mackay Fishing Report 2024

Today we spent the day trying for Wahoo and Yellowfin Tuna. It was a grind but we were able to catch some Yellowtail, great grade Tuna, and some Wahoo. Not the red hot bite that we were hoping for but still a good time none the less. We also had to make bait tonight. It went great. Lots of mackerel came aboard and we have plenty to fish with. We will try it again tomorrow for the hoos and Tuna. Pictured here is Mick with a large Yellowtail and crewmen Jake (the Snake) and Morgan doing some shaking in the wee hours of the morning.

24 nice grade yellowtail. 100+ miles on our track line today, we now know where not to be.

Well guys, we have thrown in the towel on our offshore season. I would first like to start out by thanking everybody who has come out with us this past season. To our loyal regulars, thank you very much for continuing to support us even though we were very crowded at times this past year. To our new customers, I hope we met all your expectations and look forward to fishing with you in the future.

Welcome to the San Diego family. 2012 has been a season I won't soon forget. From starting our season in La Jolla to getting kicked out of the Coronado Islands and then experiencing the best offshore fishing we have seen in years. This past season was a very unique one.

Here are our plans for the next 4 months. Since we are still unable to fish the Coronado Islands, we will be fishing in U.S. waters from the border up to Oceanside. These trips will be available Friday thru Monday and will depart at 7:00 a.m. and return around 4:00 p.m. the cost will be $80. These trips will target a wide range of fish. Yellowtail, white sea bass, calico bass, sandbass, halibut, sheephead, rockfish and rock cod will all be on the menu. I will put together a suggested tackle list in the next few days. We will do everything in our power to make sure we have live squid available on these trips.

Coronado Islands: rest assured that our issues at the Coronado are being worked on tirelessly by both Countries involved. I will keep everybody posted on any new developments. As soon as we are able to return to the islands you will be the first to know.

“Sea Dog” Dave McAdams holding a nice yellowfin. His charter group landed 163 yellowfin 1 bluefin 2 skipjack.

Polaris Supreme Update Nov.5

 

We weighed jack pot yesterday. Big fish went like this. Bernie 218, Charlie 208 I think, Jeremi 206. So once again myself and the crew thank George and his guests for another fun trip. J.C. thank you for the sun glasses. We'll see you guys on the golf course if we ever get it going. If not we'll see you in Big Sky. Can't wait!

I'll leave this trip with a story about a few of the crew and my friend," big fish" Charlie Middleton. At the beginning of the trip Mark the crow member Clark thought it would be a good idea for the crew to have a personal jackpot for the tuna they catch during they're watch. The rules were simple. To qualify your fish had to be caught between 8 at night and 5 in the morning. They allowed passenger Charlie Middleton to join them too. Immediately I'm out. I know better then to go up against that man but the rest of the crew did not. Unfortunately the fish didn't bite this time during those hours but Charlie managed to get one the second to last morning at 4 30 in the am. On the way home the crew finally paid him. I come to find out the morning we got in Charlie gave the crew they're money back and they excepted it. I am very disappointed in Jed, Gunny and Mark. They excepted it! Can you believe it? If it were me I would have burned the money before taking it back from Charlie. I know that's illegal but come on. I think that was in Charlie's plans the whole time. To just demoralize these crew members.

Now we've left on Lon Mikkelsen and this years co charter master John Esler's 10 day adventure. We have an awesome load of bait on board. Best of the year. We're going to have breakfast in the morning, have our seminar and then we're going to spend tomorrow pulling on nice yellowtails. It makes more since to Tommy to fish this species early in the trip as apposed to later on in the trip due to where the rest of the fishing will take place later on in the trip. So that's the game plan to start. Check back tomorrow for more details. As I was typing this I thought of a Hedburgh joke. If I lost 9 fingers I would still type just as fast. So true for me.

See yah. Drew

~~Sep. 13
 And we're off again.  This time for 8 days.  We got a pretty good jump at things today.  We cleared the point at lunch time which keeps our options open on where we can fish tomorrow and the next day.  I'm still not sure where we'll be tomorrow.  I may not be sure until I wake up in the morning and look at the hurricane coming up from below the cape.  As it's forecasted now, it's definitely going to effect our decisions on where we'll fish this trip and when.  But don't worry at home, we'll keep a safe distance from the dangerous winds at all times.  Find out tomorrow where I decided to start fishing.
        
 

Nov. 8

Go fly a kite. We did. Awesome weather and great signs of big tuna all around us. We hit them with everything we had -kites, sinker rigs, fly line sardines, mackerels, flying fish on 100 lb then 80 lb, then 60 lb, then 40 lb, then 30 lb nothing. Chunking - nothing. Anchored, then drifted, then trolled. We proved that fishing does not equal catching. If you listened close enough - you could hear the cow tuna laughing at us. We found solace in chef Schoolers platters of sashimi, wonton cups filled with marvelous ahi poke and bacon wrapped asparagus. We heard of a place where 30 lb Dorado and mid sized yellow fin play. We are going there now.

Your charter head Mr. Lon Mikkelsen

Nov. 8

Timing is everything. And so far our timing for the most part has been a little off, whether it be wrong day or wrong time. This morning we caught some quality fish. Less of them then we were hoping but we caught a handful of 35-50 pound yellowfin mixed in with several handfuls of smaller ones and a couple of wahoo. It didn't take long for Tommy to figure out that this was the wrong day not time. So we took off from there in search of. We found a few more wahoo on our next spot but only landed one before we kept sliding down to new zones. We fished a couple other spots for just a couple more fish while setting ourselves up for some stellar bait making. We got that job done before dinner and as I write this we are anchored up in cow town. We're expecting a couple slowish days while we're down here but the fish we land should be trophies.

The weather down here remains good. Clear skies, little wind and it's hot and muggy. Well I'm going to go back to bed for another hour or so. Check back to see how many trophies we get today.

Drew

 

Drove out to the honey hole and immediately saw fish. After drifting for a couple hours it became obvious that today was a different day. We had plenty of tuna around us but unfortunately they never reached the aggression level we wanted. We ended with 24 yellowfin tuna.