quinte Fishing Report 2023

Drew Henderson docked Polaris Supreme October 25 after a ten-day Bunker Memorial trip with 22 passengers. His anglers found some excellent yellowtail fishing, and big jacks swept the pot.

Bob Williams of San Diego fought his 41-pound yellow for 20 minutes before it came to gaff. He won first place for it and said he used a sardine on a 4/0 Mustad J-hook on 40-pound P-Line, with a Trinidad 30 reel and a Calstar 700 H rod.

Rick Bynum won second place for a 39.9-pound yellow, and Paul Kraft took third place for a 39.1-pounder. Paul's cousin Ed Kraft of Pt. Hueneme stood in with the group holding his 33-pound dorado.

Mike Pritchard called in to wrap up results of the Tribute's 1 Day Charter. "Good fishing here today. We had very, very good Yellowtail fishing. We caught 131 Yellowtail, 14 Dorado, and 16 of that nice grade Yellowfin, from 18 to 30 lbs. We'll be out here on another 1 Day trip tonight. We'll let you know what happens tomorrow."

Today was mostly a travel day. We check around for albacore but the fish were down. The wind picked up this afternoon but we are good south so the ride is fine. This is our second day out on an eight day trip. So we have plenty of time to find the fish.

Capt Mike Pritchard called in from the Tribute with an awesome early morning fish report, it is 9 am and we already have 47 Bluefin Tuna from 40 to just over 100lbs, and a few Yellowfin Tuna. What a way to start the day, if you coming out to fish, make sure your tackle is in good working order, this will prevent some heartbreaks. We recommend that you have at least a 40 lb set up, also, a special thanks to SAC for assisting in getting the Bluefin Tuna issue resolved with Mexican authorities. Hope to see you out here soon.

Aug. 20
    Another fantastic day out here for us.  We had a great nights sleep.  The boat just gently rocked us to sleep just like a baby.  We tried for a gray bite but only caught one.  It didn't take long looking for a school before we found one.  We short stopped 15 yellowfin and then it didn't take long to find another deal and that one was good for a 2 hour drift.  When that dried up it didn't take long to find another one and that one was good for a 2 1/2 hour drift.  After that it was lunch time and we're pretty much done with the yellowfin.  We spent the last half of the day looking for bluefin unsuccessfully.  We're going to head for some new grounds.  And by that I mean some water I can't remember ever fishing in.  We have reports of some bluefin schools so we're going to check it out.  We'll be there first thing.  I'll let you know.

    The weather today got interesting.  It stayed pretty much windless through out the day so it remained similar to a lake, but around 9:00 in the AM it started dumping rain on us.  And I mean dumping.  Everyone on board scrambled for there rain gear.  I got to try out my new Aftco raincoat and it worked great.  During the down pour the lightning that was around got pretty darn close so I had everyone go indoors to wait it out.  It didn't take long to pass and we continued fishing and catching.  After that it stayed dry the rest of the day.  The boat got a nice fresh water rinse.
                                    

 

We stopped the boat once today and didn’t move until it was time to go home. We ended up with 123 yellowfin 53 bluefin. Live bait has been best but we had our fair share of bites on the Shimano colt sniper. 100 gram was the best size.

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

We had excellent fishing on the smaller grade yellowtail. We only kept 49 of the bigger ones and the rest were released. We looked for wahoo but they weren't around. But we weren't done. We got into a fantastic bite with marlin. We released them all but it sure was fun. We had carne asada for lunch and and a good old fashion roasted turkey with all the trimmings for dinner. The weather is kinda choppy but we are going south and our ride is good. When all was said and done we had a fun day of fishing but didn't keep much.