sol duc river Fishing Report 2024

170 yellowfin 93 skipjack. Good weather and great fishing, didn’t feel like November today.

Captain Mike Pritchard called in to report 17 Yellowtail from our first kelp. We also had 2 Bluefin Tuna up to 65 pounds. We are seeing spots of Bluefin today and some other boats have scores up to 30 fish. The weather is fantastic. Stay tuned ...

Tommy Rothery docked his Polaris Supreme after the annual George Davis Expedition, with only eight anglers aboard. Rothery tied up at his space on the inner wing at Fisherman's Landing, ending his long range season on a positive note with a visit to Baja's southern banks and the Cleofas Bank, where all the fish that were kept were caught. Four cows were among the fish offloaded January 13. "All the big fish were from Cleofas," said Tommy. We released about half the fish we caught there, and nearly everything, including 15 big tuna, we caught up above. "So many people put so much emphasis on their pile of fish at the dock," remarked Rothery. "It disgusts me." Rothery and his anglers consistently release many fish of all sizes. Charlie Middleton of San Pablo got two cows; one with a sardine and the biggest one on a chunk. His tuna weighed 201.4 and 245.6 pounds. He said he fished with 8/0 Gamakatsu hooks, 130-poudn Maxima line and 130-pound Spectra backing on a Penn 80 SW reel and a new Ugly Stick 130-pound class rod. "That rod works good," said Charlie, who got his smaller fish in only 15 minutes. Al Tokunaga of North Hollywood took a 232.4-pounder after a 30-minute tussle. He said the fish bit on a sardine pinned to a 9/0 Eagle Claw hook. He fished with 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Spectra, with a Cal Sheet-s prepped Penn 50 S reel and a Calstar 6455 XH rod. "I used an eight-ounce torpedo sinker attached with a rubber band," noted Al. "He bit right after daylight. They were down there about that time every day." Roger Brown of Riverside bagged a 210.9-pounder with a mackerel on a 6/0 ringed Super Mutu hook. He said he fished with 100-pound Jin Kai line and 130-pound Jerry Brown Line One Spectra on a Tiagra 50 W reel and a Calstar 6455 XH rod. Brown's fish was notable in that it fought for 35 minutes, and then pulled skipper Drew Henderson over the side when he single-gaffed it. They were both brought aboard without further incident. Rothery noted that he will be doing boat work from now until May 31, when he will begin his summer season of three to five-day trips.

Limits of yellowtail 4 dorado 1 yellowfin. The beautiful fall weather and fun fishing continues.

Friday, July 12th, 2013

Hi friends. For whatever reason, the nice, lengthy report I just wrote was erased. With that, here is the short version of what I just wrote. Sorry.

We 2 Bluefin until after lunch and just as we were about to call it a trip, we found a school and a ripper bite on 50-70 lb. Bluefins was upon us and chaos ensued. With some gear already broken down, some guys had to tie hooks to straight spectra or borrow rigs but we ended up getting 38 out of that stop until we ran out of bait and had to kick it for the barn.

Our ETA for tomorrow is 0900 hours back to the docks and we'll be heading out on the 2nd annual Billy Stephens Family Trip. Tommy will be leading us to the promised land. Wish us luck and we'll give you a departure report tomorrow evening. Take care and have a fine Friday.

-The Supreme Team

P.S. Bill Dunn says hello to Emily and Chuck.

P.S.S. Mom - If you can get a hold of Natalie, have her read this: Happy Birthday, sister!!

~~Sep 13
 Thank goodness for slow speed.  Even though we got a really good jump yesterday, we weren't going to be getting anywhere down below till late tomorrow.  Our speed was horrible.  1.5 knots below average.  But we sped up this morning.  Yup.  This morning we were only making .75 knots below average.  That all costs a whole lot of time when you're traveling great distances so we decided we'd have to be stopping short.  So that's what we did this afternoon, arriving at 4:30.

 Wow!  It didn't take long before everyone had a tuna on.  And they weren't those 8-14 pounders either.  There were some of those, but the majority of them were those 20-30 pounders.  I say again, "wow".  It bit steady the whole time we which is a couple of hours.  During the stop, I had tied a few hooks and cast a few baits out, you know , like we do, and quite a few times the hook would fall off and I would scratch my head and ask myself, " are my knots failing"?  They weren't.  It took crew member Justin to spot a wahoo flying out of the water to figure it out.

 So we wound them in and threw back the marauders.  Before dark, which wasn't long, we had a little binger for 5 and then one for 1 50 pounder.  Say it with me now.  "Wow"!  We aren't going anywhere tonight.  We'l just kick back and see what the day has to offer.

 My buddy Glen caught the 50 pound wahoo today.  Every year for a while now he has been the last member of the little troll team that I like to call, " the troll of shame"  That's the last few people on board who have not yet caught a wahoo.  He will not be joining that team this year.  Nope.  This year he can join the heckling party.  He get's to see what it's like from the other side.  Way to go Glen.
       

 

Long time friend, crewmen, passenger, and father Dave Dunham passed away earlier this year. His daughter Julia picked off a beautiful Yellowfin Tuna to start off the morning Hope you are proudly looking down smiling today Dave.

~~Sep. 18
 Well we had some action today.  We fished our wahoo/tuna honey hole.  It wasn't red hot but we made some drifts and caught some fish.  Our last couple schools we saw before lunch didn't react so we took a tour.  We found some tuna a couple hours into the tour.  The bigger ones.  The 25-35 pounders but we weren't ready.  Some were napping or lounging.  It hit us quick.  Everyone that made it out hooked up but it didn't last long.  We got on a couple of more deals after that but they were smaller fish.  12 pounders so we continued on our tour.  We looked for yellowtail in the afternoon but like everywhere right now it seems, there wasn't any current. 
  The weather straightened out for us today.  It was nice again.  We have one day left to fish and we want to do it catching yellowtail.  The elusive yellowtail.  That's usually the fish we don't have trouble finding but we've struck out this trip on them thus far.  We have about 30.  We want more so that's what we'll do.  From where we'll be fishing we can fish until lunch but then we have to hit the road for home.