flathead river Fishing Report 2025

Skipper JJ Gerritsen returned with his Apollo to Fisherman's Landing November 21, after an eight-day, ultra-limited trip. The boat's ten passengers fished Guadalupe Island before taking off for Magdalena Bay to fish big tuna on their final day. "All of our long range trips are ultra-limited," said JJ. "It takes away competition factors, we won't do more than ten passengers. We got limits of yellowfin, Guadalupe's been great our last six trips, but we did something different this time; we headed out for a shot at these big ones. All of our fish are kept in refrigerated saltwater, so they still look great." Matt Bowland of Encinitas took home the best tuna; a 224-pound yellowfin that fought "long and hard." Matt used a 6/0 Owner ringed Super Mutu hook, on an 80-pound P-Line topshot, 100-pound Spectra, a Tiagra 30 reel and a Calstar Grafighter 765 H rod. "I butt-hooked the sardine," said Matt. "The fight lasted two and a half hours." Drew Card of San Diego was second with a 196-pound tuna, and Craig Biddick of Rancho Santa Fe was third for a 164-pounder.

It was a nice warm sunny day traveling today. There is still a pretty good swell with a wind wave on top of it, but it has swung behind us and our ride is great. The guys spent the day relaxing except for George and Craig who spent the afternoon doing laps around the deck and push-ups. They probably felt they needed to work off all the home cooking we have been eating today. Huevos Rancheros for breakfast, chicken fried steak for lunch and dinner, beef stroganoff. Of course sashimi for hors d'voures. Twenty four more hours to go. See you tomorrow.

~~Sep. 6
 I think I'm going to start naming my reports.  This one is called "We should have stuck with the game plan".  The plan was to start where we did, and if it didn't look good run up 40 miles to the next spot arriving just after lunch when it's bite time there.  Well we started off slow.  Conditions were a little funky.  We saw some fish, but they didn't really bite.  We caught a few yellows and the biggest ling cod I've ever seen brought up on this boat, but it wasn't good enough to stick around.  So we started off sticking with the plan when we left and went north but then we decided to do some radio fishing.  I heard 4th hand and then 3rd hand that a boat had a couple really good dorado kelps the day prior almost in striking distance and then really good yellowtail in the afternoon definitely in striking distance.  Then I saw on my water temp chart that same water just a few hours below us so we made the move.  Obviously by my whining you can tell it didn't work out.  We didn't find much kelp in the good water.  We found one OK kelp but we only caught a handful of flats.  There was a few wahoo swimming around it but we didn't catch any.

 So that's OK.  We're not worried.  We still have yesterdays afternoon yellowtail hot spot to fish.  Not today.  Should have been here yesterday. Maybe that should be the name of the report. We saw some and caught a few but it was nothing good.  So here we sit.  I'm not sure if we stuck with the game plan that it would have worked out.  There already was a boat on the spot we were headed to and it's kind of a one boat spot so maybe we didn't miss anything.

 It's funny.  I haven't written this long of a report in a long time.  If fishing was good today I probably would have written one paragraph.  I needed to rant.  Anyways we're going to stick it out here and regroup and try it again in the morning.  Hopefully we find some yellows to work with but either way we plan on looking for a dorado kelp in the afternoon.  Hopefully I only write one paragraph tomorrow.
       

 

Good afternoon everyone, We just cleared the point and are headed south on our annual Costello 6 day trip. We have high hopes for the next 6 days. We are really looking forward to having 6 days to be able to spread out and cover some area. We have many options and all of em sound promising! However right now we are kicking back enjoying the afternoon and looking forward to chef mikes delicious prime rib!

Ryan Bostian called in at the end of the day to update the San Diego's fishing day, "We had 16 fish real early in the morning. We had another good shot at them in the afternoon, we ended up with 29 Yellowtail on the boat. This style of fishing and this size of fish I would say that we are landing about half of the fish that we hook. We did lose several of them today, but that is just the name of the game when you are fishing this size fish. It seems that some days we are fishing 15 to 20 pounders. And other days we are fishing 20 to 30 pounders. Today was definitely the nicer grade of fish. I'd say the future looks bright at Coronado Islands as long as the water doesn;t do something wierd and get cold and dirty. There seems to be plenty of Yellowtail around. Just about everywhere we see some sign of fish. Some days they bite, some days they do not. Man they are definitely in the area and I expect this spring is only going to get better for us.

If you'd like to join us call 619-224-3383. We fish every single day down at the Coronado Islands. Come on down and see us. Once again today we went out with 30 passengers and came back with 29 Yellowtail. Fly line sardines were the best bet today. Come down with some 25 or 30 lb. and some 2/0 hooks, bring a yoyo rod just in case and you will be good to go."

Plenty of room at the rail this past weekend ! On Saturday our 8 passengers caught 25 quality calico bass and another 25 miscellaneous rockfish. On Sunday our 7 passengers caught 20 nice calico bass and 20 rockfish. The highlight of the weekend was a 15 lb. white sea bass caught on Sunday. We also released a short sea bass. If you are one of those people that do not enjoy fishing with a crowd. This is the time for you ! Our next trip is Friday December 7. Make those resos !

July 21
    I don't think anything abnormal happened today during our turn around.  Well, Sysco was late so we left for the fuel dock before that came aboard so, just another turn around day is what I'm trying to say.  We loaded the Paul Hess group, our Hess homies and we were out.  I think things went OK at the bait receivers.  We'll find out.  We fished this afternoon.  It's the year of departure fish days.  We scratched 16 nice grade tuna.  We're traveling now and I'm on watch.  It's almost 3:00 am on the 22nd and I believe we're in American waters.  I'm thinking about it and I don't think I've ever fished in American waters in the beginning of a 5 day trip which is what we're on.

    The weather this afternoon was rolly and choppy.  The weather now is pretty nice but I think it's supposed to be bad the next couple of days.  Windy, choppy, rolly oh my.

 

Captain Matt and the boys burning the midnight oil for twenty 35-50 lb bluefin and 1 yellowfin. Put the J hooks away and exchange them for circles when Mr. Bluefin is around.