crane lake Fishing Report 2025

Polaris Supreme Update 08-03-2012

Hi Anglers

Today started off bad for the first half. We just couldn't get it right . Then around mid day we found the school we where looking for. What were we looking for and found you might ask? Strait 33 t0 45 pound Yellowfin Tuna. What a beautiful grade of fish, thats all you heard captains on the radio saying all afternoon. We ended up having a great day. The main thing that frustrated us this morning was 4 out of the 8 long range guys put together a great morning on nice grade yellowtail. One of the guys even drifted all day on yellows and tuna. Now don't get me wrong I am really happy for him but I want to be that guy. Maybe tomorrow. We are experiencing great weather and hoping for more of that also. Mom, Taylor is having the time of her life so not to worry she is being spoiled. Thanks for tuning in Tommy.

Tommy Rothery finished up a three-day trip on his Polaris Supreme and tied up at Fisherman's Landing July 12. "We had good fishing on albacore," he said, "and bluefin fishing was okay, too. I think I saw the longest spread of albacore I've seen in five years. We had some kids who fished for tuna with iron from the bow, The Ironmen. They did great!" Hubert Bell of Bonita won the jackpot for a 47-pound albacore, the best one to come in to the docks this season. He said it bit on a sardine pinned to a 2/0 Super Mutu hook on 30-pound P-Line. He used an Accurate B-2 500 reel on an 800 M Calstar wrapped by Don's Bait & Tackle. Tom Carr of San Diego won second place for a 42.4-pound bluefin and Lohn Storms of Vista won third place for a 38.6-pound bluefin tuna. The Ironmen kindly posed for Bill Roecker's camera. They were Hugh Seifert, 14, Hunter Lane, 14, and Jorge daSilva, 13, all of Poway. Hugh and Hunter will go to Poway High and Jorge to St. Michael's. The boys said they got most of their fish with chrome and blue Tady 9 jigs and Megabait darts or knife jigs.

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Hi friends and happy August to all of you. Our ride last night was a little bit sloppy and we made horrible speed but we checked out a couple of coastal spots anyways. They were dry but we gave it a look and the call was made to break down the gear for the final clean-up. Throughout the day, our ride progressively changed for the better but as of 1900 hours this evening, we're bouncing around a little bit. Nonetheless, the gang are downstairs enjoying their final meal aboard the 2011 Tom Chaparro/Stern Hogs five day trip. We're still making less than normal speed and we'll hopefully make up some speed up the line so that we arrive to Fisherman's Landing on-time tomorrow morning at 0700 hours.

For this evening's report, we'd like to shine the spotlight on Tom Chaparro. As I said last night, this year was his fourteenth year chartering the Polaris Supreme and for the last five years that I've been involved with the Supreme, I feel that I can sum up Tom pretty well and it's pretty simple - Tom Chaparro is the man. Not only being an outstanding fisherman, Tom makes sure that everyone on-board his trip has a great time and does it the right way, the Polaris Supreme way and nobody knows that way better than Tom. It's just Tom's vibe that makes his trip special. Yes, he wants to catch fish more than anybody on the vessel but he still wants people to do things the right way and have an outstanding time. Tom makes you feel like you've been riding his charter since day one, he gives you the respect that he wants back in return and in this day, that is hard to find in some people. Most of Tom's charters are familiar faces year in and year out, and that is a tell-tale sign of Tom's desire for fishing and his desire to make sure that everyone on-board is happy. I could go on for paragraphs about Tom but all I can say is come find out for yourself. His sister Mary is one of the sweetest people you could meet and we were sorry that Tom's son, Thomas, couldn't make it this year. Get well man and we'll see you next year.

So that's all. It's dinner time and like I said, we're trying for a 0700 ETA. Tomorrow, the gang will be departing on the Prigmore four day adventure so look for Tommy's reports to continue tomorrow evening. Take care.

-Team Supreme-

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

Hi friends. We completed our tour of Yellowtail Land this evening the same way that we started this morning by landing a couple of lunkers in the 30 lb. range. Our time in the middle of our day was spent chasing breezers and color spots of Yellowtail with decent success and the size of these fish wasn't bad either with most being in the 15-18 lb. class. We would occasionally hook them on the surface jig's and yo-yo iron's but it was mostly a bait fishery. Fly-lined sardines on 30 lb. test was working with great success and our two days down here at the Yellowtail Grounds was a fine stay once again. Our weather today was awesome with the exception of a little afternoon breeze and the weather we're currently in now as I type this report. We're rockin' and rollin' up the line and depending on our speed, we'll see if we can get a couple hours of coastal fishing time in tomorrow. We'll see.

After Chef Schooler kicked out a Yellowtail dinner with his Polaris Supreme famous lemon-butter-caper sauce, charter-master Tom Chaparro extended his gratitude for 14 years of quality service by teaming up with Herb Yamanaka and presenting the crew with some of Herb's handmade exotic mahogany bowls/pepper grinders and University of Oregon merchandise. We say thank you to Tom and also a big thanks goes out to Herb. Herb normally fishes on Lon Mikkelsen's Ocean Tackle Research ten day trip in the fall but decided to hop on with Mr. Chaparro and his exceptional group. Herb took countless hours of footage on last year's ten day and made an awesome video from last year's OTR trip that is currently on our website and Herb is flat-out one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and we issue many thanks to him. He also tells Donna that he loves you and go Ducks.

Also, Joe Gigliotti, who has been riding with Tom since the beginning of his charter, has an Accurate sponsored 8-day trip leaving October 15th returning October 23rd, limited to 20 anglers, and he's informed me that there are some openings on it. This time slot is prime time Alijos Rocks and Ridge fishing for tuna and wahoo and Joe will have plenty of goodies to hand out as well. Joe is a super cool cat and if you'd like to come join up with him and Accurate, give Susan a call at 619-390-7890 and let's get in on some limited load, early Fall action at it's finest.

So that is all. As I've said before, our weather isn't ideal but we're doing just fine and not rollin' around too much. We'll hopefully get in some fishing time tomorrow and we'll check in with you tomorrow as well. Wish us luck and have a great start to the work week.

-Team Supreme-

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Hey folks. Yellowtail fishing was limits today on The Polaris Supreme. We a steller start in the morning a lull to allow everyone a chance to get rested Then back at it in the afternoon. There wasn't a whole lot of times during the day that we weren't pulling on 'tails. Our grade of fish is still very nice with a few 40 pounders to round out our day in style. We caught them using all of the methods that we employ while fishing for Yellowtail and we're hoping for a repeat tomorrow, at the least. We're hanging out in the "premium zone" where we'll hope for a some big ones in the morning. That is our plan for now, Chappy and the gang are having a simply splendid time, and Garth Kubeldis is currently in the lead for the Lizard-fish jackpot (woo-hoo). We're enjoying the goregous weather and we'll be giving it a go bright and early tomorrow morning. Wish us luck and we'll chat with y'all tomorrow.

-Team Supreme-

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Hi friends. Windy offshore conditions made for a tough day but we managed to piece together a couple stops for Bluefin, Yellowfin, Yellowtail, and a couple handful's of Dorado as well. With the kelp paddy scene starting to take shape, we're excited about future ventures down this way. Throughout the day, we continued our southerly trek down to the Yellowtail grounds and we'll be fishing before the sun even rises. As a matter of fact, as of 0458 this morning, Chappy has already boated two 'tails on the dropper loop. We're off to a good start. Wish us luck and happy Friday.

-Team Supreme-

P.S. To Donna - Herb says he loves and misses you and I say - Hello Donna. The Oak floors are going to look marvelous, keep up the good work! Take care.

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Good evening friends. We arrived at 0700 this morning to unload the Costello group and their catch of beautiful Yellowtail, Bluefin, Yellowfin, Calico Bass, Vermilion Rockfish, Lingcod, and the token White Seabass. Once our turn-around chores were completed, we brought aboard Tom and Mary Chaparro for their annual Stern Hogs five day limited load charter. They've brought along quite a few familiar faces with them, except they forgot "Little Chappy", but we're looking forward to catching up with the crew on-board and catching fish. Our bait is looking OK and we'll be monitoring the situation overnight to ensure that we have healthy bait. When all of the loading, eating, rigging, napping, and seminars were complete, the gang feasted on Prime Rib and hit the racks to prepare for the activities we have planned for them tomorrow.

For tomorrow, we'll be giving the offshore scene a try with the hopes of locating some Yellowfin and Bluefin. If a kelp paddy happens to pop up, we'll try those too as there has been some kelps kicking out some nice Yellowtail. So that is our plan, the weather is quite nice, and we'll get things rolling tomorrow morning. Wish us luck.

-Team Supreme-

July 24

Good evening everyone. Today was more of the same as the last couple days. Still seeing tons of fish. Still struggling to get bites. Same thing. See a school, stop and catch fish one at a time. The cool thing about it is we're stopped fishing a lot more then regular fishing days so we're staying occupied. The only thing different for us today was that we saw multiple schools of big bluefin. The 50-80 pound stuff but it's even harder to get one of those to bite. We ended up hooking a few and landing a couple of 70 pounders. We'll do it again for one more day, the last fishing day of this trip. Hopefully they'll want to bite better tomorrow. There is no way we would leave this zone with all the fish we are seeing.

Captain Matt and the boys burning the midnight oil for twenty 35-50 lb bluefin and 1 yellowfin. Put the J hooks away and exchange them for circles when Mr. Bluefin is around.

31 bass 47 whitefish for our 11 anglers. We spent our day in the shallows trying to stay in position to catch a yellowtail but never connected. Still plenty of action for our light load.

Aug. 30

Not to much to report from the Polaris Supreme today. We did a tiny bit of fishing this morning. We were seeing little dabs of yellowfin where we were and the boats below us were seeing the same thing. Just a little bit of fish scattered around and stops for not much so we wound in the jigs and put the blinders up and traveled down the rest of the day. We did our wahoo seminar mid morning and after that it was a leisure day. Some slept, some made wire leaders and some just kicked back and enjoyed the lovely weather. Man oh man was it nice out today. Flat calm seas, super light breeze and warm. August must be coming to an end and we welcome that. What a cold windy month for us out here. Our speed has been poor and it's looking like we won't be arriving to our destination until after lunch.

We had awesome variety this year on our 8-10 day trips. Especially the Dorado fishing on kelp patty’s!