ute lake Fishing Report 2025

Spent most of our time looking for better conditions and biting fish. We scratched 4 yellowtail 14 barracuda 26 calico bass. Tomorrow’s a new day.

July 19
  Today went well I thought.  Starting with our ride up last night.  As good as it gets.  Flat calm.  The only swell was a long swell that would slowly, gently rock the boat.  We slept like babies.  In fact, I think I woke up with my thumb in my mouth.  I let everyone sleep in if they chose to.  We didn't start fishing until just before 9:00 in the morning.

  We were pleasantly surprised with the fishing.  It was good.  We tried for some more yellows, for us, and to check out the grounds for future trips as well and they bit well.  We kept 2-4 going the whole time until we drove away from them.  "We left them biting".  Our favorite thing to say out here.  After that we ran up and made a few drifts for some Cod.  We had the time and I had a few requests so we caught a few rockfish.

  Now we're headed home.  The crew's scrubbing the boat, I'm writing this, I think there may be a poker game going on, and we're just hanging out and enjoying ourselves and the beautiful ride up.  The wind and swell are on our stern.  That storm out there is blessing us with a lovely ride home.  Its like we're riding down but we're going up.  Timing is everything.  Sometimes it all comes together and this trip was one of them.

  So we'll be home bright and early tomorrow and of course we'll be headed back out a few hours later.
         

~~Oct.16-20
 So for the last few days, I was either too busy to write a report or just too tired.  I knew these blogs wouldn't be making it out here until tomorrow anyway so I figured I would just do a 4 day report to explain the remainder of our trip down below so here it goes.

 When I left off, the sharks backed off and allowed us to have a great afternoon and we were hoping the sharks would do the same thing they did last year after the first couple of days which is leave.  That didn't happen.  It was a sharky trip for sure.  Brown Reef Sharks were in the picture for the remainder of the time we were down there.  Sometimes they were relentless and we'd have to pull anchor and go trolling for wahoo and other times they would back off just enough to allow us to scratch at the tunas and then other times they would back off completely.  They weren't tuna eaters though.  They let us wind in what we hooked, but they loved our kite baits.

 Anyways, we still had an excellent trip down there sharks or no sharks.  There were a lot of windows of opportunity and there were some slow windows as well.  There was almost always a window where we would get at least two cows before sunrise, and after that it never stayed consistent.  If we didn't need to sleep it would've been convenient.  I know we missed plenty of tuna bites in the dark hours through out the night but that's when we would sleep.  Like I said though we had an excellent trip and here are the numbers to prove it.

 130 yellowfin tuna and 60 wahoo for 8 guys for 6 days.  54 tuna kept.  11 over 200 lb's, 5 that may go when we weigh them on the dock scale, 6 between 170-180 and the rest were 100-150 pounds with much fish being in the 120-130 pound class.  We also released 76 of those too!  One release estimated to be around 200 pounds and several in the 150 pound range and like I said, many in the 120-130 pound range.  Our largest was 240 and next in line was a 234 pounder kept.

 Here are the team jackpot totals: 1st place goes to Charlie and Craig with 2 fish totaling 453 pounds.  2nd went to George and Scott with 2 totaling 414.  George also had 5 tuna over 200 pounds by the way.  One per day besides the last day.  3rd place went to the Jer-bear and JC with 399 pounds, and Brian and Bernie finished just behind them with 396 pounds.  None of this is official.  We still need to weigh them oin land.

 And that's basically how fishing was down there.  Here are some things that stand out to me while we were down there.  First of all I'd like to talk about KC.  I'm not saying he was scared, he just didn't seem too pumped on fighting one of these fish we call cows.  He wasn't the first or fifth for that matter to jump on a spot on the kite for example when one was available.  On the third day it couldn't be avoided.  He got up on that kite and when he did this particular time he hooked a big one and he handled it as well as anyone.  I mean he kicked that fishes @$$.  He came to battle and he won.  It taped out as a 193 pounder.  After that it wasn't hard to get KC up on the kite when a spot was presented.  It went from where the heck is KC, to him not leaving the rail at all.

 I let Mark know the Raiders lost.  I did it in a mean way too.  His birthday was the 16th I believe, and Chef Mike baked him a cake and we all sang happy birthday and when it was over, I gave him my birthday present which is spilling the beans on lying about the Raiders beating the Chargers.  Ha ha Mark.

 The weather was a lot less steamy the last few days down there.  It was still hot, but once the clouds went away it didn't feel like a sauna there anymore.  Although myself and a few others got the worse case of burnt lips we ever had.  I did it in a dumb way too.  I knew I should go get my chap stick from my room on the first day down there but my lips did;t feel like they were getting chapped so I thought, because of the humidity my lips weren't drying out and I didn't need protection.  Dumb, stupid and idiotic.  My lips may not have dried out but they still got as burnt as ever.

  So that's it.  We now travel for a few days.  The crew has plenty to do.  Clean, clean clean and sleep.  The passengers will be sleeping and celebrating a wonderful trip.  We'll be trying to break up the ride on our last day of travel by looking for a dorado kelp but that's still not for a couple more days.
      

 

Lifting one of these fish completely off the deck after the long battle may be the toughest part ! Another amazing day of local big fish for captain Matt and the guys. 35 anglers. 20 bluefin tuna. Same tackle suggestions as earlier posts. If you do not own a 2 speed reel. Please rent one from Seaforth Sportfishing when you check in for the trip in the morning.

Happy Easter! I have decided to put some ultra limited load open party trips together for fishing the northern Channel Islands this weekend. I have set up two trips on Saturday and Sunday the 10th and 11th of April. I anticipate trying to find sea bass in the morning and falling back on rock fish and ling cod for the rest of the day. These trips will be limited to only 20 people max!! This just seems to me to be such a great opportunity to get out to the islands on such a nice boat without having to deal with a crowd. The trips will depart from Sea Landing in Santa Barbara at 9pm Friday and Saturday night. The cost will be $175 per person. Please come join me and the crew aboard the Apollo next weekend. I look forward to seeing you.

Please call Sea Landing to make Reservations at (805) 963-3564.

Shortly after arriving on the grounds we located a small school of yellowtail and caught 2. We then proceeded to drive around for 2 hours and never found another school. A couple of rockfish stops in the afternoon assured all 30 of our passengers will be eating fresh fish.

GOOD SHOT ON A 2 DAY!!! APOLLO went with 22 anglers and they brought home 88 Dorado, 41 Yellowfin, & 36 Yellowtail. Checkout their next open party trip at Fisherman's Landing @ (619)221-8500

Tommy Rothary with an update about the season!

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