doug burts Fishing Report 2024

Hello everyone, Today we spent the day targeting Wahoo, Yellowtail, and what ever else we were able to find. We were able to scratch up some nice Wahoo and yellowtail, just not the numbers we would have liked. However the Wahoo we were able to find were quite large, some close to 60 lbs! Some truly great fish! We are going for big numbers tomorrow, wish us luck! Team Supreme

~~August 1
 Good morning.  It's morning time for me.  1:53 am.  I'm  writing about yesterday.  I'd call it good fishing.  Nothing crazy, just steady scratch fishing for most of the day.  Same old grade, 14-22 pounders.  Same basic grounds.  It was a lot more fun than that sounds though.  Come on, good fishing on a good grade of fish.  What more could we ask for?  Better weather? OK.  But sometimes you get wind.  When life gives you lemons...  Seriously though, we had a whole lot of wind today.  Here's the thing though.  The boat drifted great.  We may have had over 20 knots of wind, but the boat drifted like we had 10.  A little wind burn and some chapped lips is all.  As long as the fish bite and no one gets hurt.

 Good fishing or not, we decided to take a break from that wind this afternoon.  We made a little move where the wind gets blocked by The Island.  What a difference.  I compared it to sitting in a spa.  Just that, aaahhhhhhhhh feeling.  We even caught some fish.  There were some spots of YT's up and at dark we caught 4 grouper, a halibut and a tail on a drift.  Then we anchored up for Seabass and had dinner.  We haven't caught a Seabass yet but we're hoping at or just before daylight we get some.  One boat had some around these parts yesterday.

 So that's it.  We'll be here again tomorrow.  20 minutes left on my watch and I'll be going back to bed for a few more hours.  Stay classy everyone and thanks for stopping by.
       

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Good evening. With all of the life around the boat last night, we never managed to hook a fish this morning so we made a move and relocated the good sign of fish from yesterday. All in all, it was a very slow day up until the afternoon time when we got on a big breezer of smaller fish and had a nice little flurry on that smaller grade of fish. They really responded well, boiling within ten feet of the transom but for whatever reason we only managed to hook and land a handful. That was pretty much our hot action of the day. We saw a couple good spots of fish today but the Bluefin were Bluefin and it was a struggle to get a bite. There's potential for some decent hits in this area but for now, it's only for a couple of lucky boats and today, we were not a lucky boat. Sometimes, that's just how the cards fall.

With a beautiful load of Yellowtail in the fish holds and an annoying load of kelp flies everywhere else, we put a bow on the 2011 Paul Hess five day trip. Our utmost gratitude goes out to Paul for once again putting together a stellar group of folks and continuing to bring them back year after year. No matter what type of economic situation or what type of fish we catch, this group has a great attitude and they come out here to have a good time. Also, thank you to Sandra and Dave Lafferty for bringing some delicious food, especially the Cherry cobbler. We'll see y'all next year. Go Giants...not.

So there you have it. We're enjoying a fine ride as we motor back to port and we're shooting for a 0730 ETA tomorrow morning. We'll be coming back out with the Costello gang for five days of fun with Captain Drew Henderson at the helm. We'll check back with you tomorrow and have a good weekend.

-Team Supreme-

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Hi friends. We finally made it to the hot Bluefin grounds in the afternoon and as soon as we arrived, the bite shut off. We saw good life and a few schools but we never saw the whites of their eyes. There is potential to scratch out a day here as the few boats that were in the area all day had a few fish to show for their efforts. Based on that, we rigged up and tossed out the sea anchor and will be drifting offshore all night. There is a ton of life around us right now with squid, sauries, and birds all around so hopefully with all of this life, we'll wake up and pick away at some shortfin's. Wish us luck.

-Richie and Team Supreme-

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

Good evening friends. Yellowtail fishing aboard the Polaris Supreme was outstanding today. From right after breakfast until the late afternoon, we were pulling on 'tails in the 14-20 lb. class. Massive breezers, meter marks, and color spots were repeatedly located and we enjoyed steady catching all day long in beautiful weather. We had a very entertaining day and the evening time found us on the hunt for "premiums" which we managed to boat one right around 35 lbs. Hot rigs today was 30 lb. test, fly-lining a sardine with a J-hook tied on. No fluorocarbon, no designer circle hooks. A Yellowtail's mouth is like sandpaper, so there is no reason to waste the money on more abrasion resistant/expensive line and a hook that is designed to be set in the corner of the mouth so you don't get chewed off by a fish with teeth. With the exception of cow tuna fishing, we see more fish lost on circle hooks than landed. Granted every type of tackle worked today but time after time, we see just a simple 30 lb. rig filled with mono and tied up with a J-hook catching more fish than a rig with fluorocarbon and designer circle hooks. For Yellowtail fishing, it's an unnecessary expense when a so called "cheap rig" will get the job done just as good. Hey, when you step foot on the Supreme, you can fish with whatever type of tackle you wish. But take it from the people who are out here everyday, when it comes to Yellowtail fishing, keep it simple. Outfit yourself with mono and a J-hook and save that money that you would've spent on the fluoro/designer hooks because you're going to need to put it towards your fish processing bill. Get what I'm saying?

So that is all. The gang has had their fill on Yellowtail so the decision was made to venture offshore to focus on tuna fishing for the remainder of the trip. A couple of our community boats had an OK day on the Bluefin grounds so we're looking forward to seeing if we can't track down a few schools and add to our beautiful catch of Yellowtail before trips end. Our weather is a little bumpy but everyone is too tired to notice, they're out and so are we. Wish us luck and we'll chat with you tomorrow.

Happy Hump Day,

-Team Supreme-

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Hello friends. We began the hunt for Bluefin tuna early this morning by shutting down in the gray light on a school of tuna and just as soon as everyone woke up to begin fishing, they vanished. So we followed suit and the hunt for greener pastures commenced. It took us a little while to get a school located but when we got it located, it was a good one. We immediately saw fish boiling up good all around the boat and we hooked a few right off the bat. We landed a handful and we lost a handful but what we did land were a beautiful grade of Bluefin in the 25-35 lb. range. With the massive surface show 360 degrees around the boat we decided to get the kite out. Multiple fish attacked the baits but missed the hooks and after that, all we could do was watch them boil within ten feet of the baits and turn their nose away from our double sardine rigs. We watched the show for a couple of hours before they bailed and it was a slow day from that point on. We did pull a couple of nice Yellowtail from a kelp paddy and we even trolled up a smaller grade Bluefin tuna later in the day. Not too shabby considering a lot of boats in the prior weeks have been calling in zero's for fish counts, so we're very happy with what we caught and we'll be back on the tuna grounds after we do some Yellowtail fishing. A couple of boats in our long range community had a pretty steady day on smaller grade Bluefin in another area so we'll keep our ears open to that developing situation. Like I said, we're going to go do some Yellowtail fishing as the bite has been hot and we're looking forward to finding out for ourselves just how hot the bite is.

So that's it. Our weather is fair and we're in excellent company with Paul Hess and his good friends. We'll be in the zone first thing tomorrow morning and we'll report back to you tomorrow. Take care now.

-Richie and Team Supreme-

P.S. Te amo, Anna. From: Mark.

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Hello friends. We're back in business as we departed on our annual Paul Hess five day trip this morning. Paul has been putting together a great group of anglers for the better part of a decade on the Supreme and we're happy to see all the familiar faces that he's brought aboard this year. Our bait loading went smoothly and we've been traveling in calm weather ever since leaving the harbor around lunch time. With boats spread out in different areas along the coast and offshore, we're taking our time in deciding what our game plan is. Part one of our journey will be on the hunt for Bluefin tuna tomorrow morning as one of our companions in the long range fleet saw good sign and had an OK day on the shortfins today. We'll begin looking around in the morning and we'll see if we can't boat a couple of tuna fish tomorrow before we worry about part two. Wish us luck and we'll report back to you tomorrow.

Happy Monday,

-Richie and Team Supreme-

Hi everyone! I have 5 spots open to fish on the Berkley sponsored, outer channel island trip that departs on Thursday night to fish Friday. $145 per person and there will be give away swag from Berkley. Please call Sea Landing for reservations (805) 963-3564. It looks like the weather is going to be great. Please come join us for some fun fishing at Rosa or Miguel. Thanks, I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to see you soon aboard the Apollo.

We are just wrapping up our trip here at Guadalupe Island. The grade was incredible and they bit awesome! Can’t wait for our next trip!

Today we arrived to the grounds late. We were looking around for wahoo a little after noon. We only scraped up one Wahoo. However around 4pm we got the anchor down and started catching some great quality Tuna. 18-25lbs with the 30-40 lbers making a showing in the mix as well. Very clean tuna fishing here today. Hopefully we can get these Wahoo figured out tomorrow. Here we Have Bryan and Wai Hung Man showing off their quality tuna.

Nov. 7

                First of all, what the heck was that?!  Did you see that tonight?!  Holy Toledo!  It was like a rocket or something, blasting through the sky, then all of a sudden, boom!  It just lit up.  For a second there, I thought that was it.  I thought, see you later world,.  This is it.  Then it was just out of control.  I watched it with the gyros for a while and it was zippin and zappin all over the place with a huge green glow in it's wake.  Wow!!  And the whole fleet saw it.  From here, out to there, and into there and all the way down there.  I can't wait to hear the explanation.  I'll remember that forever.

 

                  OK.  Onto fishing.. Today, we had a bad day.  Just an old fashioned bad day.  And I wish that was all I had to say about that, but you make me write more to you.  That wouldn't be good enough.  So I'll explain it.  Last night I downloaded what I thought was a tasty looking water chart.  It shows much much less warm water around but there was a lovely looking strip of warm headed southeast from Clemente.  So I thought I had this great idea to start at the Island, and leave when they closed it down at 11:30.  Well it's what we did.  We started at the Island, only we didn't catch a whole lot.  A handful of nice yellows and some junk was all.  So we stuck with the plan and headed down that strip of warm water.  You know, the promise land, so I thought.  I was wrong.  And that's all I have to say about that.

 

                We did experience some great flat calm weather.  And we caught our first ever American wahoo in November, so that was cool.  Good boat, good crew, and good food.  We just missed the good fishing.  Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.  Sometimes you're sitting field level, and sometimes you're sitting nose bleed.  That's all a part of the game.

                                                                                                                               

14 Anglers, 23 Yellowtail, 47 Bonito.  Tomorrow’s trip (Nov 13) has been cancelled due to lack of reservations.