chicagoland Fishing Report 2025

Polaris Supreme docked at Fisherman's Landing August 3 under skipper Drew Henderson's hand. There were 24 anglers aboard the five-day trip. "We had a good day on the one day the albacore were up," said Drew. "Then we fished kelps for dorado and yellowtail." Ron Chisum of Escondido won first place for a 32.4-pound albacore he got with a sardine on a 3/0 Mustad hook and 30-pound Ande line. He said he used a TLD 15 reel and a Calstar 270 rod. He brought his best dorado, a 25-pounder, into the lineup photo. Steve Taylor of Napa Valley tied for second place with Tom Connors of Escondido. Both had albacore of 31.8 pounds.

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Hi friends. Pretty fun day today. One small yellowfin jig strike turned into a plunker on 30-70 lb. bluefin tuna. We had a lot of heartbreaks but we did manage to land a few of those beauties. Love seein' those big brutes. No prettier fish in the ocean, that's for sure. Anyhow, around lunch time, we had to call it a trip and make our way back home. It was a great way to end our day and the Blue/White group is pumped.

Mr. Gledhill is one of the most gracious chartermaster you could ever have and he assembled a great group of guys to take fishing with him. The cocktails and wine are endless and so are the good times. Thanks, Robin.

Anyhow, we'll be arriving to the docks tomorrow at 0600 hours and the boat will be turning around and leaving for a 2-day charter. Look for reports to continue from any number of captains or crewmembers other than myself. Also, we have an 8-day trip leaving after the 2-day that has a few spots on it and in the next couple of weeks, we also have a load of 1 1/2 and 2-day trips on schedule. Call Susan if you'd like to go long-range or local fishing aboard the Supreme. Later.

-The Supreme Team

Oct. 21

 

Trip wrap up: It was a hell of a trip with a great group of guys, with great tackle from Accurate and great food from Shawn. Yes we had some nausea from hurricane Paul but that's something you have to deal with sometimes in long range sportfishing. Thank you so much Mr. Joe Gigliotti and The staff at Accurate for letting us use and lend out your Accurate tackle.

Jackpot goes as follows: Dale Goss took 1st with a 52.6 pound wahoo, pizza man Joey G. took 2nd with a 50.4 pound yellowfin tuna (I told you Joe), and Gary Rogers took 3rd with a 40.2 pound yellowfin tuna. An Honorable mention goes out to Steve Lowe for his 56.4 pound wahoo he caught on the troll.

 

Today we left with our good friend George Davis and his group of dudes on a 14 day trip. Yup, a glory run going down down down. Our bait was fair and seems to be swimming in circles in the tanks and not dying off so that's good. We rigged up our rods and reels today taking our time because we have some time with some travel days ahead of us. We haven't had a true departure travel day for a long time now and I have to say it's nice not being in a rush to get everything done at once. There were some movies played today and a lot of sleep going down in the staterooms. Chef Shawn put out a nice little Sushimi snack that went down quick. Tomorrow we'll do our tackle fishing seminar for Wahoo after breakfast and then I'm sure there will be more movies and naps in everyones future. Travel days are nice. Can you say 1492 and Titos ! See ya.

 

 

P.S. We may loose satellite phone service on Wednesday and if we do we will try to keep you updated through Susan via the Radio and have her type up the reports and email them out.

P.S.S. If you have received this email directly from the boat the guys have asked me to put you on the email list. You now have the boats direct email and you may send the boys emails. Girls please be careful what you say the crew and I will be able to read what you put out.

Thanks for tuning in Tommy.

~~July 17
  We had another great day today.  Stoked.  Things didn't start off so great though.  Nope.  Before 11:00 am things weren't so hot  We only had a few fish on board.  Things have been different at this place everyday.  We just needed to figure it out.  And we did.  We figured it out.  For the next few hours we picked away.  One here, two there kind of thing with an occasional flury.  Around two though things got busy.  For the next few hours we were pulling on 14-25 pound yellows with 5-6 going all the time.  I was just sitting up here in the wheel house with crew member Justin and we were reflecting on how much fun it was.  We had a good day.  Fish hold number 2 is full now. 

  We're going to hang tight on the anchor tonight and start off here in the morning.  We wouldn't mind getting another taste of this before we see what other shananagans(still haven't found the spell check on here) we can get into next.  We're thinking we"ll hunt for trophies and make Halibut drifts in the afternoon.  Trophies being the 40-50 pound model yellowtails.  I'll tell you about it tomorrow.
         

Captain Mike Pritchard called in late last night with an audio update from the Tribute out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay.  We finished the day with good action.   We finished with 38 Bluefin Tuna up to 100 pounds.  They were biting the fly-lined sardines on 40 pound with fluorocarbon.

The Tribute is ONLINE at Seaforth Sportfishing.

24 nice grade yellowtail. 100+ miles on our track line today, we now know where not to be.

Aug. 8
    I  was told second hand today that my reports make it sound like fishing was less good than it actually was and I have to say that I totaly agree.  I have sat at home in the past and reminessed by reading some of my past reports and have thought to myself how much better that perticular day actually was than I was reading so I will try and be more accurate with my reports starting with today.  As I write this we have just departed from a 2+ hour drift on the bigguns so I'm still pumped.  Take a journey with me.

    We started off our morning drifting in flat calm conditions which it remained for the rest of the day.  We fired up after daylight and didn't find much to work with for a few hours but mid morning we started stringing some stops together on the yellowfin tunas for a couple of hours before they went down for pretty much the rest of the day minus a couple stops mid afternoon.  In between that after lunch we bumped into a couple big balls of dorado.  That's something we haven't seen yet this year.  They were a bit on the smaller size for the most part but they were still fun to watch and catch.  Most of them were the size that's to big to bounce over the rail without a gaff but small enough to make it very difficult to gaff so we lost our fair share.  Mostly guys grabbing the line trying to swing it over on there own.

    After around 4 oclock we were getting low on bait and decided to use the remainder of it trying to catch bluefin tuna.  Things were looking grim for us after a couple hours driving around in the zone without seeing much but around 6:30 things got nasty.  My sonar made that beautiful sound the says fish fish fish with every pulse and then it was drifting for a few hours and hooking for 2.  I'm not sure how many of the 60-90 pound maybe a few over 100 pound beasts we hooked but I can tell you we landed 13 of them and when you land that many you usually lose that many too. I watched one gentleman get spooled instantly on 50 pound test.  Instantly.  I watched that same angler later land one on 60 pound test. Everyone on board had their chance at a biggun this evening and half the boat did get one.  

    We're headed for the dock now and we'll be there tomorrow around the 0700 hour.  We'll have a busy little turn around but we'll get the job done.  We always do.  See you later from the wheel house of the Polaris Supreme.
                                

 

40 bluefin 14 yellowfin. Steady stop and go action. Small jigs like the Shimano colt sniper and flat fall or a rubber banded sinker rig both fished on 40-60lb line were top producers.