hillarys Fishing Report 2024

Tom Rothery brought his Polaris Supreme home to Fisherman's Landing January 11 after a 16-day trip to the Hurricane Bank and the Southern Banks of Baja. There were seven anglers on the annual George Davis expedition, and they produced ten more cows for the record.

In his report from the boat on Friday January 2, Tom reported a good day of fishing.

"Yes, now this is what I'm talking about," he wrote. "We finally got a break in the weather. It is beautiful and we have left Hurricane Bank. We are now heading to the upper banks. We will be there tomorrow night. Yesterday was an ok day of fishing. George kept a 219 and released a 185. Jeremy released a 140.

"Craig kept a 205 and by the way that was a mistake yesterday. Craig kept a 210 pounder. Al kept a 100 for his buddies that are going to Ennis hunting. They are going to open pit barbeque it on a spit like a pig. Now, that sounds interesting. ‚Д®

"Charlie released a 125 and Scott released a 140. Each day we also had five to 12 fish that we caught that were under 100 pounds and were not mentioned. These all were released.

"Yesterday we also had good wahoo fishing. Jeremy and Craig both caught 4 and Gunnar and Al got 3. Everybody else had a couple a piece. Overall the trip to Hurricane Bank has been very good with eight tuna over 200 pounds, and excellent wahoo fishing."

Chartermaster George Davis of San Dimas won the jackpot while catching four cows. His tuna weighed 241.8, 219.8, 213.6 and 208 pounds. The big one came on squid on the kite, he said.

George fished with 7/0 Mustad 7691 hooks, 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Line One Spectra on a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. He said the big one came to gaff in just 20 minutes.

Allen Tokunaga of North Hollywood won second place for a 224.6-pounder.

"These Hurricane Bank fish seemed a little tougher than the ones on the inside," he remarked. "This one took me 40 minutes. He went around the boat a couple of times, and then came up on the port side of the stern."

Al fished a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook, on 130-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon leader, 100-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra. He used a Penn 50 reel modified by Cal Sheets and a Calstar 6465 XXH rod.

Scott Brown of Costa mesa won third place for his 213.2-pounder. He also got a 202.6-pounder. He fished a small jack under the kite on a 9/0 Mustad 7691 hook. He used 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra on a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod.

"The big one was a 20-minute fish," he remarked. "He came to the boat pretty good."

One big tuna was eaten by the passengers and crew while the boat was still fishing. It was a 215-pounder caught by Craig Johnston of Costa Mesa, who also got a 204-pounder. Craig said he got them on the kite, on double sardine baits pinned to 7/0 Mustad 7691 hooks. He fished with a 130-pound Momoi topshot on 130-pound Izorline Spectra, with a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod.

"It took about 30 minutes," he said. "We had rough seas then; it was a fun fight."

Jeremy Chandler of San Dimas got a 203.6-pounder on a jack under the kite on a 7/0 Mustad 7691 hook and the boat's kite rig.

We have a Berkley sponsored open charter this Friday. This will be the first trip after Ling cod opens. There will be give away packs for everyone. Come on out and have a fun day on the water with us this Friday April 3rd. We will depart from Sea Landing at 9pm on Thursday night. The cost will be $145 and the trip is limited to no more than 25 people. Call (805) 963-3564 to get in on the action.

Sep. 9

It was awesome yellowtailing this morning. As soon as we got to the grounds it was on and that time was dark 30. That's right. It wasn't even daylight yet and we were gettin um. Nice big fat yellows. As soon as daylight hit we were still gettin um and we kept gettin um for a few more hours too. And after that, we made a move and we were gettin um there too. So lunch time came around and Chef Shawn made yellowtail sandwiches and guess what, they were awesome. After that we worked up up up to get us in position for bluefining tomorrow. The weather coming up is not good. As I write this at the Charger halftime my legs are 6 feet apart for balance. Sometimes my butt is against the wall and I can barely reach the keyboard. The weather man is calling for better weather tomorrow. Should we believe him?

Unfortunate the weather made it very difficult to work yesterday but we did manage to get in a couple good opportunities. It the morning we got on a school of bluefin tuna right way and where able to drift for a few hours keeping multiple fish hooked. In the afternoon we found a new area of yellowfin tuna that looked very encouraging and we got a couple good chances at those as well. The weather is forecasted to be good for the next week so hopefully we can continue to get on them !! 

Aug. 10
    Well, I can't say we caught very much today.  I can say we saw plenty of schools, we just couldn't get more then one of them to bite and on that school we caught one 70 pounder.  I'm thinking we saw about a dozen schools of tuna today but like I said, it was the wrong day for biting fish in these grounds.  The weather though today, man o man is it nice out here so at least we got to look at non biting fish in good weather.

    In other fishing news we got the word from the higher ups that Mexico has lifted the ban on recreational bluefin tuna catching and keeping so with that news we're going to roll on down into some traditional Mexican bluefin tuna grounds and give that a go tomorrow.  We'll be looking for yellowfin tuna as well tomorrow.  We've heard they"re in the area too.  Wish us luck.
                            

 

Monday, September 10th, 2012

Hi friends. Just a real dandy of a day for us today. We started it out in the morning with the yellowtail snap and then we followed it up in the afternoon with Monday night footballs. The footballs were all you wanted and we also added a small handful of dorado to our days count. We did all of this in flat calm conditions and the boys are all wore out from the excellent fishing that we had today. Everybody's pumped and I screamed myself hoarse today.

For tomorrow, we're looking for tuna with a little more size as one of our code boats had a nice afternoon on those premium grade offshore yellowfin tuna so we'll be in the area looking around for a few ourselves. The boys enjoyed a twenty-two year old Cabernet sauvigon tonight and I think Robin and Wayne might have shed a tear together while talking about it. I still haven't had any but the dudes looked pretty glossy-eyed so I imagine it was pretty darn good.

Anyhow, the Blue/White gang is having a super duper fantastic time catching fish, drinking cocktails/wine, and eating Chef Shawn's culinary creations. Our weather forecast is looking good for tomorrow so hopefully we can get on a big ole' school of big yellowfin. Wish us luck.

Mason and Gage with a couple of our 83 yellowfin tuna. Finesse live bait was once again the star.

With great anticipation of a light load aboard the Apollo, all 14 of us anglers showed up at the dock early, swapping stories about past trips. We started boarding about 9:30pm and were greeted by Capt JJ Gerritsen and the rest of his crew, we signed in and had a seat for our safety briefing. Capt JJ then asked if we wanted to head offshore for Albacore which had dramatically slowed down the last couple days or head south along the coast for a shot at Dorado and Yellowfin and Yellowtail patty hopping. Without much hesitation we decided to head south and patty hop. We got the feathers in at gray light and started the troll, within 15 minutes the yell of "Hook-up" sang out, unfortunately the mystery fish got away and we were under way again. Five minutes later we heard that yell again, the mystery fish won round two and will live another day. Third time's a charm didn't hold true for us, our third hook-up is still out there in the deep blue. At that point the first troll rotation was fired (which included me) and the second shift took over. Within 10 minutes they had our first fish on the deck, a skipjack, from that point on while looking for patties we boated about 19 skipjack. We found our first patty around 10am and moved in with hopes of a wide open bite, but to our dismay there was nobody home. That held true for the next 8 patties we found, then finally around noon with a mouth full of burger, we heard the call to get ready. Never fails every time your food is done, it's time to drop a line. As soon as our sardines hit the water the patty expolded, we ended up with 1 Dorado and 2 Yellowtail. We only found two two more patties holding fish and ended up with 1 more Dorado and 4 yellowtail. It was now time to head back to port and we again set out the troll lines and managed to pick up 7 Yellowfin Tuna on the way back in. I really enjoyed sharing the rail with a great bunch of folks and look forward to doing it again soon. If you would like any of the pictures posted please email me at [email protected] .