francis fleet Fishing Report 2024

Aug. 25

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bluefin are the most unpredictable fish out there that we fish for. If you would have told me yesterday that we were going to have a day like we had today, I would have laughed in your face. Never again though. I will never trust this fish. For the last several days the bluefin fishing was very poor. I really thought that it was over for the year. I was wrong. Today we experienced the best bluefin tuna fishing I have ever seen. This is on a quantity to quality ratio that I'm talking about here. In my 13 years of long ranging, today was the best for the Bluefins.

Just after 6:00 this morning we stopped on a single fish mark under the boat. Just after 6:00 tonight we left them. The whole time we drifted it was pretty much wide open. The fish were from 25 up to 75 pounds. Most of them being in the 30-40 pound range. Once again we went into battle and we won. Oh yeah, we fished in the rain. At around 11:00 it started raining and it never stopped. Everyone on board was absolutely drenched all day and it was awesome. By the end of our stop no one was fishing so Mark and I grabbed a couple of rods and boated 3 of them ourselves. It was only Mark and I fishing and I was bringing one in and wouldn't you know it, when the fish was at gaff, there was Mark's spectra tangled all over my fish. 2 anglers fishing and he manages to make a big tangle. MAAAARK!!! I would have made him put on the dunce helmet but he was already wearing it. Heres why. There was a 2 fish tangle and Mark grabbed 1 of the rods to unwrap it and he dropped it right in the water. MAAARK!!!. Unbelievably another person fishing managed to hook one of the guides on the rod and we got it back. Fish and all. I immediately tossed Mark the yellow dunce helmet and he wore it all day.

Needless to say everyone on board is beat tired and we will not have any trouble sleeping through the night tonight. We're headed for the yellowtail grounds now and will be there first thing in the morning.

Well what the heck! I just went to go get some pictures to post on our wrap up of Tom Chaparros six-day trip! Yes that's right it was a six-day trip not a five! And next year it is going to be a seven-day trip! If you care to join Tom and his gang give Susan a call! He limits his trip to only 18 anglers. Anyways I went to go get some pictures out of our files and all we had was pizza! And then I realized the only slow day of fishing we had out of six days was the day we made pizza! Thus the only day we had time to take pictures! We were too busy gaffing 18 to 22 pound average yellowtail and or 15 To 16 pound average yellowfin tuna! Our fishing was absolutely fantastic. The yellowtail fishing was excellent surface iron and fly line sardine as well was the yellowfin tuna fishing. A iron throwers paradise. One thing I should point out about Tom's trip as well as every trip we've had so far this year is that our weather has been absolutely superb! I think maybe we've only had two choppy days in the last 33. Tom Chaparros seven day trip next year 2018 will be departing on Wednesday August 1 and arriving Wednesday, August 8. After getting to see what great fishing we could get into stretching the trip 1 day and seeing some of the other boats on longer trips getting a shot at the Wahoo it got everyone to want to extend the trip. Please check with Susan and Tom to see if they have openings. Thanks for tuning in and checking us out we have a few openings coming up in the fall please check out our schedule to see if something fits in to join us for some fantastic fishing. The Polaris Supreme Crew !

We spent all day looking for kelps and never saw a single scrap. Not a single scrap. One beautiful wahoo on the troll late and that was all we tagged. We will be anchoring up Alijos Rocks early morning trying for a night bite and try for tuna and skin during the day.

The San Diego out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego,CA checked in with us today:

Weather report was a bit off for our first trip of 2021. Spent the day on the anchor in manageable depths. Plenty of fish fillet for all. No sign of yellowtail, yet !

Skipper Drew Henderson took a look at the San Benitos Islands on a four-day Polaris Supreme trip with 24 anglers. He arrived in the afternoon to find fair to good fishing and some seals that were hungry but not ravenous. He said his anglers got yellowtail there up to 30 pounds. Next day he fished at Cedros Island.
"We got 80 big ones there," he said, "at the South End." Eric Thomas of Palmdale won first place for a 46.8-pound yellowtail. He bagged it with a sardine on a 5/0 Eagle Claw hook and 50-pound Big Game Line. Thomas fished with a Trinidad 40 reel and a Calstar 6460 H rod. He said he got the big ‚Дтtail in 15 minutes.
Shannon Nutt of Palmdale was second for a 37.8-pounder, and Edward Agadjanian of Glendale, home of Newell reels, said he used a Newell reel to take his third place 34.8-pound yellowtail.

Sep. 3

Well today was just dandy. I got out of the office today for several hours and it was neat. We got to where we wanted to be at 10:00 this morning and for 5 hours we had very good yellowtail fishing on just a beautiful grade. 18-25 pounds is what they were and they were snapping. It's just what we needed. A stopped boat with bent rods and excited passengers and crew. After that we were successful at getting bait and I was told by a few of the passengers that even that was a blast. Anyways it's safe to say that we are stoked. A load of fish and plenty of bait to use on tuna the rest of the trip. I want to take back my hole stupid time machine comment I made yesterday. I think our timing will be perfect. There's some big bluefin being had up above. Fish up to 150 pounds have been caught and that wasn't happening the beginning part of this trip. We're doing alright. The weather today was yet again just fantastic. We may experience some bump tomorrow though and it should come down for our last couple days.

Captain Andrew Viola called in today at 10:33 AM with update from the Pacifica out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay.  We returned this morning from a 1.5 day trips.  We had good action yesterday on the Bluefin Tuna.  We had a total of 45 Bluefin Tuna.  We had two Bluefin over 300 pounds (356 and 353).  We also had three Bluefin Tuna over 200 pounds.  Then we had about 12 nice fish weighing in between 80 and 180 pounds.  Late in the day we found a good school of 30 to 40 pound fish.   We had about about 25 of this nice fish.  It was good action right before the sun went down.  Good fishing and good weather.

Next few trips are overnights going for Yellowfin and Dorado.  Our next Bluefin trip departs on Monday night.

UPDATE: I just talked to Andrew and the 356 pounder is a boat record.

July 28
    Today we had about as good of yellowtail fishing as you can get.  Quality to quantity ratio, holy Toledo.  18-25 pound fish and they were biting pretty much as full speed as yellows bite for a couple hours and after that it slowed down but they were still biting well for a couple more.  If you have read my past reports you know that surface iron fishing on big yellows is my favorite kind of fishing and it was pretty much wide open on the surface iron.  Holy Toledo!  I'm not the only one who felt this way either.  We have a Polaris Supreme first timer on board, his name is Josh and he may love it more then me.  He named his dog after a surface iron.  Tady.  How cool is that?  We've had a tank of mackerel on board for about 3 weeks and we finally let them go today.  On hooks that is before getting eaten by yellows.  In the late afternoon ewe looked for bait and found some a couple hours before dark and caught a tank full of nice mackerel.  We restocked our supply.  We made a couple drifts along a kelp line while the sun set and tugged on a few calico bass and now we're headed up to fish tuna tomorrow.  Sweet dreams.
                            
    Oh yeah, Happy Anniversary to Renee.  I think you know who that's from Renee.