during the trip. We lost one set of anchor gear, we lost 2 big giant 12 volt batteries, our refrigerator broke down , we lost and broke 3 gaffs, fuel prices are nasty, but the look on Matts face when I offered him a sponge bath because he couldn't stand up in the shower was priceless. Oh Mathew. He's doing a little better then before. The swelling went down a little and there is a little less pain then he had before but the poor guy has got to be just borred out of his mind and just bummed he missed out on some great big mean tuna fishing.

We will keep you filled on the ride home .

January 20, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

We traveled down to do some island fishing and late in the day we got into some excellent quality yellowtail. However, it wasn't going to stop there. Our evening bite was fantastic. Absolutely beautiful big yellowtails. Most all were over 30 lbs and lots over 40 lbs. Today was a fun day to be on the water. Thanks for checking in. Tommy and crew P.S. We still have a couple open spots on Garry Robert's 9-day. The fishing has been great at Alijos. Come out and join me and Drew. It's going to be a great trip.

January 19, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

Shortly after arriving on the grounds we located a small school of yellowtail and caught 2. We then proceeded to drive around for 2 hours and never found another school. A couple of rockfish stops in the afternoon assured all 30 of our passengers will be eating fresh fish.

January 18, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

27 yellowfin(20-60lbs) 16 yellowtail 2 dorado. The anglers who were willing to change their bait out every 60 seconds were rewarded with beautiful grade yellowfin tuna. Belly and shoulder hooked baits on 30-50lb line and a small circle hook worked best.

January 17, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

Capt Mike Pritchard checked in with this report from the Tribute. "Another great day of fishing here. We have limits of Yellowtail. Now we are in search of some Bluefin. We have caught one so far.

January 16, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

Hello everyone, Today we spent the day targeting Wahoo, Yellowtail, and what ever else we were able to find. We were able to scratch up some nice Wahoo and yellowtail, just not the numbers we would have liked. However the Wahoo we were able to find were quite large, some close to 60 lbs! Some truly great fish! We are going for big numbers tomorrow, wish us luck! Team Supreme

January 15, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

JJ is back in Santa Barbara and today he scored limits of nice Rockfish. He is running OPEN PARTY departing Saturday for the entire month of March. Call Sea Landing now at (805) 963-3564 to make your reservation.

January 14, 2025 chicago Fishing Report

Capt Mike Pritchard called in from the Tribute to let us know that their 1.5 day trip is a go tomorrow night leaving at 7pm. We are hoping to take advantage of this weather window, the weather looks good for the next few days. We already have some good bait on board including some mackeral and sardines, so we are going to take advantage of this weather window. We have about 10 spots left, if you want to go give Seaforth Landing a call at 619-224-3383. We love to see you out on the water.

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Fishing reports for chicago are updated each week, usually by Thursday morning. The reports are compiled by an outside contractor who receives the information from bait shops, marinas and fishing guides.

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