naples pier Fishing Report 2024

Aug 12
    Today was awesome.  We woke up drifting catching fish and that's about what we did until dark.  I'm not kidding you.  We moved the boat just a handful of times but never for more then 10 minutes.  It was drifting with always at least one on the hook.  In the morning until after lunch it was mostly bluefin in the 30-45 pound range with the occasional 60-80 pounder.  I have to tell you that that's a much more manageable grade.  It's a much better fish to start off on than those 60-80 pounders.  Don't get me wrong, you know I love catching those beauts but they make a much better cherry than ice cream if you know what I mean.  We had that kind of day where if we catch them tomorrow it will be the cherry on top.  The rest of the day we got into yellowfin tuna mode and it was game on for those fish.  Tommy decided to save our sardine on board it being they were feeding on the anchovy that went over the side so that's what we used.  Chovy baby.  I can't ever remember fishing anchovy for tuna on this boat.  I have to go back to my mission bay days to remember that but I didn't forget how to do it.  I wrote this in the beginning of the season and I'll write about it again.  If you're coming on a future trip, please remember to bring the lost art of anchovy fishing skills.  A big part of that is an anchovy rod and reel.  Something light that's meant for 20-25 pound test with a nice free spool to help you toss those anchovies away from the boat.  I hate to say it but if that means you need to bring your coffee grinder so be it.  
    The weather is still good!  Man I hope this can hold up for at least my buds on the upcoming Heil 5 day trip leaving the day after tomorrow.  We're staying put right here for our last day fishing tomorrow.  We're hoping we can get more of the 60-80 pounders tomorrow but we will be stoked with the 30-45's as well.
                                    

 

~~Sep. 5
 Here we go again.  Arrive/depart today.  Off with the old, out with the new.  5 days.  That's how long we have on this one. 5 days.  Weather forecast looks terrific for at least the next few days so that's wonderful.  We have another first for me this trip.  Before this trip I have never loaded up with straight mackerel for bait.  Other than the last trip but that was a 1.5 day trip.  This is long range.  Straight mackerel.  That's 3 top tanks, and 2 big slammers full below deck.  All full of mackerel.  So this will be interesting.  It looks like great yellowtail bait.  Not great for chumming but great for catching the yellows, and I'm sure the bluefin will eat them too, just not as well as the sardine.  Oh well.  It is what it is.  We'll just make lemonade, that's all.

 So to start things off tomorrow we will be fishing for those yellowtails.  And most likely, we'll be doing that for the next couple of days before getting in the hunt for the blues.  Action.  We want action.  Wish us luck.
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Aug 12

We had a descent day of yellowtail fishing today. We were looking at schools of yellows this morning that wouldn't bite before making a move where we looked at schools of yellows that would bite. Not full speed but just a comfortable pick for hours. The quality was good. 20-25 pounders. After lunch it stopped biting for the rest of the day. We took a tour of the island for nothing then settled back in where we were before but it never picked up again. We're headed back offshore for a couple days in hunt for those tasty BFTees with plenty of bait now.

Drew

Polaris Supreme arrived under Drew Henderson's hand October 27 after a ten-day trip with 20 anglers that visited the southern banks, an offshore kelp area and Cedros Island. Drew tied the rig at Fisherman's Landing and weighed the best of his catch. "We had good fishing the first day at the banks," he said, "until about eight in the morning. Then we had a good sunsetter. We got yellowtail on the 23, and about a dozen wahoo on offshore kelps. We had good dorado fishing on the kelps." The trip's best yellowtail was a 45.3-pound mossback caught at Cedros Island by Stan Katkansky of Lincoln City, OR. "I got him on a mackerel," said Stan, "on 60-pound line."

Polaris Supreme Trip Update 09-08-2019 What a sweet ride down we've had beautiful weather! Made good speed and had a nice early arrival this morning into the fishing grounds. Fishing started off tough. Actually it was brutal! You would catch and release 30 skipjack just to catch one keeper yellowfin tuna. We would catch a Wahoo here and there to spice things up but it just wasn't working. Finally after 10 hours of get in all jacked up, AKA skipjack, Things started going our way. It was like somebody flipped a switch! For the next four hours we had a very consistent bite on quality yellowfin tuna ,right into the dark. Our weather stayed great all day and were going to try our luck here again tomorrow. The Polaris Supreme Crew!

July 8
    We started this morning off with a bang.  We were up at 0400 hours and loaded up on mackerel, then we went and found a nice school of 20-25 pound fish that bit for us for a little while.  They were biting the surface iron great and I decided this morning that my favorite kind of fishing is surface iron for big yellows.  Big tuna and wahoo are really cool too but man o man is it fun.  My passenger and bud Dennis wasn't hooking any.  He usually does but he had a straight rod the whole drift.  When it slowed down he noticed that his jig had no hook on it.  Through all the excitement he ever noticed until it was done.  I thought that was kind of funny.  Bummer though.  The bite was rather short lived as was expected and after that we did some scouting.  We found a nice school of those 20-25 pounders but it was tough to get them to bite.   Throughout the rest of the day we did some scouting and caught fish and did some scouting and didn't.  We ended up with about a hundred and we're satisfied.

    We're going to stay the night and try this again in the morning.  I'm thinking about fishing offshore for tuna in the afternoon.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.
                                    

 

As the sun was setting on our final “offshore” trip of 2020. The moon was rising over the Coronado islands. Today we scratched 60 small yellowtail off of various kelps. Tomorrow’s trip has been cancelled due to lack of reservations. All of our trips in December will be fishing the islands and will require a passport. Reservations are very important this time of year.

Bluefin in our crosshairs for our upcoming 6 day. School size fish like this and a chance at trophies!