bristol bay Fishing Report 2025

Tommy Rothery docked his Polaris Supreme at Fisherman's Landing August 22 after the season's best tuna trip to Guadalupe Island. There were 24 anglers aboard the first Dan Heil Memorial trip. "I felt like he was there with us," said son and chartermaster Ron Heil. "He would have really enjoyed this trip." Tuna fishing was excellent for the group, so much so that Rothery was able to give the spot up to Art Taylor and the Searcher. "We had plenty of tuna," said Tom, "all we needed. The sharks got some of them." Steve Patterson of Grants Pass won first place for a 103-pound yellowfin. "My best tuna ever," he said. Patterson used a sardine on a 4/0 ringed Gorilla hook tied to 40-pound P-Line and 65-pound Izorline Spectra backing, on an Avet LX reel and a Rogue Rod of seven feet. "He slaughtered me," added Patterson. "I couldn't get my new rod off the rail. He tore up the cork and the diamond wrap." Don Pieper of Arroyo Grande was second for a 72.6-pounder, and Buddy Bales of Spokane, WA won third place, for a 72.2-pound yellowfin tuna. The season's 12th wahoo from Guadalupe was included in the catch.

Polaris Supreme arrived June 10 after a five-day trip. Owner-skipper Tom Rothery docked the boat at Fisherman's Landing and weighed the best of the catch. "We fished open water and found a new albacore area," he said at the scales. "We fished our first night out, and got a few. The albacore bit good, and we also got some nice yellowtail off kelps. On our first half-day of fishing we had an excellent bite on albies of 30 to 40 pounds." Chartermaster Paul Hess of Napa won first place for his 42.4-pound albacore, which set a new high mark for the species this season. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 3/0 Eagle Claw hook tied to 30-pound Yo-Zuri line on a Trinidad 16 reel and a Calstar 800 M rod. Brian Schwartz of Napa won second place for a 40.8-pounder, and Casey Weaver of Woodland took third for a 40.6-pound albacore. "He came in after 15 minutes," said Hess. "It was a standard albacore deal."

Trip departs June 6th 6pm Returns June 12th 6am

~~Aug 23
 We drifted most of the morning until around 9 or so.  We drifted due to us catching fish.  We caught a whole lot of fish this morning.  They weren't the same 20-25+ pounders we've been getting.  There were a few of those, but these were about half that size.  It wasn't what we were hoping for but they were still fun.  The guys were having a blast.  They were getting some practice at the whole tuna fishing thing, picking a good bait, where to drop in, follow your fish... And they got to use some of there tags as well.

 After that we thought it would be a great idea to make a few hour run and get to San Clemente Island to catch those big yellows we caught there a couple of trips ago.  In theory it sounded great, but we didn't catch very many yellows.  We ended up bailing on it and looking for some bluefin that's been hanging around there.  We saw one pretty good spot around there but they wouldn't bite.  At dark we ended where we'll start tomorrow.  Some boats had some pretty good days here today on a very good grade of yellowfin along with some of that 25-50 pound bluefin as well.  Oh how I hope we can get in on some of that tomorrow.
Time will tell.  Cross your fingers at home. We'll take some good luck anywhere we can.
      

Monday, July 8th, 2013

Good evening. We just finished up our day out here on the Bluefin grounds and the people are downstairs enjoying dinner and a shower right now. It was looking pretty sad there for a while there but just in the last few hours, we managed to salvage our day and made an afternoon of it.

Up until around the late afternoon time, we just got bits and pieces and right around our afternoon snack time, we got on a legitimate school and had a couple hour drift on 25-60 lb. shortfins and a few nice Yellowtail as well. Just before dark, we found a couple of other schools and we managed to pick off a few fish to round out the day.

So we're pumped up about our afternoon delight and The Mustache (Drew) has decided to stick it out here for another day based on what went on in the afternoon. We weren't the only boat to have schools float in the afternoon either. All the boats out here had the ocean come alive and it was a decent spread of guys out here in all different areas. With that, we're banking on these fish getting with it tomorrow, hopefully sooner rather than later. We'll see.

So that is all. Our weather is decent at the moment but all in all, it was a freaky weather day. At times today, we had 5 knots of breeze and at times we had gusts of 40 knots, no smoke. The sea conditions weren't all that bad but the wind was variable to say the least. With a favorable forecast for tomorrow, we're hoping for a banner day. Wish us luck, good night.

- The Supreme Team

Aug. 14
    Arrive depart today.  We offloaded a beautiful catch, got fuel, changed oil + fuel filters, swapped out some crew and left the dock by 10:00.  We're good.  We left on a very long running charter called the Heil charter.  I won't go into our bait loading, I'll just say we have some bait on board.  We were in the fishing grounds before 3:00 this afternoon.  The couple boats that departed yesterday had some good yellow finning.  When we got there it just had that "should've been here yesterday" kind of feel to it.  We didn't see much.  We had one long drift where we picked up 14 but other then that it didn't feel like we were going to get a hit so we rolled out of that zone.  Below there didn't look much better until right around 8:00 when the sun fell we had a good old fashioned blind jig strike that resulted in a good stop.  We always fish till the end over here and tonight we were rewarded.  The fish bit full speed but only for a flash but it was long enough to get everyone on board at least one with many getting three or more.  They were snapping.  I call departure fish free fish because we weren't even supposed to be fishing.  They're free.  Anyways we're going to fish again tomorrow.  See you then.
                             
     Oh yeah, the weather is still sooo nice.  We're going to have to pay for this stretch.

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.

83 years of good living paid off for San Diego regular Al Kish with this Limit of quality Bluefin. We landed 10 bluefin. 8 at 70 lbs 1 at 85 lbs and 1 at 130.