park rapids Fishing Report 2025

Captain Ray Montera took out 39 anglers today. Final fish count for the day was 6 lingcod 4 sheephead 80 red rockcod and full Mexican limits of rockfish. If you enjoy bottom fishing this is definitely the time for you. As soon as the yellowtail show up the rock fishing will take a back seat.

Aug. 15
 Our day sort of reversed from yesterday.  Today it was a super slow morning that led into an action packed afternoon.  We looked for bluefin tuna this morning.  We started off in the zone where it had been in the weeks prior, but like yesterday, it wasn't around.  We caught one 12 pounder on the troll all morning.  We looked around there and in other places I thought it might have gone but we never saw an meat.  We went through one area where at least we were seeing little dabs of the BF but it was diving off on the meter.  We could tell it didn't want it.

 So we kept tracking around and ended up close to a possible yellowtail honey hole. So we took a look and that's exactly what it was.  For the rest of the afternoon till dark we stayed pretty steady on 12-25+ pound yellers.  It was good fishing.  A very pleasant surprise.  We're keeping this ball rolling.

 Needless to say, well maybe not needless, but we're going to spend the night here and see what this place looks like in the morning.
    

Nov. 11

After our previous day of wide open fishing - we had high hopes of the same on giant yellow fin tuna. The day started with Captain Tommy identifying sonar readings of big schools of tuna all around us. We fished hard all day. Kites, sinker rigs, fly line, chunked, jigged, drifted and anchored. Tommy calling out the sonar readings the whole time, ", "big tuna at 20 fathoms" or "we are surrounded by school tuna 10 fathoms to 30 fathoms". We began to doubt Tommy's sonar and guessed that it was just a screen saver image. Then, in the late afternoon, tuna started flying out of the water all around us for a 1/4 mile. 100 lb to 300 lb tuna fully coming out of water and giving us a show and taunting us once more. At the end of the day Greg, Matt and Rick caught larger tuna and kept us from getting skunked. We flushed the stomachs of the tuna and found them stuffed with pelagic crabs. The sardines, mackerel and flying fish we offered were not on their menu. We hear of a place up the line where the yellow tail are biting. We are going there now.

OTR Lon Mikkelsen.

Aug 12

We had a descent day of yellowtail fishing today. We were looking at schools of yellows this morning that wouldn't bite before making a move where we looked at schools of yellows that would bite. Not full speed but just a comfortable pick for hours. The quality was good. 20-25 pounders. After lunch it stopped biting for the rest of the day. We took a tour of the island for nothing then settled back in where we were before but it never picked up again. We're headed back offshore for a couple days in hunt for those tasty BFTees with plenty of bait now.

Drew

~~Oct. 15
 I forgot to mention yesterday how steamy it is down here.  Steamy, like we're boiling a giant pot of water or something, I can't explain it.  Anyways when you walk out of an air and conditioned part of the boat it's like POW!  Holy Toledo!  But after a little bit you get used to it and it's not that bad until you find some AC again and then come back out and it's like, POW again.  Anyways, we had a little more wind this morning which helped with the kite fishing and it stayed one direction which helped with the anchor fishing.  We had another decent morning.  George caught another over 200 and his bud Craig joined him with a 207.  The sharks weren't as ferocious this morning and this afternoon I'd have to say they weren't much of a problem at all.  We really did a number on the wahoo yesterday because today we only caught a few but thankfully we had a great day on the anchor starting mid morning or after lunch, I already can't remember.

 The boxed and vacuum sealed flying fish from Florida the gang brought down really paid off today.  That's mostly what I did this afternoon was rig flying fish for the kite and help gaff tuna when they needed me. For a couple hours they were hitting the baits on the kite as fast as we could put them out.  Most of what we're catching is in the 100-130 pound class. The big story was Charlie this afternoon.  He caught 3 bigguns.  A 194, 213, and a 204.  A nice afternoon for Charlie.  About half the gang are already releasing anything under 200 pounds.

 For dinner we had a lovely corned beef and cabbage and potato meal.  Afterwards I was waiting for the shower and i noticed all the tuna that was under the boat and I pointed it out to the chef.  So he went down there and sinker rigged a sardine right on top of one of the tunas heads and he got himself a 177 pounder shattering his previous personal best of 35 pounds.  Way to go Mike.  Most people at the time were tying on new top shots on there reels.  They all new what was going on and that they could most likely do the same but nobody did a thing.  Everyone was fished out so that shows we had a good day.  You just can't fish 24 hours a day.
         

 

The first good catch of wahoo arrived with skipper Drew Henderson and his 20 anglers aboard the Polaris Supreme October 28. Over 100 wahoo were caught, and 65 came on a single wild day of fishing at the top end of The Ridge on the Dennis Bunker Memorial trip. Fishing was good for other species as well, but the wahoo drew all the oohs and ahs from the spectators at Fisherman's Landing, as many looked to be over 50 pounds. "We got the job done," wrote Drew on his internet report. "The morning looked very bad. There was wind and a choppy confused sea. That, combined with no fish, led to hopeless thoughts. I don't know why, but after lunch the whole entire bank we were fishing lit up with life. "It didn't take long before we quit fishing tuna and put our sinkers on. We have everything you would hope and ask for on a ten-day trip except one thing, the cow tuna. The storm below is dying. Ourselves and three other boats are going to look for them. I'll be cuddling with my horseshoe tonight. I'm sure they will too." Rick Bynum of Sacramento won first place, for an 80-pound yellowfin tuna. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Eagle Claw hook on 50-pound fluorocarbon leader, 60-pound P-Line and 80-poundSpectra backing. All of it was on a TLD 30 reel and a Seeker Black Steel 6465 XXH rod. "It was fun!" added Bynum. "It took a half-hour." Ddaze Phuong of Orange was second, for a 66.4-pound wahoo, and Mike Grella of Sylmar won third place for a 63-pound wild wahoo. "We saw a little dab of big tuna one day," reported skipper Henderson, "but they wouldn't come up and play."

Aug 19

A good finish to a good trip today. It started off a slow morning like every morning of this trip started off. It being the last day we just traveled north all morning to increase our fishing time for the day. We bumped into a school of those 50-70 pound bft's mid to late morning and drifted till we were out of time. We landed almost 30 of those beauts before we had to call it and head for the barn. The weather today was great and the ride going up is ideal. The fillet and crab cakes were delish and everyone is tuckered out but me but only because I have to be up.

Thanks again to the Heil group for coming out once again after all these years and creating another memorable trip.

"The bluefin are still biting," said Mike Pritchard. "It's 8:30 in the morning and we have outstanding Bluefin fishing. It looks like everybody in this area is doing very well on the Bluefin. It's a good time to hop on a boat."