steelhead university Fishing Report 2023

~~Sep. 16
 Yesterday morning I was looking at the positions and forecasts of positions and conditions of hurricane Odile and it sure looked to me like we'd be able to go around it that night.  So after consulting with Tommy, he did some research and he agreed.  And by dark yesterday I was 95 percent sure we could do it.  Not enough.  We need 100 percent out here.  So we headed straight west most of the night until I got an update on the storm at 2:00 am which made me 100 percent sure we could easily make it around the storm.  So we hung a left and we've been traveling all day heading for Alijos Rocks.  We had some choppy weather this morning but we couldn't tell by our ride because we were going with it.  Down swell = a good ride.  The weather is nice now that I write this and we're expecting the same the next few days at least.

 We usually expect a couple travel days on an 8 day trip and today was one of ours.  We did try really hard though to find a nice big dorado kelp but we were unsuccessful.  The only kelps we found weren't big enough to hold a school of mahi.  So we'll have to do it tomorrow or the next day.  Or the next, OK.  We'll be concentrating on wahoo first thing tomorrow. We'll be saying our wahoo prayers tonight.  I'll check back later.
         

Tony “Big Delicious” LaDell with 4 of the 50 yellowfin we landed today. We also had 101 skipjack. Still plenty of fish around, all it takes is one stop.

Putting away the Bluefin gear for now. Our sights are set on warm water fish next. Possibly Wahoo or Yellowtail! Glassy seas and great weather here traveling down on our Beck / Emerson / Wagstaff 7 day! We have new shorter trips on line for the weekend after we get back departing Friday July 20 and Sunday the 22nd. Will report tomorrow, Team Supreme

Wednesday, April 24th, 2012

Hi friends. Starting off the day, we were expecting rain if not when we woke up but for sure around the mid-morning time. Captain Drew told me to expect work at 0700 hours this morning and that he would call me if he was going to call off the day. At about 0615 hours, my phone rang and when I saw that my phone read "Incoming call: Drew Henderson", I nearly trampled my girlfriend to reach for the phone and hear those beautiful words of "don't come to work today". Well, Drew being the awesome boss that he is just wanted to remind me that work was still on. Disappointed is an understatement. He specifically said that he would only call to let me know that we were NOT to come into work. I reluctantly suited up for work, still a little peeved that my vision of sleeping in and an all-day couch marathon was switched back to 7-11 coffee, 5-hour energies, and arthritic hands by days end.

Now some of you might be asking "Richie. Why so grumpy about going to work?" Well, after Tuesday's primer coat application, the primer creates what is called "orange peel".The entire hull looks like a giant, white orange peel and to rid ourselves of this orange peel, what must one do to smooth it out and get prepped for the final gloss coat? If you guessed "more sanding" then yes, you are correct. From 0700 until 1630 hours on Wednesday, we had to re-sand the entire boat with 220-grit sand paper to smooth everything out. Oh, how could I forget? We did all of this under beautiful, sunny skies. That weatherman is not our friend at the moment. He was wrong about the Wednesday morning/afternoon rain but he was correct about the rainfall on Wednesday evening in San Diego.

So here it is, Thursday morning and work was called off not only because of the rain but also to relieve sore, aching muscles as the constant use of both vibrating and orbital sanders took it's toll on Drew, Jed, Mark, Tommie, Jamie and myself from yesterday and we were given the day off. Thanks, Drew.

In all seriousness, there is a silver lining to all of my complaining of long days and sore bodies. All of the hard work that we put into the boat doesn't go un-noticed when we take a look at the boat right before the first trip of the season. The boat will look stunning and it will be a pleasure to keep her maintained throughout the years. When we have to put on our sunglasses to even stare at the hull and when you see your reflection perfectly in the boat, it's sweet justice to put so much time and effort into a project and to have it come out looking so beautiful. We can't wait to see how everyone will react when they first lay eyes on the new and improved Polaris Supreme.

Anyhow, I had some time to type out a nice, long report on our day off today. Weather permitting, we'll be back at it tomorrow to finish some touch-up sanding as we get ready for the final application of the gloss coat which probably will be scheduled for either Friday or Monday. We'll chat with you tomorrow and let you know how our day went.

-Richie & Team Supreme-

P.S. Sorry about no pictures lately. There really hasn't been anything picture-worthy in the past couple of days and the pictures I would've shot, you've seen before: all of us with sanders in our hands, gloves on, respirator masks, safety glasses and looking like giant powdered donuts. I'll send some shots with the completion of the gloss coat.

~~Aug 30
 Today didn't go as well as we were hoping. The plan sounded so good in my head too. You don't believe me? Come inside my mind and tell me it didn't sound like a good plan, you'll be a liar. The plan was to start here and work there. We were supposed to catch a bunch of yellowtail, then catch a wahoo or two, then scratch at some dorado here and there along with another wahoo or two, then we were supposed to get a small hit on wahoo in the end before finding the motherload of dorado.

 Well, there wasn't much yellowtail. The little bit of dorado we saw either didn't bite or was small. And we didn't see a wahoo until the end. We did see a school of good grade yellowfin that wasn't in our plan. It didn't bite for long though. It was on the corner biting every bait for about three minutes. Just long enough for everyone to get one and then they vanished. I drove around thinking I would easily find the school again but we never did. We lost at least 6 wahoo on the last spot we checked and landed none. The wahoo won today.

 Cool things of note today- the sailfish we caught, a couple marlin hooked and the orcas we saw. In the 14 seasons I've been out here I can only remember a handfull of times seeing killer whales so it's not too often we see them. We also don't catch sailfish too often.

 Tomorrows plan- wahoo!

Hello Everyone, Today we spent the first half of the day going for larger Yellowtail. There were a lot of Yellowtail around, but there was a lot of bi-catch as well. We managed to catch some Yelllowtail through the Barracuda to add some 20-30 lbers to the mix. Most of them came on the Yoyo jig the first 10 cranks off the bottom. Hoping for some Yellows tomorrow but will settle with some nice Reds and Ling cod. Wish us luck, Team Supreme

Aug. 30

Not to much to report from the Polaris Supreme today. We did a tiny bit of fishing this morning. We were seeing little dabs of yellowfin where we were and the boats below us were seeing the same thing. Just a little bit of fish scattered around and stops for not much so we wound in the jigs and put the blinders up and traveled down the rest of the day. We did our wahoo seminar mid morning and after that it was a leisure day. Some slept, some made wire leaders and some just kicked back and enjoyed the lovely weather. Man oh man was it nice out today. Flat calm seas, super light breeze and warm. August must be coming to an end and we welcome that. What a cold windy month for us out here. Our speed has been poor and it's looking like we won't be arriving to our destination until after lunch.

Today we had some decent Tuna and Wahoo fishing. It was for sure a grind but we were able to capitalize on a few shots on both Tuna and Wahoo. The Wahoo were good grade and really keyed in on the mackerel we caught last night. So it was as good thing we put in the work in to catch them! The shot at tuna yielded a great grade of fish . 20-40 lbers. The only downside is that they quit biting when the current died. Tomorrow we will try for wahoo and Dorado on kelps wish us luck ! Here we have Gary with his big Wahoo and a nice Supreme Sunset .