river helmsdale Fishing Report 2024

The spring Season is nearly upon us and we will be taking the Apollo to Santa Barbara for the rockfish opener and hopefully a productive seabass season. We have an unusual amount of open weekend dates for this spring, between March 1rst and May 15th. Take a look at our calendar at apollocharters.com. Take advantage of these rare openings and book your own charter with me and my excelent crew today. Come fish with us out of Santa Barbara and experience the easiest and shortest ride to Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands. This means more fishing time and easier access to those harder to reach destinations. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you, J.J. Gerritsen.

Trip update 08.09.2015

 Good afternoon folks. Today was pretty slow today, fishing wise. We certainly covered a lot of ground today looking for that boomer kelp and just couldn't find the cherry patty. Not too long after the crack of dawn we were dragging jigs and had the crew up top looking hard. There was no shortage of stuff to stop on, there just wasn't that one holding in our zone today. Such is offshore fishing. Fish being who they are, the really hold you to being in the right place at the right time. Never the less, today still put us in position for a couple days of yellowtail fishing with another great chance of putting some tags on some nicer grade yellowfin too. I have to say though, you couldn't have asked for better weather out on the water today. For most of the day whether you were going up swell, down swell or in the trough, you really couldn't which was which. Gorgeous conditions out here for the passengers on a boat ride or the crew up top looking for fish. We'll take that for the rest of the trip!
 Chef Mike and kicked out an awesome lunch today making his homemade crab bisque served with a chicken ceasar and garlic bread. The only bad part is he didn't make more of it. I know I had at least 3 bowls of it myself. It seemed to be a crowd favorite.  We ended the day with a nice Thanksgiving style turkey dinner topped with a mushroom gravy and stuffing on the side.
 So tomorrow we're gonna be "chasin some tails". Looking to get into some quality yellows, maybe some nicer yellowfin and who knows what else we might come across. Check back in tomorrow evening.

Jed and Crew

Weather took a turn for the worse. Today it was darn right sloppy looking for tuna. Although there was fair signs of 25-35 lb tuna, it wasn't what we were looking for. We were on what little sign there was of 200 lb tuna most of the morning, but it didn't want to bite. Scott caught and released a 110 pounder and Tom lost one well over 200 lbs. One other boat picked up two over 200 lbs., otherwise that was the only sign of cows seven boats had for the day. The water has cooled off quite a bit. Otherwise there is still plenty of bait around. We are going to bust a move tonight. We will be traveling two more days. Oh yea, lunch was bar-b-que beef, hors d'oeuvres more sushi and sashimi and dinner was Chilean sea bass in a mango salsa with fresh jalapenos and cilantro. Man that was good. I had two helpings myself! Thanks!

This past week had a little bit of everything. Good fishing in flat calm weather to slow fishing in choppy weather and even some searching for kelp paddies in socked in fog. Our scores this week averaged 3-80 yellowtail 2-10 dorado per day and even 13 bluefin tuna on our Friday charter. Overall I would say that we are experiencing GOOD 3/4 day fishing. Most of our fishing has been taking place between 20 and 40 miles from Mission Bay. Even though our counts have been good , we still have some inherit risks that go along with offshore fishing that you should be prepared for. Whenever we fish offshore , we know that we are taking part in a "high risk , high reward" fishery. Since we are relying on finding kelp paddies in order to find fish , the possibility of never stopping the boat is real. The flip side of never stopping the boat is ; we may stop the boat once and have the best fishing of our lives. With another tropical storm down south , I believe that our fishing is only going to improve over the next month. Typically our offshore season continues until we get the first couple real storms from the pacific northwest. We run everyday , if you would like to join us call 619-224-3383 for reservations.

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Hi friends and happy Columbus Day. For the morning time up until around 1300 hours this afternoon, we sure felt like Columbus. The on-going search for a kelp paddy was getting to the point where I felt that we were going to sail right off the map and into oblivion. Between myself and our mast-men, we searched high and low with the one other boat in the upper area until our eyes were beginning to bleed and our faces burnt by the wind. By morning's end, our tally was a Bluefin tuna and four Yellowtail, ouch. I wish that I could type that we made some crazy move to left field and got on something spectacular to end our day but that just wouldn't be truthful. Well, half of that sentence is true.

We owe our day to our long-range brother, code group affiliate, and good friend, Roy Rose on the Royal Polaris. The "RP" was coming up the line from Cedros Island and really wasn't looking to do any type of fishing as they were just wrapping up an 11-day trip. But Roy is a very cool cat and when Roy's not fishing, he's fishing. Bottom-line, he was more than willing to help us out, drag some jigs, and scan the horizon for signs of life for a few hours as a lower area check. At around 1300 hours, Roy called us up and informed us that he had a couple blind jig strikes on Yellowfin, a couple bait-fish, and he also saw a very nice kelp paddy that he stopped on and --as he put it-- was"corroded" with Yellowtail. Being only a couple hours from his position, we kicked the tires and lit the fires down to his position where he graciously marked this beauty of a kelp for us and he was one-hundred percent correct; this kelp was LOADED with Yellowtail. We made three drifts on the kelp, got all we needed and began the search for tuna, which was unsuccessful, but our day was salvaged thanks to our good friends on the RP. My point is, that it's good to know good people, and Roy is one of the best and we owe him greatly. Although Roy is one of the nicest guys around, any one of our long-range brethren would've done the same for us as we would for them. Helping out each other is what makes the long-range fleet one of the finest teams you'll find and today was a perfect example of teamwork and sacrifice. Thanks Roy.

With that, we're making our way up the line in a little bit of weather. Fifteen knots of wind (weatherman was bad. Bad weatherman!) and a mild sea is bumping us up and down a little bit, but it could be a lot worse. We'll take this weather we have now as long as it doesn't build. We'll be back to the docks sometime tomorrow in the mid-morning time and we'll be returning on Saturday afternoon for Joe Giglioti's 8-day trip. If you can swing it, there are still a couple of spots available and Joe will be bringing some goodies from Accurate Reels to give away to our ultra limited-load of anglers. Give Susan a call at 619 390 1958. Until then, we'll chat with later. Take care.

-Team Supreme-

Today was slow fishing for Wahoo. We only landed a couple. Not many bites and some were eaten by sharks. The conditions were rough and we were rolling around pretty good. We did have a shot at some large Yellowtail. They were deep in some treacherous country. For those who buttoned down their drags and pulled with all their might were able to tear a few from the rocks. A small victory on a otherwise slow day. Tomorrow we will still be pursuing Wahoo, but will be in good country for Tuna and Yellowtail as well.

We got into the albacore grounds late in the morning. Most of the guys there already had a mix of around 30 albacore and yellowfin. We struggled and just couldn't find the right school until about 4:00 in the afternoon. Then it was wide open albacore fishing until 6:30. As we sat down to a superb dinner of Veal chops with Port and Mushroom sauce we reflected on what had started as a brutally tough day had turned into a simply great day! We will definitely stay here and try this again tomorrow. Thanks, Tommy

The day started in the dark with some great fishing on quality yellowtail. After daybreak we still had good fishing on the school grade yellowtail with an 18 lb. average until noontime. And then the afternoon took a powder and we couldn't find anything to catch. The weather offshore is rough but we are hiding behind an island and are in good weather. Dinner was a tasty Cornish game hen, fresh veggies, wild rice and a really good hot brownie pudding cake. Thanks for checking in. Tommy and crew