captain chucks Fishing Report 2024

56 bluefin 42 yellowfin. Long drifts keeping 1-5 fish in the 20-50lb class going all day. Rubber banded sinkers and colt snipers reigned supreme. 40-60lb line for both techniques.

July 18 We couldn't get in our groove today. Stops for 1,1,1,1,1. Saw plenty of fish. Nothing I would call a school but descent balls of fish that just wouldn't react for us. And that's all I have to say about that. Arrive depart tomorrow on another 5 day. July 17 We made awful time coming up the line from Cedros last night then all day we got tied up with all the tons of bluefin schools we passed along the way. 60 miles of the fish. We also scratched yellows on the kelps we went by. The albacore evening area moved up 20 miles and we didn't get to the grounds until 3:15.

 

 

 

We did manage to find a couple hungry biting schools of albacore before dark and put some more meat on the boat currently chilling at a comfortable 30 degrees. Weather is fine and we're going to enjoy some delicious lamb chop for dinner and hit the rack. We'll be here tomorrow to finish up the trip. We are far away from home but we'll stay as long as the fish are biting. Sorry Tommy, we might be getting home late on Monday. July 16 For the past 2 weeks if you were a long range boat at Cedros you just rolled up to a certain spot on the island, shut down and made a day of it. Not today, that certain spot was not happening today. We had to fish. It took a while to locate them but around 11:30 we did. 6 schools up at a time. Unfortunately they were not biting fish. We'd stop on a big school for 6, stop on one for 3,1,0,6,12, like that. At 5:30 we stopped on the mother load school and had them almost jumping in the boat they were so thick but yet again, it didn't bite like advertised. We did get quite a few there and hit a couple more schools before dark where we caught some fish. Perfect weather today and should remain that way for at least a couple more days. We're going to take advantage of the glassy sea and head back offshore for the remainder of the trip. Good night. Drew and the famous crew of the Polaris Supreme. July 15 We started off at the night before hot evening bite area with the fleet. We drove 20 miles to far before light. A code boat who had a later jump passed through that area at daylight and found some biting albacore. So the fleet slides up 20 miles. When we got up there we had time for a couple of stops before the door slammed shut. From then until we left, SLOW. We started to slide down. 20 miles later we're back where we started and we see the fish. 1 good stop, 3 short stops and 1 great stop later, we're headed down to the Island for some great yellowtail fishing and sun block wearing weather. Oh yeah, the weather today was just fine. Drew and the crew. July 14 Good afternoon viewers. We arrived at the dock early this morning and weighed up jackpot. 1st was Tim Ryan with a 36.6 albacore. Second was Kirk Kirkpatrick with his 34.6 pounder and bringing up third was Dennis Mc Neely with one at 33.6. We are now rolling down in beautiful much overdue sunny weather. We have a full load of fantastic sardine and passengers eager to use them. I'm just sitting in the wheelhouse starring at my water charts and listening to my code boats trying to figure out where to be tomorrow. We're going to start somewhere offshore tuna fishing. The reports don't sound to great so we might have to do some fishing tomorrow and try and relocate these albacore. The weather forecast looks great so we have that going for us. It's almost seminar time and shortly there after dinner time.

Real good fishing today in the morning on 70-125 lb. tuna. The afternoon seemed like it was going to be slow, but low and behold late in the day we got what we think is the biggest cow of the season so far. It taped out at 364 lbs. We see what the scales say.

~~Oct. 22
 Strictly a couple of travel days for us on these dates.  That's three in a row now.  1 1/2 days of that in good weather and the other 1 1/2 days in choppy weather.  The boats cleaned inside and out now.  The rails have been oiled.  Now we wait and do things like we do on these days.  You should know the travel day drill by now. 

 So anyway, we're fat, happy and lazy but we need to snap out of it now because tomorrow we're going to do some fishing.  We'll be looking for a dorado kelp tomorrow.  We should only need one dorado kelp to get what we need so hopefully we can get it done.  We'll find out shortly.  the weather should be nice tomorrow which will make the kelp easier to find.
       

"Fishing today was absolutely excellent!" wrote Polaris Supreme skipper Tom Rothery August 23. "The albacore bit all day and the weather has laid down and is good. All the albies were in the 25 to 30-pound range. For lunch we had swordfish in a butter, lemon, and caper cream sauce. For dinner we had a rack of lamb with a blue cheese port wine sauce. Yummy! A couple of boats headed to Guadalupe to no avail. We still have a spot here and there on some of our upcoming trips. Give Susan a call in the office if you can get away and come fish."
Rothery docked his boat at Fisherman's Landing August 24. He spent his fishing time on the four-day trip on the albacore grounds, with a half-day at Cortes Bank, where second skipper Drew Henderson reported big numbes of large bonito biting. The bones were eight to 12 pounds, he said. John Windling of Portland, OR won first place for a 41.4-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Mutu hook tied to 40-pound fluorocarbon leader and 60-pound Line One Spectra. He used an Avet JX reel and a Calstar 765 XL rod. David Schulz of Yorba Linda was second, for a 38.6-pounder, and John Thompson of Phoenix, AZ won third place for a 37-pound albacore.

Today was one of those days in which our anglers and ourselves will probably remember for the rest of our lives. Not because of the amount of fish we caught, but the tremendous shows these fish put on. It all began this morning when we found a fishy area on our way to a spot in hopes of wahoo, tuna and grouper. We spotted a nice bird school in some beautiful looking water. When it first came into sight, still a couple miles away, we saw some 30lb grade tuna jumping around in the middle of it. When we got up to it, the scene was a bit different. The tuna were pushed off of it by a jumbo school of big stripped marlin. And what a show they put on for us. A couple of our anglers presented their bait or jigs in the right place and the right time and hooked into these big beautiful fish. They where tail-walking and jumping high out of the water everywhere. On top of that, we were constantly seeing free-swimming marlin on all sides of the boat. Some even came within five feet of the boat! There were literally hundreds of marlin around the boat. It was truly a sight to behold! Finally, after battling and releasing all the marlin we hooked, we carried on making our way to one of our spots that has been extremely productive for big wahoo, tuna and grouper the past couple months for us. When we got there we quickly boated a couple handfuls of very nice mid-sized yellow fin tuna. Even though the tuna where present, there was little to no sign of wahoo. All of our anglers having wahoo on their mind, we decided to make our way to a spot about nights run from where we were. We will be there at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Wish us luck and we will check in tomorrow. Tight Lines, Team Supreme

Still heading up today. Prospecting for Tuna. Limited loads and culinary excellence is a huge factor in every long range fishing experience. From 1.5 - 23 days we always keep the standard set high! Here we have veteran crewmen Chris, nick name (Slider) dishing out some sliders on a recent 1.5 day trip for an afternoon snack, right before the delicious final night Filet Mignon dinner. Slider has been doing this since the early 90s and still has the same fire as he did back then. Right on Slider! We have a day and a half trip departing Friday July 20th

Aug. 27-28

Here's a 2 dayer for you all. I forgot to write yesterday's report due to my enthusiasm not being crazy high about it. So we fished in these bluefin grounds all day yesterday and for a few hours in the morning today for not much. Yesterday we were seeing sign of fish around. We didn't see any schools driving around but we'd get a meter mark and stop the boat and after a while we'd see a handful or two sometimes more come under the boat and sometimes we would get a few and other times we wouldn't but at that rate the final tally wasn't anything to write home about so that's probably why I didn't. Today wasn't better. I can't say we ever saw a fish even on the machines. We looked through the traditional area early for nothing then went that way for a while then we turned that way for a while and then we turned that way for a while and then we called it a trip. It means nothing for future trips the way this bluefin is. Tomorrow can be wide open. A hell of a trip anyways if you've been reading you'd know it. The boats clean and everyone on board is stuffed and rested. We'll be getting in at 6:00 in the am tomorrow and then we're departing on the 9 day! I'm really looking forward to it. Getting out of this cool August offshore weather and into the warm wahooey weather. As Joe Beck would say, "yeah baby". Thanks to everyone on board and shame on those who were thinking about making it but didn't. You missed the best bluefin bite you've probably ever seen. Drew