busch wildlife Fishing Report 2024

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Hi friends. Just finishing up our day here on the Supreme. Gear is broken down, tackle is stowed top-side, and the boat is scrubbed from bow to butt. We began our day with a blind Bluefin jig strike and managed to land a few bait fish when we started to meter them pretty solid under the boat. After losing the majority of the fish we hooked, the school bailed and we soon followed. The Yellowfin weren't far behind and we managed to put together a really nice day on fish in the 12-25 lb. range with one standout landed by Henry "Blue" Maine. Henry's Yellowfin looks to go about 55 lbs. and no, it was not a Big Eye. Blue's our boy and we're very proud of him. Anyhow, most of our fish came on blind jig strikes and every now and then we'd see a nice sonar school of them and have on-the-corner type fishing. With all the action and chaos, and I do mean chaos, we have a very healthy load of tuna in our holds to compliment our Yellowtail catch from yesterday and our five Albacore from Wednesday. Everyday, things are looking more promising and more promising with Bluefin, Yellowfin, and more reported Albacore being caught, this offshore tuna thing might just be getting started. We'll see but with two straight solid tuna trips in the books, we'll be looking for a third tomorrow when we take off for five days. The weather is a bit rolly but without too much wind to jack things up and as of now (1700), our traveling weather is just fine.

So that's all. We're shooting for a 0630 ETA tomorrow morning. There will be eight long-range boats from all three landings arriving and departing tomorrow so we'll be on the hustle. We'll be dropping off Ryan and friends and picking up Joe Beck and the Bob Vance crew for a five day ocean-going party and we shall welcome them with open arms. We'll chat with you tomorrow. Take care and happy Friday.

-Team Supreme-

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Hi friends. We arrived to the southern Yellowtail grounds this morning to find that things were not right. We managed a few OK drifts but we didn't see the life that the boats saw in the days prior. No shortage of fish, that's for sure, they were just too scattered out and weren't in the right mode. In the afternoon, we made a run to the northern grounds to find a little bit better sign of fish and we ended our day having a couple decent drifts on some 15-22 lb. 'tails with an occasional cow mixed in. We also caught/released some dandy Calico Bass and tagged one nice Grouper. A little bit better surface iron action today than we've seen all year and our master of ceremonies, Ryan, had himself a good day until Barry broke his favorite surface iron. All in all, it was a fine day of Yellowtail fishing. Our weather was prime all day, excellent bronzing conditions as it was hot and sunny.

So we're currently making way back up to finish our trip up with some tuna. A couple boats started located some actual schools of those Yellowfin tuna and we're hoping to do that tomorrow as well. Our weather is a mild chop with some breeze but we're just fine with it, as long as it doesn't freshen up. We'll chat with you tomorrow.

-Team Supreme-

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Good evening everyone. Like I began last trips report, I just wanted to reiterate just how quickly things can change out here on the ocean. The prior Bluefin zone that yielded us and the entire fleet a spectacular catch just a couple days before was absolutely starving for life and we never saw nor caught a Bluefin tuna today. Also, the gorgeous weather that we had been blessed with for the better part of a week was now windy, cold, and a bit choppy. The day was looking very bleak to say the least as it took us hours to land our first fish of the day, a Yellowfin tuna in the 15 lb. class. It was very slow for the morning time and all the way through lunch time. Single jig fish here, single jig fish there and with that, the announcement was made to get the Yellowtail gear ready as we would be traveling southerly for the remainder of the day to be in a position to do some Yellowtail fishing tomorrow morning.

It wasn't too long after we pointed the Supreme on our coastal course that we started getting blind jig strikes on the Yellowfins. We would consistently start jigging up double and triple jig strikes and when we finally hung a few bait fish, things got a little interesting. One of our best stops of the day was for nine Yellowfin and five Watermelons. Watermelons: a little Tommy Rothery terminology for you. These fish have been eluding the fleet for quite some time now and in traditional years, we catch these Watermelons later in the season in August/September. Not the traditional setup to find these fish in, with a Yellowfin school in warm water but for whatever reason, they were there and we managed to land five of these beauties. What is a Watermelon you ask? Albacore tuna in the 30-40 lb. class. That's right, we caught some slug Albacore today. What an awesome surprise and not only caught some, we also metered a few on the fathometer. Could this be the start of something or were they just lost souls hitch-hiking with their Yellowfin counterparts? Who knows but this next week in long-range fishing will be very interesting. Will it tell the tale if it will be the epic, super tardy Albacore season of 2011 or just a nice surprise here or there for the fleet? We'll see. Nonetheless, our first Albacore of the season were a welcome sight. We missed those beautiful specimens and we definitely took a few minutes to stare down the fish on the deck and appreciate what beautiful creatures they are. Hopefully, there are more to come.

Although we scored a decent day jigging up Yellowfin in the 12-18 lb. class, we maintained our course and our gameplan remains the same to fish Yellowtail tomorrow. It's not like we saw school after school after school. All of our jig fish were blind jig strikes and we never saw anything to get us really excited. We did have a couple stops where they rushed the boat and we had chaos on the corner but like I said, it was mostly a troll-fest today. All in all, we had a fine day and we're looking to had some 'tails to go along with our 'fins and we'll try the tuna fishing thing the day after tomorrow. Take care and wish us luck.

-Team Supreme-

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Hi friends. We awoke not-so bright but very early this morning to start our day. Being the 0530 boat getting into the landing, we had to bust it into overdrive so that the Shogun, Searcher, and three 1.5 boats could unload their passengers and fish as well. In a timely manner, the Heil group and their bounty of Bluefin, Yellowfin, Yellowtail, Dorado, Halibut, Calico bass, and Barred Sand bass were successfully unloaded and we bid the boys farewell until next season. Just an awesome trip for those guys, hard to beat if you ask me and we all busted butt to find them some fish and find some fish we did - and then some. Big fish honors go for the top three Bluefin tuna; The one and only Mr. Joe De Marco -- 45.4 lb. BFT. Jim Chivas -- 41.4 lb. BFT. And last but not least, our very own Mark Clark's son, Chace, took third with his 40. 2 pounder. Good going to the gang and to Chase, remember the invaluable advice that you're Uncles' Richie and Drew gave to you. Anyhow, back out for another trip and we welcomed aboard the wildest charter-master known to man, Ryan "Black Cloud" Christianson and his group from Let's Talk Hook-Up.

So four days with the man, the myth, the legend, Ryan and his closest friends. After the tackle seminar, Ryan raffled out some goodies and Mr. Jimmy Houston won the big prize of a Shimano Tyrnos reel. Reports are sounding like a Yellowfin take-over from the previous Bluefin zone and we're going to go see what's shaking down that way and see if we can't locate the Bluefins that were M.I.A. today. If we can't locate the short-fins, we'll stay busy with some of those Yellowfins and decide our next move from that point on. Weather is great, got plenty of bait, and we'll be in the zone tomorrow...early, not late. Take care.

-Team Supreme-

San Diego regular Chris Perez and friend show off a couple of 15 pounders.  Don’t let this phenomenal late season action pass you by.  103 yellowtail, 54 bonito, and 2 halibut.

Saturday, September 15th, 2012

Hi folks. We departed today on an open party 8-day trip with plenty of familiar faces on-board, so it's more like a charter. We picked up a fine looking load of sardines and we'll see how they do on our southerly journey for the next couple of days. For now, everything is good. The seas were flat calm all day and the weather was hot but now, it's a little foggy out but absolutely no sea conditions. We'll take it. The boys just enjoyed a fat piece of prime rib and everyone is sacking out for the night -- fat and happy. Tomorrow morning, we'll knock out some seminars, get rigged up, and see if we can't stumble upon a school of some fat yellowfin and/or fat bluefin throughout our travels.

Anyhow, life is good for now. We're monitoring tropical storm Kristy and as of now, we're looking like she's going to miss us and we're going to have some nice weather in the next couple of days in our zones. We'll see. Wish us luck and we'll chat with you tomorrow.

-The Supreme Team

~~Sep 14
 Wow!  What a day.  2015!  We started it off early on anchor.  The sun wasn't even up yet and we were catching tuna and wahoo.  For about an hour there on anchor we were gettinum.  We had about 30 of those 25-30+ pound tuna and almost 20 wahoo before an hour.  Things slowed so we pulled anchor and got nasty.  We had a couple other bingers for wahoo for about 10 each time, and of course we would catch that big tuna during those drifts.  After that though, us and the 3 other boats that were here pretty much had the wahoo caught for the day.  There was a few left to be had but we mostly caught that tuna up to perhaps 40 pounds the rest of the day.  Not wide open.  We're not "fixed up".  Just steady for most of the day.  Before dark we started "the troll of shame".  I've never done that the second day of the trip.  We got 2 passengers out of there and still have 2 or 3 left who haven't caught a wahoo yet.  Oh they had there chances.  Some of those guys on that team lost 4 or 5 skin today.  But that's wahoo fishing.  Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.

 We're going to try this again in the morning.  I would love to get 40 or 50 more tuna and a couple more handfuls of wahoo.  That would be epic.  After the morning hit we're going to make a run and try for some yellows in the afternoon.
        

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Hi friends. Yellowtail fishing was off the hook this morning -- or, on the hook, depending on which way you look at it. Fifteen to twenty-eight pound fish just kept coming over the rail and we also had a few flatheads as well. It was all you could've wanted on fly-lined sardines, yo-yo jigs, and surface jigs too but we only took a few boxes to break up the morning and from there, we ventured offshore with the hopes of finding something floating for dorado and wahoo.

Let me tell you, trying to locate kelps in eighty degree water is a difficult task and although we did get lucky and found a couple scraps, they weren't holding all that much. However, we did troll up a few legitimate ball-slappers, a marlin (healthy release), and one really nice wahoo at dusk caught by Mike Henry. His wahoo looks to be in the fifty to sixty pound range and he coaxed that fat skinny into latching onto a purple and black Marauder. Good going, Mike.

For tomorrow, we'll be fishing for all kinds of species but our main target is wahoo. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Our weather is just splendid and the all-day bronze-a-thon continues. I'm starting to look like Hulk Hogan out here. Supreme guns. Later.

Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

Hi friends. We arrived back to the docks this morning at 06:30 hours and did our usual offloading procedures. Unloaded Tom and the boys, their gear, their beautiful load of Bluefin and Yellowtail, loaded groceries, cleaned the boat, cleaned the fish holds, refueled, changed oil/fuel filters, the girls made up the bunks with fresh linens and cleaned, freshwater the boat, vaccuum the upper deck/wheelhouse, clean/restock the galley, do the windows, load our new passengers and their gear, and take off for another adventure all within 4 hours of docking. We hustle, we know. We also managed a mass substitution of team members. Riddler, Jed, Shawn, and Dee headed for home and Drew, Matt, Schooler, and Ali relieved the gang from last trip.

With that, we headed to the bait recievers, loaded up on a decent load of sardines, and cleared the point by noon. After Schoolers famous bratwurst lunch, we knocked out our tackle seminar and hung out for a bit until we started fishing around 17:00 hours.

Our fishing was just OK. We managed to land a couple handfuls of Bluefin in the 30 lb. range before the sun settled below the horizon and nightfall ended our day. It was a very picky bite but the quality is what we're likin' the most. We're going to enjoy our traditional first night dinner of prime rib, idle downswell for a calm dinner seating/comfy nights sleep, and hit this again first thing tomorrow morning.

In closing, we're hopeful about the potential for tomorrow. Our weather is a bit sloppy but it's plenty fishable; just a tad bit wet and windy. Anyhow, we're here and we're looking forward to snappin' Bluefin tomorrow morning. Wish us luck.

Your friends until the end,

- The Supreme Team

 

P.S. Mark would like to say thank you to Mal "Mole" Wagstaff for the clothes. Thanks, Mall.

Polaris Supreme Trip Update 07-30-2016 What we started out our first day fishing with great hopes of success catching yellowtail right off the bat on the anchor. Those dreams ended quickly with only a handful of fish off-color dirty water and really not that much life compared to what we had seen in this area before. Knowing we needed to make tracks heading towards what we hope will be tomorrow's hot tuna grounds we quickly departed for offshore kelp patty fishing the rest of the day. Although we were in excellent water and saw plenty of kelp's we had no success. Beautiful weather fun group of guys no fish. That pretty much sums up yesterday. Thanks for stopping by our website and remember those of you who just got off the boat you will be able to download high resolution images of pictures from the last trip on the Polaris supreme website. Also we have openings on our next four-day trip departing on August 8 Tuesday. Call Susan if you'd like to go fishing with us.

Well we wound up the last day of fishing with some good offshore action on kelp patties. Everybody pulled on a lot of fish and kept 2 or 3 nice quality yellowtail and dorado to take home. Weather is absolutely superb. And so was our final dinner, steak and lobster. We'd like to thank Eric Rogger and his group for such a fun trip. ETA tomorrow will be 6am and then we will be departed on another 5 day. Thanks, Tommy and crew