skyway bridge Fishing Report 2025

Back after a five-day trip, the 7th Annual Paul Chappell Charter aboard the Polaris Supreme arrived at Fisherman's Landing July 10. The 24 anglers were guided by skipper Drew Henderson.
"We got some nice yellowtail at San Martin," remarked Drew, "but there's a lot of that big squid around there. You can't get any more yellows once they get on you." Chartermaster Chappell won first place for his 34.6-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 2/0 Mustad 94150 hook on 30-pound Yo-Zuri line. He fished with a Penn Squidder reel and a Sabre seven-foot rod of the same era. Phil Beltrami of Napa won second place for a 33.4-pounder, and Craig Pappas of Santa Cruz won third place for a 32.4-pound longfin.

This past weekend we went out with 33 anglers on both of our trips. Saturdays fishing was a little bit better as far as quality is concerned. On both trips we ended up with limits of rockfish but Saturday we caught 80+ red rockcod to go along with 3 lingcod and plenty of chilies and Boccaccio. Sunday we had a bit of a wind swell come up making the drift rather fast. Sundays count was 63 reds 2 lings and limits of rockfish. The weather forecast looks good for this week.

Suggested tackle for 7:00-4:00 local 3/4 day trips. (1) A 25 or 30 lb. outfit to fish fly line sardines , sliding egg sinker and squid and a lead head and squid. This outfit can also double as a light dropper loop rod for shallow water rockfish. (2) A 40 or 50 lb. outfit. This will be a heavy dropper loop rod for targeting yellowtail , white sea bass and halibut down on the bottom. (3) A deep water rock cod outfit. A 20 size reel filled up with 65 lb. spectra and a 7 ft. rod stiff enough to handle a 16 oz. sinker. If you only want to bring one rod a 30 lb. outfit would be your best bet. TERMINAL TACKLE (Hooks) a pack of size 2 live bait hooks for fishing anchovies and small squid strips. A pack of size 2/0 live bait hooks for fishing live sardines and live squid on an egg sinker. A pack of size 4/0 live bait hooks for fishing live squid on your heavy dropper loop rod. A few long shank rock cod hooks may be usefull but not mandatory on the days we fish deep. (Sinkers) an assortment of sliding egg sinkers from 1/8-1 oz. an assortment of torpedo sinkers from 2-16 oz. Sinker size will be determined by depth of water and strength of current. (Lead heads ) An assortment of "banana" shaped lead heads from 1/2 - 2 oz.

Rollin down, rigging gear, and living large! Today we are rolling down south on our Chaparro 7 day trip. We are loaded up with bait and making our way south into warm water. We will be at the grounds soon, but for now we can relax and snack like Kings!

Nov. 13

We finished up the trip today mostly concentrating on yellowtail. We kept the wire on in case we got into some wahoo and weren't going to steer away from tuna either. Well we did get a wahoo today. A nice fat one. 60 pounder? We'll see at the dock. We saw a few schools of tuna that wanted nothing to do with us and we saw a few foamers of good grade yellowtails. We got on top of one of those foamers and they flashed us for a second and then left us. We only caught a handfull before they were gone. We chased down a few other schools but they all sank out before we could get to them.

To recap the trip we caught all you want on big fat dorado, lots and lots of school grade yellowfin tuna and had a pretty good catch of wahoo throughout the trip. We spent two full days hunting the cow yellowfin and saw plenty each and all day but only have a couple trophies to show for our efforts. A lot of non biting fish but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. We only had a couple days of choppy weather and other then that it's been beautiful. We're heading home right now with just a fantastic ride up the line.

Drew

Hello Everyone, Today we had great Tuna fishing on the better grade fish. We were able to be selective and tag the Tuna between 20-40lbs. It was not wide open but we were able to pick for most of the day. We were even able to land one stand out 70 lber. An incredible fish in the mix. We will be trying to fill in the cracks with quality Tuna, Wahoo, Yellowtail, and Grouper Tomorrow. Will Report again tomorrow, Team Supreme

Sunday night we spent the day targeting trophy bluefin with tall of the boys from fish 101 restaurant. We had some very good opportunities through out the day. Landing 12 fish biggest was right at 300lbs then closely followed by a beautiful 275lber and the rest where in the 60-80 lb range. 

Today we fished yellowfin tuna. Fishing was good, when the dust settled we had 113 fish in the hole all being 12-18 pound fish. We did also see a couple nice schools of bluefin but didn’t not hook any unfortunately. Back out tonight ! 

Wednesday, July 17th, 2013

Hi friends. Not too much to report today. Our weather was sloppy last night, sloppy this morning, and sloppy this afternoon. In all honesty, we were due for a good butt whooping' with the awesome weather we've enjoyed since July 2nd but the Stephens group did not deserve any of it. But, that's how it goes sometimes. Everyone is doing just fine considering and as we motored to the inside a ways, our ride is a lot better.

Anyhow, with the weather came a very slow day for us. The conditions made it difficult to locate any schools of Bluefin, whether on the machines or a visual sign, and with us being the only boat in the zone, we didn't quite connect. We gave it our all but considering the weather and latitude we remained at, we had to call it a trip right after Chef Shawn's killer Yellowtail taco lunch.

With that, we broke down our gear, TSP'd rails, and cleaned the boat from bow to stern and as of now (17:15 hours), the passengers and crew are catching up on sleep, reading, hanging in the galley, or getting cleaned up for dinner. I am the chosen one to serve dinner and deal with the elements this evening so we'll see how the turnout is for our seating. Hopefully, LB can keep it together.

So that is all. We'll be arriving to San Diego tomorrow around 08:00 hours and we'll chat with you on Monday as we depart for Paul Hess's annual 5-day adventure. Chat with you then.

-RE and The Supreme Team