clarks hill Fishing Report 2024

Back after a five-day trip, the 7th Annual Paul Chappell Charter aboard the Polaris Supreme arrived at Fisherman's Landing July 10. The 24 anglers were guided by skipper Drew Henderson.
"We got some nice yellowtail at San Martin," remarked Drew, "but there's a lot of that big squid around there. You can't get any more yellows once they get on you." Chartermaster Chappell won first place for his 34.6-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 2/0 Mustad 94150 hook on 30-pound Yo-Zuri line. He fished with a Penn Squidder reel and a Sabre seven-foot rod of the same era. Phil Beltrami of Napa won second place for a 33.4-pounder, and Craig Pappas of Santa Cruz won third place for a 32.4-pound longfin.

Today we came across some Killer Whales today! Pretty cool!

A rare and incredible sight in these parts! 

44 pass. 156 yellowtail 17 barracuda 5 kelp bass. Flylined bait, surface iron and yo-yo. Passports required.

Thanks for the amazing response to the OPEN Shimano Charters we scheduled for the Channel Islands this spring. The response was so positive that I spoke with the folks at Shimano and they agreed to put another trip on line. This one will be set for fishing on March 13. That would be departing at 9pm on the night of the 12th. This trip will be just like the others. Shimano will provide a bunch of outfits for fishing butterfly and lucanus systems. There will be give aways of tackle and goodies as well. Please email me if you would like to join us on this trip.

Oct. 5

I'm lying. Its actually Oct. 6 as I write this. It's Drew here, back from a few trips spent on land and fresh out for a healthy 40 day stretch. It appears I have some large shoes to fill as Cap. Richie has been putting the wood to the tuna fish out here lately. Well mother nature welcomed me back with some wind. Thanks mom. We arrived to the fishing grounds we chose to start about an hour ago and threw out the sea anchor in hopes that the tuna will find us rather then vice versa. It's easier that way when you have the wind like we do and if the tuna do find us it will be much more comfortable with the bow to the wind like it is with the chute out. We'll know the answer to that in about an hour or more. Baits o.k. There is much more sardine alive this morning then I thought there would be. So that's it. There's a dorado swimming around out my wheelhouse window so I'm going to go make someone catch it.

Ryan Bostian called in with this report from the Coronado Islands, "Today we went out with 17 Anglers and we are coming back to the dock with 44 Yellowtail. These Yellowtail are nice sized fish, 15 to 30 pounders."

They are biting the fly lined the baits today. You want to bring down your fly lined gear, your yoyo gear all your Yellowtail gear including surface irons.

Come on down and see us we offer these trips everyday. Once again this is Ryan from the San Diego. We are coming back to the dock with 44 Yellowtail for 17 Anglers.

Call 619-224-3383 to make a reservation or to get more information.

Oct. 12

Well we had a super busy day aboard the Polaris Supreme today. It all began at 4:00 a.m. when the crew woke up and started pulling our catch of cows and wahoo out of the fish holds. We tied up dockside at 6:00, off loaded all the passengers gear and then the fish. It was a long process. We got everything up to the top of the docks and then came the weigh in. I believe we ended up with 16 over 200 pounds and the one we taped at 297 ended up being just that. Damn. 3 pounds off. What a bummer? It was still a personal best for our friend George. Way to go sir.

After that there was a big work list to be done to prepare for the next trip but we got ur done and departed on Joe Gigliotti's 3rd annual Accurate sponsored 8 day trip this afternoon. We got a good load of bait and we're currently in route to the bluefin grounds. There was a couple of lucky boats today and many wiffs but we're going to try and get lucky tomorrow. It sure would be nice to get the sweat off on some 40-60 pound b.f.'s tomorrow let me tell you. So that's it. Good weather, good food and good company. Mostly regulars on this trip. There's only a couple of new faces. We'll keep you posted.

Our private charter had to display some good old fashioned patience today. In a typical 3/4 day trip we can expect to make about 3-5 moves thru ought the day looking for fish. Today however, we did not find what we were looking for until our 9th stop of the day. The rapidly changing conditions coupled with the short windows of biting fish have been driving yours truly crazy the past couple of days. Today's photo will show you why we have been putting ourselves thru such mental anguish. Today's final count for our 31 passengers is 11 yellowtail 20 calico bass 16 barracuda 7 rockfish. Our yellowtail today weighed 20-35 pounds and were biting the fly lined sardines the best.