samish river Fishing Report 2025

Sep. 8

We woke up this morning on the drift. I heard Tommy doing the stop and go on his watch early in the morning meaning he was seeing schools. He woke the rest of us up bright and early and it didn't take too long before we started hooking fish. They were the 15-18 pound bluefin and they weren't biting as well as you'd think they would judging by all the fish around the boat. We kept drifting though trying the patient mode. It's a lot easier to be patient with non biting fish when the other boats aren't getting stops. After a while and a few handfuls of BFT we gave up on these fish and went searching for some new ones. It took a while but around lunch time we found a nice big fat kelp and it was an aquarium underneath. Good viewing and catching on lot's of different fish from small throwback yellowtail to small tuna and tuna up to 32 pounds and lots of dorado. Yes it's that time of year. The water warmed up considerably in the last week or so and with that came schools of yellowfin and now the dorado in numbers. We'll take um. Crowd pleaser's is what they are and you know us, we like to please crowds. After a couple hours fishing there we went searching for something new unsuccessfully so we ended up back on our kelp and caught some more dorado and a few more tuna. We're now headed for the yellowtail grounds and everyone is fat and happy and we're planning on some good pulling on big yellows tomorrow.

I ate the escolar again substituting it for the prime rib in the fajitas we had for lunch today. It was smooth sailing John and I mean that in a good way. No problems down there. The fish isn't the best fish in the ocean. The flavor is great though the texture is a bit soft. Opening day for pro football so I'll leave you with this. Go Chargers! Let's do some competing this year. My Pad's couldn't do it so now it's up to you guys. Come on now!

The beat goes on at the Coronado Islands ! Today we caught 38 yellowtail 22 barracuda and 3 kelp bass. Fly lined sardines and surface lures were the best today.

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

Hi friends. I bronzed today...again. I'm practically glowing, it's madness! I look like Oprah. Everyday of this trip has been stellar weather, and I've been bronzin' ever since the bait receivers, and I can only hope that we're not going to pay for it in a couple of days when we start making our way back to San Diego. We'll see. Anyhow, the fishing today was fair. It wasn't bad, it's just that we had high hopes for wahoo and they're still eluding us to this point. Matt Herrington, Paul Briscoe, Eric Kinnicutt, and Polaris Supreme first-timer Dean Harthorn were the lucky anglers to land a "hooter" today. Dean set the standard of size to this point. Dean probably runs about five feet tall (I mean no disrespect. Dean is one of the nicest dudes around) but the wahoo he caught today dwarfs him. Wait until you guys see the photos on the website when we get in. It's a great picture and Dean was pumped. Good things happen to good people.

Our day also saw lots of releasing yellowfin tuna, tagging a couple of nice yellowtail, and Glenn Briscoe landed a true bull dorado in the thirty plus pound category. G-Man, you're truly the man, G. After landing Glenn's fish, we made the decision to make a run to the inside to see if we can't locate some wahoo elsewhere. We'll check back with you tomorrow.

Oh yeah! Before I forget, Chef Schooler and Jamie are my heroes. For dinner, they prepared a perfectly cooked tri-tip (my favorite), pepper-roasted potatoes, and corn on the cob. On any normal night, I'd be pumped but then they finished it off with a warm brownie, vanilla ice cream, caramel syrup, and pralines. Now I'm super pumped. Between my bronze and my level of pump, I look like a plump Arnold Schwarzenegger. Life is good. See ya.

-Richie "Call Me Katniss" and the Supreme Team

Once again we stopped on enough fish to fill up our fish hold 10 times. Unfortunately we only had 1 brief moment of biting fish. 2 bluefin tuna (40-50 lbs) 11 yellowfin tuna. Hopefully these fish get out of their funk soon.

~~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.
         

 

Started our drift with no boats in sight. Ended our drift with the same.

10 nice Bluefin, lost a few. A very nice Yellowfin and Yellowtail on kelp near by. 

Nice Day!!!!

Well we just traveled all day heading toward the fishing grounds. The passengers worked on preparing their gear and relaxed. We dined on Chicken ala King in puff pastry, grilled zucchini, and saut?©ed carrots for lunch. And for dinner we had an excellent veal shank in a caper sauce with roasted potatoes, baked parmesan tomatoes and salad bar. Thanks for checking in.

We departed today on Bob Vance's annual five day. After we picked up a cruddy load of bait we dined on a delicious pork tenderloin for lunch and headed for the albacore grounds. This is a great group of anglers. Many have been on this trip with Bob for years. We are really looking forward to some good fishing. Weather is still good. Wish us luck.