west branch Fishing Report 2024

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

Good evening friends. We arrived back from John and Ed's family 3-day trip this morning at 0600 and were back out to sea around 1030 hours embarking on our 11th annual Paul Hess 5-day adventure. Paul has brought his usual cast of renegades along with some Polaris Supreme first-timers. We're missing a few of the familiar faces but we'll see you all next year and we'll dedicate this trip towards y'all. Anyhow, the reports are sounding promising a little further south for the fish that get my blood pumping like no other, the Bluefin tuna. So we're motoring on down there and we'll be in the zone sometime in the morning and as for the weather, it's very fair right now and we're liking it.

So that is all. We'll be giving it a go for some tuna fish tomorrow and we'll base our decision for day two when the sun settles below the horizon. We're all a happy bunch. The passengers are well fed and sleepy and with our new subscription to SiriusXM radio, we're a happy crew. Things are just peachy and we'll hit you up tomorrow.

P.S. Special thanks goes to Dave and Sandra. Thank you for the cookies. Drew and I left the passengers with roughly a dozen and the seventy-nine that we ate before dinner were especially delicious. Dave: I miss your hot-white boots and Sandra, I miss identifying birds with you. We'll see you next year.

Polaris Supreme docked under owner-skipper Tom Rothery's hand June 26, after a five-day trip with 24 anglers for yellowtail and albacore. Tom weighed the fish at the certified scales at Fisherman's Landing, where a 48-pound yellowtail took top honors.
Terry Emmert of Douglas, WY had the first-place winner. "I got him in about 15 minutes," he said. "He just kept pulling and pulling, and he kept getting into a stringer of floating kelp. He's my best yellowtail ever." Emmert said he fished a sardine on the flyline, using a 3/0 Mustad 91450 hook on 40-pound P-Line. He had an Okuma 20 two-speed reel and a Seeker Black Steel 6470 rod, wrapped by Bill Boyce. Michael Giardino of San Pedro was second, for a 43-pound yellowtail, and Mal Wagstaff of Douglas, WY was third, for a 36.2-pound yellowtail. Three generations of Pattersons were aboard, and they posed with their fish. Liam Patterson of San Jose is eight, and he goes to Santa Teresa Elementary School, where he practices karate. Liam caught some big yellowtail, and he also got and posed with a 24.4-pound albacore, which will serve to start off this season's tally for the largest fish of that species.

Liam's dad Lane stood in with the boy, as did John Danis and John Patterson, also of San Jose and from the Patterson family.

Another great start today. The Yellowtail are biting extreme well. It was a great couple hours of fishing to start the day. 

After we had enough inshore fishing we decided to head offshore to look for Bluefin. We were able to connect later in the day, with 5 Tuna up to 40 lbs. 

Tough conditions offshore, hoping the tuna will bite better soon.

We will be in tomorrow morning,

Team Supreme

Today we covered over yesterday’s hot zone and beyond to only locate one school. Ended the with 2 yellowtail, a round of bonito and plenty of bottom fish. Hopeful the yellowtail are ready to eat tomorrow after today’s hiatus.

After a juicy prime rib dinner and a movie last night, the guys were fast asleep. Today after breakfast we did our tuna and wahoo fishing seminars. After lunch we spent the afternoon reading, leaders, rods, reels, and putting together a few spare gaffs. Our bait looks beautiful and the weather going down great. There is a couple of guys who couldn't make it this year that we already miss being around. Charlie we miss you doing laps. Hope your wife is doing well. And Jimmy, Javier said today would have been a great day for bean soup! Our evening consisted of chicken Cordon Blue, another movie and back to bed. Tomorrow we may do a little fishing for meals and hors d'oeuvres. We will let you know how it goes.

Captain Ryan called in late last night to report fantastic fishing conditions on the Yellowtail at the Coronado Islands. The fishing were biting live bait. Ryan recommends 25 pound mono with a flurocarbon leader. The fishing are in the 20 to 25 pound class. They were biting really good. Come on down and fish on the San Diego. Call Seaforth Sportfishing at (619) 224-3383 to get in on the action.

~~August 1
 Good morning.  It's morning time for me.  1:53 am.  I'm  writing about yesterday.  I'd call it good fishing.  Nothing crazy, just steady scratch fishing for most of the day.  Same old grade, 14-22 pounders.  Same basic grounds.  It was a lot more fun than that sounds though.  Come on, good fishing on a good grade of fish.  What more could we ask for?  Better weather? OK.  But sometimes you get wind.  When life gives you lemons...  Seriously though, we had a whole lot of wind today.  Here's the thing though.  The boat drifted great.  We may have had over 20 knots of wind, but the boat drifted like we had 10.  A little wind burn and some chapped lips is all.  As long as the fish bite and no one gets hurt.

 Good fishing or not, we decided to take a break from that wind this afternoon.  We made a little move where the wind gets blocked by The Island.  What a difference.  I compared it to sitting in a spa.  Just that, aaahhhhhhhhh feeling.  We even caught some fish.  There were some spots of YT's up and at dark we caught 4 grouper, a halibut and a tail on a drift.  Then we anchored up for Seabass and had dinner.  We haven't caught a Seabass yet but we're hoping at or just before daylight we get some.  One boat had some around these parts yesterday.

 So that's it.  We'll be here again tomorrow.  20 minutes left on my watch and I'll be going back to bed for a few more hours.  Stay classy everyone and thanks for stopping by.