gates ausable lodge Fishing Report 2024

Sep. 4

                These darn bluefin let me tell ya.  This morning looked so juicy.  We drifted for hours on 3 different schools and caught 9.  Hours.  And it's not like they weren't hanging around.  I mean the boat was jugged underneath.  They were under us like shishkabob.  9 fish.  We lost our fair share but 9 fish?  With what we saw?

 

                Mid day wasn't that awesome.  We saw some but it didn't impress me.  We messed around with some small yellows while we waited for things to straighten out.  At 4 things did.  Not right away.  We saw the school and it took a while to get things going but eventually it did.  We drifted for 2 straight hours catching fish.  Not wide open.  But fairly steady. 1-6 going.  Action.  Nice ones.  After that drift we did it again.  Again it took a while to get things going but again, it did.  We drifted until dark on that one.  About an hour.  Same deal.  Maybe a little less. 1-4 going.  So it was an afternoon thing today.  I'm sure glad we hung around for it.

 

                So we head in now.  We're departing tomorrow on a 5 day.  What are we going to do?

                                                                                               

Hi Anglers,

I have a little web-site update for you. We have put all of our photos from the past years, into albums on the photo page. As you will see they are categorized by year first, then the date of the trip, then the group. In the past they have all been grouped together in one big mess. Hopefully this will help you find the trip you were on in the past years. Also you will be able to more easily create your own photo albums for the trips you were on. If you notice any errors in dates or subjects on the photo page, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected] or a phone call at 619-390-7890. Everything on the Facebook page should be up to date for those of you that follow us on Facebook.

A new update on offshore fishing. Last weekend's 2-day trip was a huge success targeting the big bluefin. Drew and the boys got the anglers into the fish at 150 miles and had a five hour long drift where they hooked over fifty 65-75 pound bluefin! When the dust settled they had 23 of these beauties on deck. They also picked up seven smaller grade bluefin and a few of the small yellows. For those of you going out on upcoming trips you defiantly need the usual 50 lb. 2-speed reel. Some of the guys also had 40 lb. 2-speeds and it was the true money maker for this bigger fish. It was the best of both worlds having lighter line that got bit better and the 2-speed that really let then put the  pressure on the fish after the initial run. So put one in your bag.

Also yesterday fish popped up in good volume closer to home at 70-100 miles. We are watching this to see how this develops for the shorter trips. Hopefully we won't have to make the 120-150 mile run. If you want to view the bluefin on the last two day just click on photos, then click 2012, then click on the photo for 07-06-2012 2 Day Open. Don't forget there are multiple page in the photo albums. This one has two.

The next trip heading out is our Optima Charter on Saturday afternoon, to target this fish. Don't forget to follow us on our report page.

As for openings, we still have spots on Paul Hess's 5-day departing July

23rd, and one spot on July 28th 5-day. Come join us if you can.

Thanks,

Tommy

~~9-7-2014

 Good evening folks. So today was a rather tough day of fishing. The weather certainly didn't cooperate with us for the entire day. Mixed up choppy seas with a little better than 15 knots of wind. As we all know that makes for less than ideal fishing conditions, but the guys still hung in there and when it came time to stop on a breezer, meter mark or a nice size kelp patty, then still got out and got their lines wet so bravo to them.  We still managed to scratch up a few yellowfin throughout the day with a couple tuna right at Sundown to take us into wine tasting and dinner. They always say that a tough day of fishing can be cured by a great meal and that was sure the case today. Chef David certainly out did himself once again with a beautiful fillet mignon and king crab leg meal for us tonight. That put some smiles on some faces without a doubt. But that's trhe great thing about this group, they aren't out here just to fish, they love to enjoy the full experience.  To wrap up the night, we dished out probably the tallest "decadent" chocolate cake a la mode that I've ever seen! Wow! That sent them to bed with full bellies and a nice ride up to tomorrows tuna grounds for round 2 of tuna fishing. Wish us luck and check back in tomorrow for the days run down.

 P.S. The entire group here would like to send a huge congratulations to Mr and Mrs. Taylor Gledhill as they welcomed their healthy 7lb 17oz 19.5 inch baby girl into the world today at 4:20. Grandpa Robin and Uncle Rob can't wait to come home and see you guys! From the Blue-White group and the whole crew here on the Polaris Supreme...CONGRATULATIONS!!

 Captain Tommy,Jed, Gunny, Mark, Mike, Chef David and The Gringo

We spent the morning finishing rigging up everyone's gear for tomorrow. We arrived the days fishing grounds just after lunch and spent a little time looking around before finding a little nest of wahoo. We caught a handful and lost that many right away and thought "this is alright". That was the last of the wahoo we saw. All the small yellowtail you could ever want but that's not what we were in search of so we are now sliding down to be in the tuna grounds tomorrow. Wish us luck please.

Again we have beautiful weather. Today we had our fishing tackle seminar and just kept traveling. Dinner was lobster and fillet, and some really exquisite sushi and sashimi for appetizers.

Captain RJ Hudson checked in this evening with an update from the New Seaforth out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. Today on our afternoon trip we had 17 anglers catch 1 Halibut (up to 25 pounds), 1 Whitefish, 17 Rockfish, and 75 Vermilion Rockfish. Pictured here is angler Jessica Cano with a beautiful 25 pound San Diego Halibut.

~~Oct.16-20
 So for the last few days, I was either too busy to write a report or just too tired.  I knew these blogs wouldn't be making it out here until tomorrow anyway so I figured I would just do a 4 day report to explain the remainder of our trip down below so here it goes.

 When I left off, the sharks backed off and allowed us to have a great afternoon and we were hoping the sharks would do the same thing they did last year after the first couple of days which is leave.  That didn't happen.  It was a sharky trip for sure.  Brown Reef Sharks were in the picture for the remainder of the time we were down there.  Sometimes they were relentless and we'd have to pull anchor and go trolling for wahoo and other times they would back off just enough to allow us to scratch at the tunas and then other times they would back off completely.  They weren't tuna eaters though.  They let us wind in what we hooked, but they loved our kite baits.

 Anyways, we still had an excellent trip down there sharks or no sharks.  There were a lot of windows of opportunity and there were some slow windows as well.  There was almost always a window where we would get at least two cows before sunrise, and after that it never stayed consistent.  If we didn't need to sleep it would've been convenient.  I know we missed plenty of tuna bites in the dark hours through out the night but that's when we would sleep.  Like I said though we had an excellent trip and here are the numbers to prove it.

 130 yellowfin tuna and 60 wahoo for 8 guys for 6 days.  54 tuna kept.  11 over 200 lb's, 5 that may go when we weigh them on the dock scale, 6 between 170-180 and the rest were 100-150 pounds with much fish being in the 120-130 pound class.  We also released 76 of those too!  One release estimated to be around 200 pounds and several in the 150 pound range and like I said, many in the 120-130 pound range.  Our largest was 240 and next in line was a 234 pounder kept.

 Here are the team jackpot totals: 1st place goes to Charlie and Craig with 2 fish totaling 453 pounds.  2nd went to George and Scott with 2 totaling 414.  George also had 5 tuna over 200 pounds by the way.  One per day besides the last day.  3rd place went to the Jer-bear and JC with 399 pounds, and Brian and Bernie finished just behind them with 396 pounds.  None of this is official.  We still need to weigh them oin land.

 And that's basically how fishing was down there.  Here are some things that stand out to me while we were down there.  First of all I'd like to talk about KC.  I'm not saying he was scared, he just didn't seem too pumped on fighting one of these fish we call cows.  He wasn't the first or fifth for that matter to jump on a spot on the kite for example when one was available.  On the third day it couldn't be avoided.  He got up on that kite and when he did this particular time he hooked a big one and he handled it as well as anyone.  I mean he kicked that fishes @$$.  He came to battle and he won.  It taped out as a 193 pounder.  After that it wasn't hard to get KC up on the kite when a spot was presented.  It went from where the heck is KC, to him not leaving the rail at all.

 I let Mark know the Raiders lost.  I did it in a mean way too.  His birthday was the 16th I believe, and Chef Mike baked him a cake and we all sang happy birthday and when it was over, I gave him my birthday present which is spilling the beans on lying about the Raiders beating the Chargers.  Ha ha Mark.

 The weather was a lot less steamy the last few days down there.  It was still hot, but once the clouds went away it didn't feel like a sauna there anymore.  Although myself and a few others got the worse case of burnt lips we ever had.  I did it in a dumb way too.  I knew I should go get my chap stick from my room on the first day down there but my lips did;t feel like they were getting chapped so I thought, because of the humidity my lips weren't drying out and I didn't need protection.  Dumb, stupid and idiotic.  My lips may not have dried out but they still got as burnt as ever.

  So that's it.  We now travel for a few days.  The crew has plenty to do.  Clean, clean clean and sleep.  The passengers will be sleeping and celebrating a wonderful trip.  We'll be trying to break up the ride on our last day of travel by looking for a dorado kelp but that's still not for a couple more days.
      

 

~~Aug. 28
 It was a busy morning for us today but a kick back afternoon. For the second time this year we are not fishing on our departure day. We did the usual turn around throwing in an oil and fuel filter change. We offloaded, then onloaded and then we took off before lunch. The bait was OK. It looked great but lost some scales putting it in our tanks. We'll see how it likes 80+ degree water in a couple of days. I decided to skip this 30 mile yellowfin zone today and get down below while we have a window of good hurricaneless weather. There will be some wind the next couple of days everywhere but should come down nicely for a week or so everywhere if the forecast holds true. I'm still not sure where we're starting yet this trip. We'll either head straight to the rocks or drag our feet for a day and wait for the weather to get pristine. For now there is some napping going on and just some old fashioned kicking back. Something we haven't seen a whole lot of this year as it has been straight to fishing out of the gates.