grand traverse bay Fishing Report 2025

"We released over 200 fish in our four days at the Rocks," said Polaris Supreme owner-skipper Tom Rothery September 6, after his nine-day trip with 20 anglers. "They were yellowtail and yellowfin tuna."
Rothery's anglers had just over half-limits of wahoo and near-limits of tuna, the best score so far this young fall season. Wayne Campbell of Huntington Beach managed a quick limit of 15, he said, on bait and 58-pound single-strand wire leaders.
Chuck Eiser of Rancho Mirage won the jackpot for a 106.8-pound yellowfin that chowed down a squid under the kite, using one of the boat's kite rigs.
Brent Hough of Palm Springs used a sardine and 50-pound line to take a 91.4-pounder and Simon Housman of Palm Springs nabbed a 74-pounder in just 15 minutes on a sardine and 30-pound line.

Tuna fishing was good again today with nice quality tuna. We took off mid-day to hunt for some dorado and wahoo on kelps in the afternoon, but no luck. We will be on the Ridge tomorrow to sweep for wahoo. Our lunch today was an outstanding fresh tuna fillet with avocado, lettuce, tomato and wasabi sauce. We will update again tomorrow. Thanks, Tommy and crew

Sep. 7

Normal turn around today. Nothing crazy happened. It was hot hot hot. The bluefin were bigger then we thought. The small one went 139.something and the biggest one went 146. Pigs. Or cows rather. We'd like to do the same this trip. We left on the annual Robin Gledhill Blue White private charter with captain Tommy Rothery at the helm. After getting bait and some lunch it was nap time for most. Me included. It was nice With a shower and a cup of coffee right after makes me feel like a million bucks. We did the seminar and had a lovely prime rib dinner. I skipped it and cooked up some of the escolar passenger John caught last trip and was too scared to keep. They're not the prettiest fish and after hearing rumors of what happens when you eat too much of it in one sitting he said no way was he keeping it. So i tried it tonight. I had it for dinner. Tommy won't let me say what happens on here so I'll just say that it's a very oily fish and you should be able to figure it out. I'll let you know tomorrow John. The weather out here is smooth and we should experience some more in the near future.

Drew

Happy July 4th everyone.
    We started our morning off doing some bluefin watching.  It's like whale watching but instead of whales you watch bluefin.  In other words they didn't bite.  We got on one spot and they were practically smacking the side of the boat they were so close but they wanted nothing to do with us.  After a little bit of that and a kelp for some yellows and our first dorado of the year we started getting strikes on yellowfin.  It was pretty steady for 1 1/2 hours then shut down for 1 1/2 hours then started up again for 1 hour then went completely dead.  We went west because west is best.  After lunch things got interesting.  We started to see big schools of yellowfin and it didn't stop until dark.  As my grandma would say, "holy Toledo!".  Unfortunately they were not biting fish.  We would get stops for 2,1,1,2,4,1,1,2,2,3,3,3,1,2, like that.  But we stayed busy and worked  hard at it and scratched out a nice catch.  We had 40 tuna stops and averaged 2 per stop.  Now thats scratching.

    The weather was incredible.  As my grandma would say, "holy Toledo!".  Variable winds all day.  That means there wasn't enough wind to measure.  I think that's what it means anyway.  We're headed back in and will be docking at 7:15 in the am and we will be turning around on a 6 day.  I'll be your captain.  See you then.
                                

 

Monday, August 13th, 2012

Ahhh yes. It's fitting that Sirius XM 90's on 9 is bumping Ice Cube's hit "Today Was A Good Day". Oh yes, and just like Mr. Cube, we messed around and got ourselves a triple-double. Daily limits of yellowfin in the 30-50 lb. class, 33 bluefin tuna of a mixed grade but most were 30-40 pounders, and we rounded our day out with 17 flatheads. We had a jig strike at about 0600 hours and didn't move the boat until well after lunch. Just plunkin' away with some really heavy flurries now and then to really jack things up. Excellent fishing on quality gamefish is what we do. Like Mallory, our resident 16 year old girl from last trip said to me "get on my level, bro!" Kids. Where do they come up with this stuff? Anyhow, our level right now is Sonny Jim status. Straight ballin' and if everybody was on our level right now, the world would be a much, much better place. We're pumped and Tania and the dudes are done wore out.

Good weather, good fishing. No reason not to do this again tomorrow. We'll be trying for squid tonight and see if we can't get ourselves a few and put them to good use tomorrow like we did today. Have a great night and a splendid tomorrow -- and remember: somebody on the Polaris Supreme loves you.

The team you dream about,

RE and the Supreme Team

Benn making the most of the situation and not dragging passengers offshore to catch nothing. So we have been fishing the Coranado Islands for all you want cod each day and heading offshore in the PM finding very little. Our larger boats went out today catching a handful of Yellowfin so that's a move in the right direction. Thanks!

The San Diego has finished their three quarter day trip on Monday with 2 Bluefin Tuna (30-40lbs) and 5 Yellowfin Tuna.

The San Diego will be fishing OFFSHORE through FRIDAY 6/17. These trips are limited to 45 people and reservations are required!  Recommended tackle for these trips is a MINIMUM of 50# monofilament for the big Bluefin! Live bait and poppers have been working well.

The El Gato Dos returned from a 3/4 day trip on Sunday with 1 Bluefin Tuna (124lbs) and 1 Yellowfin Tuna.

Wow, I think we have to pinch ourselves to make sure it's real. We had an unbelievable day. You could throw a bait in the water any time from day break to dark and catch a tuna. Some anglers released as many as 15 tuna in the 35-45 lb. class. We also scratched a few wahoo. After a delicious dinner of a veal shank, fresh asparagus and red potatoes all our guys and one lady went to bed very tired. Our weather is gorgeous and we are looking forward to another fantastic day tomorrow. Thanks for checking in. Tommy and crew P.S. Susan said we still have one open spot on the Sept. 14th trip and a couple on October 25th if you can come out and experience some of this great fall fishing. Give her a call 619-390-7890