lake dartmouth Fishing Report 2025

~~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!

We departed today on the Davis Construction annual private charter. This year there are six lucky individuals who were invited to go, with Jim and Gunnar being the new guys. We loaded up at the bait receivers with some excellent bait, and headed down south in beautiful, flat calm weather. Everyone is excited at the prospects that lie ahead. We dined on a great barbecued pork tenderloin for lunch and just enjoyed the company and the smooth ride.

Today was a rigging day. We spent most of the day rolling down the line. During our travels we hit a patch of water that was incredibly blue and clean. In that stretch of water we managed to land one Dorado. A nice surprise. Aside from that it was a very leisure travel day. Tuna and Wahoo are in our sights for tomorrow.

~~This is the after picture of the port side navigation system. If you notice, the monitor itself is a daylight monitor. The sun is shining directly on it and you can still see the screen. This system has radar, a plotter, and a fathometer. And it's all AIS capable. (Automated identification system) All ships that have AIS, can be tracked on a website, called www.marinetraffic.com. All of the systems can be overlaid so you can have your plotter, radar, and depth viewed at the same time

 

 

~~
This is the starboard side navigation system. Which is identical to the port. In addition to the previous mentioned features, the monitor can be switched to a computer system which has Nobel Tech times zero catch navigation fish finding and my favorite, bottom mapping system on it. You can, and we have been, making our own bottom maps for the previous three years. Cool stuff. In addition it has live weather from Weather Works XM Weather. Also it has SeaView Ocean Imaging capabilities to where we can download water temperature, chlorophyll, sea height, ect. The port system also has its own computer.

 

~~The monitor on the left is a sound activated fathometer for fish finding. And the monitor on the right is a daylight monitor for our sonar, for fish finding. In the front is one of our pairs of Gyroscopic binoculars

~~All of these electronics need new antennas. And this is how they get there. We literally pulled out a third of a dock cart of old wiring

 

 

~~Say good bye to the old radars.

~~Drew grinding away on a little cancer on the deck.

~~The roto hammer is one of our favorite tools for chipping up cancerous areas on the deck, but the noise is unbearable to our neighbors in the boat yard.

~~The deck hatches had to be completely stripped

~~We re-skinned the outside of the galley doors. They now have a nice white formica finish.

~~Creative, yes. But I bet he spent a half hour looking for that office chair in the boat yard!

~~The boat looks kinda small in some of these upcoming pictures without Tommie in them for perspective.  ~~Jed's missing from these shots because he was taking the pictures.

 

 

~~Drew resealing inspection plates for exhaust

~~Tommie detailing wood work

~~Tommie prepping for paint

~~Final coat of deck paint. Looking good!

 

 

Tom Rothery brought his Polaris Supreme home to Fisherman's Landing January 11 after a 16-day trip to the Hurricane Bank and the Southern Banks of Baja. There were seven anglers on the annual George Davis expedition, and they produced ten more cows for the record.

In his report from the boat on Friday January 2, Tom reported a good day of fishing.

"Yes, now this is what I'm talking about," he wrote. "We finally got a break in the weather. It is beautiful and we have left Hurricane Bank. We are now heading to the upper banks. We will be there tomorrow night. Yesterday was an ok day of fishing. George kept a 219 and released a 185. Jeremy released a 140.

"Craig kept a 205 and by the way that was a mistake yesterday. Craig kept a 210 pounder. Al kept a 100 for his buddies that are going to Ennis hunting. They are going to open pit barbeque it on a spit like a pig. Now, that sounds interesting. ‚Д®

"Charlie released a 125 and Scott released a 140. Each day we also had five to 12 fish that we caught that were under 100 pounds and were not mentioned. These all were released.

"Yesterday we also had good wahoo fishing. Jeremy and Craig both caught 4 and Gunnar and Al got 3. Everybody else had a couple a piece. Overall the trip to Hurricane Bank has been very good with eight tuna over 200 pounds, and excellent wahoo fishing."

Chartermaster George Davis of San Dimas won the jackpot while catching four cows. His tuna weighed 241.8, 219.8, 213.6 and 208 pounds. The big one came on squid on the kite, he said.

George fished with 7/0 Mustad 7691 hooks, 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Line One Spectra on a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. He said the big one came to gaff in just 20 minutes.

Allen Tokunaga of North Hollywood won second place for a 224.6-pounder.

"These Hurricane Bank fish seemed a little tougher than the ones on the inside," he remarked. "This one took me 40 minutes. He went around the boat a couple of times, and then came up on the port side of the stern."

Al fished a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook, on 130-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon leader, 100-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra. He used a Penn 50 reel modified by Cal Sheets and a Calstar 6465 XXH rod.

Scott Brown of Costa mesa won third place for his 213.2-pounder. He also got a 202.6-pounder. He fished a small jack under the kite on a 9/0 Mustad 7691 hook. He used 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra on a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod.

"The big one was a 20-minute fish," he remarked. "He came to the boat pretty good."

One big tuna was eaten by the passengers and crew while the boat was still fishing. It was a 215-pounder caught by Craig Johnston of Costa Mesa, who also got a 204-pounder. Craig said he got them on the kite, on double sardine baits pinned to 7/0 Mustad 7691 hooks. He fished with a 130-pound Momoi topshot on 130-pound Izorline Spectra, with a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod.

"It took about 30 minutes," he said. "We had rough seas then; it was a fun fight."

Jeremy Chandler of San Dimas got a 203.6-pounder on a jack under the kite on a 7/0 Mustad 7691 hook and the boat's kite rig.

If you have ever wanted to catch a yellowtail you should go fishing now. 52 pass. 246 yellowtail on flylined bait, small yo-yo jigs and surface iron.

We had a couple hours of very good dropper loop yellowtail fishing on 25-35 pound fish in the morning. When that slowed we stayed busy with smaller grade tuna and the occasional mahi. We made a tour and got the anchor back down around lunch time and had the same action but with an occasional larger model tuna being hooked. We hooked 10 and landed 4 50-60 pounders. After dinner the few that still had the energy to fish all caught several more of those big yellows before we took off at 10:00. We're now spending the day traveling up the line and will be arriving to finish up the trip at Guadalupe Island for a day and a morning.

ood evening everyone, Today we started in search of Yellowfin Tuna. It seemed that the past days have been a grind for those who have committed to this area. So we woke up today ready to grind. Fortunately we found a school early that wanted to play. So with the ball in our court we were really to put the wood to these school sized fish that were eagerly pouring aboard Polaris Supreme. Absolute chaos to start the day, a perfect way to follow two days of premium yellowtail fishing. We kept at it, getting good scores on these tuna to join the yellows that were chilling in our frigid holds. Eventually we did have to point the boat towards home and call it a trip, but what a way to end! I would like to thank Ron for putting together this charter and everyone for joining us and putting the screws to these fish when it counted! We will be in San Diego tomorrow dark and early at 5:30 to offload the bounty and come out for another. Until next time, Team Supreme