south florida Fishing Report 2025

"Fishing today was absolutely excellent!" wrote Polaris Supreme skipper Tom Rothery August 23. "The albacore bit all day and the weather has laid down and is good. All the albies were in the 25 to 30-pound range. For lunch we had swordfish in a butter, lemon, and caper cream sauce. For dinner we had a rack of lamb with a blue cheese port wine sauce. Yummy! A couple of boats headed to Guadalupe to no avail. We still have a spot here and there on some of our upcoming trips. Give Susan a call in the office if you can get away and come fish."
Rothery docked his boat at Fisherman's Landing August 24. He spent his fishing time on the four-day trip on the albacore grounds, with a half-day at Cortes Bank, where second skipper Drew Henderson reported big numbes of large bonito biting. The bones were eight to 12 pounds, he said. John Windling of Portland, OR won first place for a 41.4-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Mutu hook tied to 40-pound fluorocarbon leader and 60-pound Line One Spectra. He used an Avet JX reel and a Calstar 765 XL rod. David Schulz of Yorba Linda was second, for a 38.6-pounder, and John Thompson of Phoenix, AZ won third place for a 37-pound albacore.

Friday, August 10th, 2012

Hi friends. We finished up our trip today with a decent score of small bluefin, medium bluefin, small yellowtail, large yellowtail, dorado, and two very nice yellowfin. Mark also caught a yellow hard hat which he promptly wore the duration of the day. Anyhow, our weather started out kind of windy but by days end, it was absolutely gorgeous. We're happy everybody had a good time and we'll be in tomorrow morning sometime around 0800 hours. We'll be turning around and rollin' back out with Eric Rogger and company for a five-day adventure. Check back tomorrow and have a lovely day.

TERRIFIC OVERNITE TRIP!! APOLLO had 24 anglers on an overnite trip catch limits of Rockfish(240), 60 Whitefish & 24 Sheephead. Always a good trip with Capt JJ. Call now to book your reservation at Sea Landing @ (805)963-3564

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.
    

Capt. Ray Montera will be going out tomorrow in search of yellowtail. If you have ever wanted to catch a 20 plus pound yellowtail. This is the time for you.

Aug 14
    As I write this, it's the morning of the 14th.  When I was awakened for my watch and day at 3:05 this morning I couldn't tell if we were running or if we were anchored up in the bay.  You can't really hear the engines from where I sleep but I couldn't tell from the ride because it was so nice going up last night.  I seriously asked Tommy as he was still up reading.
    
    The fishing slowed down for us today as fishing does from time to time.  The bluefin didn't bite as well this morning nor did the yellowfin.  There was still yellowfin to catch this morning and there were some good scores had in the afternoon away from the bluefin zone but we caught enough yellowfin yesterday and hung out in the bluefin zone for a chance at some more of those trophies in the afternoon/evening.  We still had a decent morning.  I mean we still caught 14 nice bluefin and some yellowfin, but the bf's never made it back around for the afternoon snack fest.  We had a great trip and will be off loading a nice catch tomorrow morning at 6:00 and turning right back around shortly after that for 5 days.
 
     One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the amount of these toad bluefin being caught on jigs.  More then I have ever seen ratio wise but that could also be because more people were doing it but that could be because it was working well.  The shimano butterfly jig is the jig that caught most of our jig fish. But that could be because that's what most people were using but that could be because it was working so well.  And 90+ percent of those were caught on the sink.  No retrieve necessary except to bring it up to sink back down.  They loved it.  So if I were coming out this year I would throw a couple of those in my box.
                                
    
    PS- Shimano gave me nothing to write that last paragraph.  It just worked.

 

Finding that better grade. Today we spent the day Tuna fishing. At times it was frustrating with the large numbers of small fish. However there were some who stuck with it and were able to pull some 40 lb plus Yellowfin from the mix. We will spend tomorrow looking for another new species. Wish us luck, Team Supreme

Today was greatly disappointing after such a great fishing yesterday. Our efforts for better quality fish did not pay off. We saw great signs of 80-100 lb. fish but they just didn't want to cooperate. They would boil up good and look promising, but we only got a handful of fish. We are going to leave this place and give it time to straighten out. We are going to look for a new area. Our weather is still absolutely premium. Warm, hot and balmy. Thanks for checking in.