guntersville Fishing Report 2024

With great anticipation of a light load aboard the Apollo, all 14 of us anglers showed up at the dock early, swapping stories about past trips. We started boarding about 9:30pm and were greeted by Capt JJ Gerritsen and the rest of his crew, we signed in and had a seat for our safety briefing. Capt JJ then asked if we wanted to head offshore for Albacore which had dramatically slowed down the last couple days or head south along the coast for a shot at Dorado and Yellowfin and Yellowtail patty hopping. Without much hesitation we decided to head south and patty hop. We got the feathers in at gray light and started the troll, within 15 minutes the yell of "Hook-up" sang out, unfortunately the mystery fish got away and we were under way again. Five minutes later we heard that yell again, the mystery fish won round two and will live another day. Third time's a charm didn't hold true for us, our third hook-up is still out there in the deep blue. At that point the first troll rotation was fired (which included me) and the second shift took over. Within 10 minutes they had our first fish on the deck, a skipjack, from that point on while looking for patties we boated about 19 skipjack. We found our first patty around 10am and moved in with hopes of a wide open bite, but to our dismay there was nobody home. That held true for the next 8 patties we found, then finally around noon with a mouth full of burger, we heard the call to get ready. Never fails every time your food is done, it's time to drop a line. As soon as our sardines hit the water the patty expolded, we ended up with 1 Dorado and 2 Yellowtail. We only found two two more patties holding fish and ended up with 1 more Dorado and 4 yellowtail. It was now time to head back to port and we again set out the troll lines and managed to pick up 7 Yellowfin Tuna on the way back in. I really enjoyed sharing the rail with a great bunch of folks and look forward to doing it again soon. If you would like any of the pictures posted please email me at [email protected] .

Ryan Bostian checked in with a report from the San Diego out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay, CA. Today we had 15 anglers catch 9 Bluefin Tuna (60-80 lbs) 1 Yellowfin Tuna (25 lbs). Capt Cameron and the boys had a fine day.

Sep. 3

                Hello everyone and welcome.  We are back in action.  I'm sorry we had to take some time off but the baby missed her daddy.  The Syd monster held up the whole operation.  After a week with me though she said "OK dad, you can go now".  You see, she understands dad has a mortgage to pay.  OK, enough of that.  We departed this evening for a quickie.  1.5 days.  We have bait.  We got quite a bit more than I thought we would out of our one box.  It's pretty much straight mackerel though.  There's some sardine but not a lot.  We'll see how they like them.  They are the bluefin.  We chose to hunt the blues.  They're such a nice grade of fish.  Better than the 5 pound yellowfin that's around.  Here we go again.

                                                                                                               

 

Back after a five-day trip, the 7th Annual Paul Chappell Charter aboard the Polaris Supreme arrived at Fisherman's Landing July 10. The 24 anglers were guided by skipper Drew Henderson.
"We got some nice yellowtail at San Martin," remarked Drew, "but there's a lot of that big squid around there. You can't get any more yellows once they get on you." Chartermaster Chappell won first place for his 34.6-pound albacore. He said he bagged it with a sardine on a 2/0 Mustad 94150 hook on 30-pound Yo-Zuri line. He fished with a Penn Squidder reel and a Sabre seven-foot rod of the same era. Phil Beltrami of Napa won second place for a 33.4-pounder, and Craig Pappas of Santa Cruz won third place for a 32.4-pound longfin.

Limits of BluefinTtuna again!

Andrew Viola called in with a mid morning update from the Pacifica out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego, CA.

We have half limits of Bluefin Tuna and a couple of nice Yellowtail and Dorado on the boat. We are stopped on a school right now and hoping to round off the count.

The Pacifica is back out tomorrow night for a 1.5 day trip fishing offshore for Tuna and Yellowtail. Departs at 9PM.

July 19
  Today went well I thought.  Starting with our ride up last night.  As good as it gets.  Flat calm.  The only swell was a long swell that would slowly, gently rock the boat.  We slept like babies.  In fact, I think I woke up with my thumb in my mouth.  I let everyone sleep in if they chose to.  We didn't start fishing until just before 9:00 in the morning.

  We were pleasantly surprised with the fishing.  It was good.  We tried for some more yellows, for us, and to check out the grounds for future trips as well and they bit well.  We kept 2-4 going the whole time until we drove away from them.  "We left them biting".  Our favorite thing to say out here.  After that we ran up and made a few drifts for some Cod.  We had the time and I had a few requests so we caught a few rockfish.

  Now we're headed home.  The crew's scrubbing the boat, I'm writing this, I think there may be a poker game going on, and we're just hanging out and enjoying ourselves and the beautiful ride up.  The wind and swell are on our stern.  That storm out there is blessing us with a lovely ride home.  Its like we're riding down but we're going up.  Timing is everything.  Sometimes it all comes together and this trip was one of them.

  So we'll be home bright and early tomorrow and of course we'll be headed back out a few hours later.
         

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.