illinois river Fishing Report 2024

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.

🗺️ Location ILLINOIS RIVER
🌎 Country US
⏰ Fast Updates Every day
🐟 Species All Species
🗓️ Next Update Tomorrow
🏅 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You also can get helpful information from the Fishing Forecast.

November 21, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

Captain Ryan Bostian checked in tonight with an update from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA.  We are still fishing offshore everyday.  The last 5 days has been exclusively Bluefin Tuna.  A couple days ago we had 8.  Then 13 yesterday.  Today we had 16 Bluefin Tuna for 21 anglers.  These fish have been a challenge to hook.  A 25 pound flurocarbon outfit with a 1 or 2 sized live bait hook has been the ticket.  Or you can try the same outfit with an 80 to 160 gram flat fall jig.  The fish are 25 to 35 pounds.  There are 100 pounders around but they didn’t bite today.  Make sure you bring a heavy stick.  An 80 pound spectra outfit with a 2 speed reel and a heavy flat fall.  

The loads have been light.  Come on out and go fishing on the San Diego.

November 20, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

~~Aug 2
 Today was a bit on the slower side.  Until the end but I'll get to that.  We woke up in hopes of getting a sea bass bite going but that was only a fairy tale.  We got a few yellows is all.  After, we made some grouper drifts and caught some more of those Broomtail Groupers.  Something like 4 or 5 of them along with some calico bass and yellows while we drifted along.  And for the rest of the day we pretty much hung out in the lee of the island and drifted here and there and caught a handful of yellowtail here and there.

 Like I said, we fished the lee today.  No wind for us.  It was lovely.  We had plans for dinner at 7:30, so at 7:00 i hopped in the shower to get cleaned up because I was serving, and while I was in there, I heard some cheering, and then again some hooting and hollering hen I was getting out.  It turns out the first round of cheers came because of a nice sea bass they brought in.  The second was for a yellowfin tuna that was landed.  I went down and got the tables set and while I was doing this they kept catching yellowtail, tuna and seabass.  After we made first call we had a whopping 1 person come in to eat.  Team galley understood though.  We knew that there may possibly be no fishing time for the next day due to bad weather running up the line.  So we kept catching fish and one by one, passengers would come in and scarf down some dinner, which was a lovely meatloaf that was fantastic, and then go back out and catch some more fish. 

 This lasted until after 9:00 and then we took off.  We ended the stop with 30 yellowtail, 5 white seabass up to about 40 pounds, and something like 6 or 7 on the tunas. We prepared the deck for a rough ride home, and set sail toward the beach  to try and improve our conditions.  The swells always less on the coast rather than offshore.  I doubt we'll have any time to fish tomorrow.  Travel day.
      

November 19, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 10-24-2019 We had another log jam today on the kelp patties. Another great day of fishing Wahoo and what a beautiful grade of fish! Some real beauties in their. They look more like alligators than Wahoo. They definitely act like alligators when you hook one. We also had a good hit on the yellowfin tuna again this afternoon. The grade of fish was more like 20 to 45 it wasn't all 45 pounders. But still a good grade of fish! Were finished up in the lower zone here and need to start working north. Stayed late today so we will probably only have a few hours of fishing tomorrow if any looking for some yellowtail up the coast. Weather is still epic. We also spent about a half hour today catching and releasing beautiful grade Dorado. We didn't keep any! Will check in with you tomorrow on our way home after a short try for yellowtail. The Polaris supreme crew!

November 18, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

164 yellowfin tuna from 15-30 lbs and 1 mahi-mahi. Right place at the right time today. Flylined baits on 15-40 lb and small colt snipers and Flatfalls. Adjust your tackle based on the mode of the fish. Their mode is constantly changing so be aware and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

November 17, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

A five mile drift produced 157 yellowfin tuna and 72 skipjack tuna.

November 16, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

Cowboy Cuts Out Supercow

Tom Rothery took PIER founder Tom Pfleger and eight other anglers on a 17-day excursion that started on the inside, visited the outside and came back to the inside to finish off the trip with six cows; tuna over 200 pounds. ("Inside" means off the coast of southern Baja, and "Outside" means the Revillagigedos archipelago and the Hurricane Bank.)

"All our days were good," said Rothery, "except for the time we spent off Clarion Island where there were a lot of krill balls and green water. The wahoo on the Hurricane were a little bigger than usual. The skin fishing was good on all methods."

Tom "Cowboy" Fullam of Oceanside pulled off the coup of the adventure when he decked a tuna that taped out around 280 pounds.  When Rothery hung it on the scales a shout went up from the gathered spectators, as the fish hit 303.4 pounds on the certified scales.

"He bit on the slide," said Cowboy, "and he went down right away. He fought for an hour and a half, and then he came up on the bow. He's my best fish."

Tom said he dropped in a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook. He used 130-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon and 130-pound Spectra on a Tiagra 50 W reel and a five and a half-foot Calstar rod.

Roger Foster of Orange won second place for a 261-pounder. Foster got his big cow (his best-ever fish, in only 20 minutes) and a 259-pounder with sardines. He said he used sardines on 8/0 hooks with 130-pound P-line and 130-pound Spectra on one of the boat's rigs, featuring a Penn 50 SW reel and an unidentified rod.

Chugey Sepulveda, senior research scientist for Pfleger's PIER Institute, caught a 228-pounder with sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook. He used 130-pound line and 130-pound Spectra on a Penn 30 W reel and a Penn five and a half-foot rod.

Pat Jaeger of Bishop, a mountain fishing guide, got a 215-pounder in 40  minutes, after it ate his sardine on a 6/0 Eagle Claw hook. He fished with 100-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon and 130-pound Spectra on a Penn 50 SW reel and a custom Calstar Baja Boomer rod.

Chartermaster Tom Pleger said two of the ongoing projects for PIER are a kelp study and a tagging program. The archival tagging study for white sea bass may provide some answers for questions long in the asking regionally, such as where the fish go and what they do when they're not in local waters and available to anglers.

"We'll offer rewards," said Pfleger, "and we'll put out about 100 archival tags."

Polaris Supreme will be her berth in for boat work for the next few weeks.

November 15, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

36 mahi 67 hamachi. Unable to find the glory kelp but still managed to scratch out a day.

November 14, 2024 illinois river Fishing Report

Hello everyone, Today we fished the coast for Yellowtail. It was slow but the grade of fish was excellent. We are still working up the line. Hopefully we can end the trip with a bang tomorrow. Will Report again tomorrow, Team Supreme

Weekly Fishing Reports

Fishing reports for illinois river 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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