clinton river Fishing Report 2023

Drew Henderson docked Polaris Supreme October 25 after a ten-day Bunker Memorial trip with 22 passengers. His anglers found some excellent yellowtail fishing, and big jacks swept the pot.

Bob Williams of San Diego fought his 41-pound yellow for 20 minutes before it came to gaff. He won first place for it and said he used a sardine on a 4/0 Mustad J-hook on 40-pound P-Line, with a Trinidad 30 reel and a Calstar 700 H rod.

Rick Bynum won second place for a 39.9-pound yellow, and Paul Kraft took third place for a 39.1-pounder. Paul's cousin Ed Kraft of Pt. Hueneme stood in with the group holding his 33-pound dorado.

Our private charter had to display some good old fashioned patience today. In a typical 3/4 day trip we can expect to make about 3-5 moves thru ought the day looking for fish. Today however, we did not find what we were looking for until our 9th stop of the day. The rapidly changing conditions coupled with the short windows of biting fish have been driving yours truly crazy the past couple of days. Today's photo will show you why we have been putting ourselves thru such mental anguish. Today's final count for our 31 passengers is 11 yellowtail 20 calico bass 16 barracuda 7 rockfish. Our yellowtail today weighed 20-35 pounds and were biting the fly lined sardines the best.

We spent our last day looking at school after school of albacore. A very good sign of no biting fish. Frustrating? Yes. Oh well. That's just how it goes sometimes. A very good trip in all. Thanks to everyone on board and to the charter master Wayne Martin with Catchy Tackle lures. We'll be rolling back out tomorrow on another 5 day trip. Stay tuned.

Yesterday we went out with 21 anglers. Final fish count for the day was. 2 lingcod 9 sheephead 67 red rockcod 132 miscellaneous rockfish. We fished deep water in the morning and shallow water in the afternoon. We are scheduled to fish everyday. Make those reservations and come join us.

We just received word from the county that we are clear to go fishing starting tomorrow We will be fishing offshore for tuna and yellowtail. Please bring a 25 lb bait rod a 40 or 50 lb bait rod and a then a setup capable of landing a 100+ pound fish. Assorted circle hooks and some fluorocarbon. Some Shimano Flatfalls are always a good call. Call Seaforth at 619-224-3383. First come first serve. (30 pass max)

Plenty of room at the rail this past weekend ! On Saturday our 8 passengers caught 25 quality calico bass and another 25 miscellaneous rockfish. On Sunday our 7 passengers caught 20 nice calico bass and 20 rockfish. The highlight of the weekend was a 15 lb. white sea bass caught on Sunday. We also released a short sea bass. If you are one of those people that do not enjoy fishing with a crowd. This is the time for you ! Our next trip is Friday December 7. Make those resos !

We at Tribute Sportfishing are feeling the Holiday Spirit and would like to give back to our Anglers, so we decided to spice things up for this weekends trip. We love our Sponsors and our fisherman enough to raffle off our own "brand new" gear purchased our given to us from them. This Friday nights trip will have new raffle prizes of... -Seeker 40 pound rod- -Okuma Cortez Reel- -5 packs of Seeker Soft Steel Ultra flouracarbon- -A case of BallastPoint Sculpin IPA- -A $25 Seaforth Sportfishing gift certificate- And a free 1 1/2 day rockfish trip aboard the Tribute. Over $800 in give aways just because we love you guys and gals that fish with us. There is also rumor that a sponsor or 2 may sweeten the pot further. Merry Christmas!

Aug 19

A good finish to a good trip today. It started off a slow morning like every morning of this trip started off. It being the last day we just traveled north all morning to increase our fishing time for the day. We bumped into a school of those 50-70 pound bft's mid to late morning and drifted till we were out of time. We landed almost 30 of those beauts before we had to call it and head for the barn. The weather today was great and the ride going up is ideal. The fillet and crab cakes were delish and everyone is tuckered out but me but only because I have to be up.

Thanks again to the Heil group for coming out once again after all these years and creating another memorable trip.