stillwater river Fishing Report 2025

July 7

Today was kind of a disapointing day for me. I had plans of having good fishing in the morning at Cedros then heading to Benitos and having descent fishing there. Well the water got funky on us due to the big south swell that was pushed up from the tropical storm that rode it's way up. It was a green green green and the yellows didn't like it. They were still there like they had been for the last week but they didn't bite well. After 4 1/2 hours we gave up on it and went with plan b. We arrived at Benitos after lunch and I will say we saw a good amount of fish all over the island. The problem was the sea lion population. Those things are out of control right now. It's wierd how it works at that island. Sometimes they're tolerable and sometimes they're not. Today they were not. We're headed back to Cedros now and we'll give it another chance tomorrow. This south swell seemed to back off some late today so hopefully there is some strong current through the night tonight to flush all that icky water out of there.

I just reread what I wrote and it sounds worse than it was. We scratched out an ok day. We averaged over 3 fish per rod. Compared to the last week it was slow but back up further and we had a stellar day. See you tomorrow.

Tommy Rothery returned Polaris Supreme to Fisherman's Landing November 18 after a ten-day Ocean Tackle Research charter. The boat had 13 anglers aboard. Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen of Hood River, OR saw his father, Bill Mikkelsen of Olympia, WA land the season's first super cow; a tuna over 300 pounds.
"It was full-speed fishing," said Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen. Bill Mikkelsen's big fish won first place after it weighed in at 308.8-pounds, caught on a fly-lined sardine. Bill used the boats gear, including a 6/0 Mustad 7691 hook, 100-pound P-Line, and a Shimano rod and reel.
"Tommy said it was tail-wrapped from the beginning," said the elder Mikkelsen. "And he was, but he got lose and went on another run. He took me around the boat twice." "We started with yellowtail fishing on the ridge that turned out to be a real good bite," said Rothery. "We easily could have got limits on yellowtail and dorado, but these guys normally release most of their fish. We had one day of awesome marlin fishing, which this group enjoyed quite a bit." "I think we had maybe 200 hookups on marlin," said John Esler of Portland. "But our yellowfin bite was pretty amazing. Once Tommy would find them, he'd shut the motors off and just drift. They didn't need a lot of chum either, they were boiling all around the boat." Esler landed a 206.7-pound yellowfin.
Matt Kiesse of Cederville, CA was second place with a 279.8-pound yellowfin.
"The trip was just spectacular," said Kiesse. "We got everything." Lon Mikkelsen was third with a 277.9-pound tuna. The trip scored five tuna over 200 pounds.

Sep. 4

                These darn bluefin let me tell ya.  This morning looked so juicy.  We drifted for hours on 3 different schools and caught 9.  Hours.  And it's not like they weren't hanging around.  I mean the boat was jugged underneath.  They were under us like shishkabob.  9 fish.  We lost our fair share but 9 fish?  With what we saw?

 

                Mid day wasn't that awesome.  We saw some but it didn't impress me.  We messed around with some small yellows while we waited for things to straighten out.  At 4 things did.  Not right away.  We saw the school and it took a while to get things going but eventually it did.  We drifted for 2 straight hours catching fish.  Not wide open.  But fairly steady. 1-6 going.  Action.  Nice ones.  After that drift we did it again.  Again it took a while to get things going but again, it did.  We drifted until dark on that one.  About an hour.  Same deal.  Maybe a little less. 1-4 going.  So it was an afternoon thing today.  I'm sure glad we hung around for it.

 

                So we head in now.  We're departing tomorrow on a 5 day.  What are we going to do?

                                                                                               

Aug. 29

Here we go again. We arrived early this morning and unloaded a deck full of bluefin and yellowtail, loaded up some sysco, put on a bunch of fuel, then loaded more groceries, put the new peeps on and took off on the glory run. The Gary Roberts 9 day baby. We got a good load of bait and we're headed down. It looks like we're going to pass by where we caught our bluefin last trip after daylight so we'll definitely be looking for those as we roll down. We'd never pass up that kind of fishing but we're not going to give it our all. If we don't see it and the other boats in the area aren't seeing it we're going to keep her rolling on down down down to destinations unknown. Or better yet not decided on. Either my next report will be about us catching bluefin or it will be about our traveling down.

We're on our way home after an absolutely great day of fishing," said Mike Pritchard. "We ended up with 136 Bluefin tuna, 8 Dorado, 6 Yellowtail and 50 Skipjack. It was very, very good fishing for a 1 Day trip.

"We are leaving on a 1.5 Day trip tonight that is sold out. But there is room on Suday night's 1.5 Day trip. If you are interested give Seaforth Landing a call at 619-224-3383."