grand lake of the cherokees Fishing Report 2024

Well if we thought yesterday was phenomenal, today was even better. I know I'm repeating myself but the fishing was just great again on the wahoo and dorado. And yes the marlin are still here and wanted to play. We have good weather and this is a nice way to end the trip. Great group, great fishing, great crew.

Mike Pritchard called in with this report for the Tribute. "We're wrapping up the 1st Day of our 2 Day Western outdoor News Trip. We had great, great fishing today. We caught limits of Yellowtail, 90 Yellowfin tuna, 5 Bluefin, 9 Dorado & a sprinkling of Skipjack.

We're going to shut down for the evening and be back fishing for more tuna in the morning. This is really great fishing regardless of the time of year.

It's a good time to hop on a boat. If you're interested give Seaforth Sportfishing a call at 619-224-3383."

Polaris Supreme docked at Fisherman's Landing August 26 under Drew Henderson's hand. The 24 anglers aboard had been fishing for five days, most of them at Guadalupe Island, where quality yellowfin tuna and yellowtail were caught. Matt Wheaton of Laguna Beach won first place, for a 57.8-pound tuna. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Mustad hook and 40-pound Izorline. He used a TLD 30 reel and a Calstar 700 H rod. Alan Romspert of Fullerton caught a 56.8-pound tuna, and tied for second place with Bruce Chisholm of Temecula. Floyd Spangler of Anaheim stood in with the winners in a lineup shot with his 35-pound yellowtail.

Official weight of this beauty is 217.5 lbs. sinker rig and 60 lb. To catch a fish like this on a local boat without trolling is simply amazing. Congrats to the best crew I have ever had.

Tuesday, August 6th, 2013

Hi friends. Well, our ride was just OK last night but we made it to the rockcod area safely and right on schedule. They weren't hittin' too hot right off the bat, but a wise black man once told Tommy Rothery, "rockfish don't bite until after 08:00 hours, yo." Gunny, you're so wise, with your little red hat. Gunny was right on. After 08:00 hours this morning, we started picking away at some really nice reds and Lingcods. After a couple of hours, we had to point the bow for San Diego and begin our end of the trip chores. It was a fun way to end the trip and the guys who stood at the rail, in the cold weather were rewarded with some of the tastiest fish that we catch out here. Good job.

Anyhow, not too much to report as we make our way up the line. Our weather currently (11:10 hours) is beautiful and we were just treated to a great showing of feeding Blue Whales. I'm guessing about 50 whales were in sight at one time, fluking and spouting their way about the ocean. Even better, I successfully managed not to hit a single one. You're welcome, Whale Wars, and sorry to the Nishin Maru.

With that, the gang is downstairs kickin' it, Chappy is making a movie and photo show of all the footage that him and I took this trip so that'll be cool to see tonight at dinner. Fish tacos for lunch, "Work Now" list getting the pen treatment, boys are scrubbing, paperwork time. We're out. Our ETA tomorrow morning is looking like 06:30 hours and we'll be turning around with Captain Drew taking us to the promised land. We'll chat with you manana. Time for sandals and Sirius 60's on 6.

P.S. Hi Drew! We didn't lose our prime on the W.M.! I just talked to her and said to suck it up, we're all under a lot of pressure too and she listened. We miss you, Drew. See you tomorrow, big guy! You too, Shabba! Shabba?? SHABBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I gotta go.

Tom Rothery docked his Polaris Supreme September 28 following the 10th annual Jeffery Hall charter. He tied up at Fisherman's Landing and weighed the top fish from the five-day trip with 22 anglers. Dick Langlois of Rancho Cucamonga won first place for a 69-pound tuna from Guadalupe Island. He said the fish bit on a sardine and a 4/0 Mustad hook. He used 50-pound Ande line, a TLD 20 reel and a Calstar 765 L rod. "I got him in 15 minutes," said Dick setting up for the punch line. "It was 90 percent skill." Dick's son Tom Langlois of Rancho Cucamonga was second, for a 57-pound tuna, and Kalob Hall of Victorville won third place, for a 45-pound yellowfin tuna.

~~
Oct. 17
 I think I'm happy with today. Another dorado kelp sure would have been nice though. When I told the other boats we were fishing with what we caught today, they all said good going on your day so I guess I can't complain.

We started off at San Clemente Island yellowtail hunting. It was pretty darn slow first thing. We gave it a while staying patient but we could only take so much, so we explored. For nothing. By mid morning I was concerned I'd be giving the Jackpot money back. No cause for worry though. We went back to our morning spot and the handful of other boats that were chilling there bailed out so we tried it again. We stayed steady for a while catching yellers. Mostly smaller ones though but with a sprinkling of nice ones. It quit biting at lunch so we went looking for a dorado kelp. We found one. It had a great big ball of flats on it. Nice ones too. Some would call them !@#$ slappers. It could've hung around longer but we caught a couple per rod while they were around. We also caught a wahoo. Perhaps the first wahoo this boat has ever caught in American waters. I'm willing to bet good money on it.

And that was pretty much our day as far as catching goes. We fished more. We tried our yellowtail honey hole again but it didn't work out. I think we planned it out good though. We fished a lot. Not a whole lot of long periods of driving like you can get on straight offshore days. We'll be in tomorrow and I'm not sure when we're coming back out. That all depends on you. Whether or not you go 1.5 day fishing with us. Regardless we'll be back out Nov. 8 on a 10 day. Which by the way, you can still book on that son of a gun too.
 

~~Sept. 3
        I slept in this morning.  Travel day.  I awoke at 5:00 and went straight to the
computer to see if we'll be bluefin fishing tomorrow or yellow-finning up.  Bluefin
it is.  10 knot flags out there all day tomorrow.  Nice.  So we didn't fish at all
today.  No reason to.  We traveled through 4 other boat wakes from yesterday and
they didn't stop the boat so we weren't going to cost us tomorrows fishing time to
try and prove them wrong.  I trust our code boats.  The weather traveling up has
been ideal all day long.  The passengers did what they do, movies, books, and
relaxation while the crew took it easy and did some chores at a reasonable pace.
We did a lot of organizing of things.  We went through crates and boxes and nuts
and washers and bolts and things like that and just made sense of it all.  The crew
even got around to detailing our beautiful teak rails.

        The bluefin reports sounded good today so we're excited about getting up there for
a couple of days to finish up the trip.  We'll either spend 2 days blue-finning or
we'll do 1 day here and go get our yellowfin on for the last day.  I'm not sure.
That's what's so exciting about it all!
I may not sleep well tonight I'm so excited.  Maybe it's because the 1.5 hour after
lunch nap I took and/or all the coffee I've drunken since then.  Not because I'm
tired, I just love coffee.  I'm kidding.  I'm sure I'll sleep fine.  I've been doing
this a long time.

        My daughter turned 5 months yesterday.  People say the time flies and they're
right.  It sure does.