james river pier Fishing Report 2024

Polaris Supreme Trip Up Date 11-16-2013

First thing's first on today's report. Happy 1st anniversary to both captain Drew and his lovely bride, Kristen. Congratulations to you both. Since we're on the subject of significant others, hello again to both Kathy and Marla.You are both missed. The crew is once again too busy to sit up top and work a keyboard, so you are stuck with me again.

Weather out here remains stellar. Flat calm. Everyone on board has tagged a wahoo some have tagged 5. John Devore trolled up a real beauty out in the middle of nowhere that we'd like to see a few more of. Fishing has not been exactly red-hot, but has certainly been keeping us on our toes. We're currently on our way into Magdalena Bay to top off our bait. It's the first time we've seen land in about five days. Cocktail hour is underway. Tomorrow's plans are being plotted. This evening's dinner will be started with an Italian tuna soup, followed by a seared fillet mignon and scallops stir-fry, served with a roasted garlic risotto and sauteed broccoli. YUM!

One observation I have to share today was while trolling. I looked up and realized that a flock of frigate birds had been following us for several hours. The wingspan on these magnificent birds must be at least four feet. They look like prehistoric pterodactyls from the right angle. Nature is amazing. It's an incredible world out there. Go and see it ...

Your anonymous guest reporter.

 

P.S. We have landed about 150 Wahoo the last 2 days but kept only 46 for the trip. We released the rest. I have never seen this many small Wahoo. We are about 3 years too early on this school. The ones we kept where dandy's. Tommy

We stopped and fished briefly on some yellowtail this afternoon and had some great action. We then continued on traveling in smooth weather. However, if we were going the other way it would be snotty and rough. We had a tender cooked shaved beef with a Burgundy sauce, baby snow peas and roasted potatoes for dinner. Still rolling down to Alijos, and should be fishing by mid-morning.

14 pass. 2 bluefin tuna (55&90 lbs). Felt like we had a really good day but when we opened the fish hold we only had 2 fish. Missed several other opportunities. Come prepared with good gear.

Saturday, July 28th, 2012

Good evening, friends. We departed on an open party 5-day trip today with a healthy load of people and a healthy load of bait. Our weather traveling down is quite nice and we're looking like the weather is going to clean up for the next few days, so we're pumped. As far as the fishing outlook, one boat in the area today did equally phenomenal on bluefin and yellowfin. Straight up.We'll be in the area tomorrow and we'll chat you up tomorrow on our day.

Getting back to yesterday, we'd like to thank Paul Hess and his crew that tagged along with him this year. If I recall, this was Paul's 12th annual trip and we look forward to seeing him, his son, Matt, and the rest of the gang that comes back year after year (thanks for bailing, Boomhower. More bluefin and yellowfin for us.) Anyhow, It's a fantastic trip, one of my favorites every year, and we'll see y'all next year.

So that's all. We'll chat with you tomorrow.

~~Oct. 6
 Here we go again.  One last short trip of the year.  My last trip as the captain.  El Capitan, Master, number 1,el jefe, the chief...  After this one Tommy comes out for 15 days.  You'll still get my blogs though because I'll be here.  Right now though I'm thinking about this trip right here that we're on right now.  I'm feeling some dorado and tuna tomorrow.  I'm hoping we get it done early and I have the problem of figuring out, OK, what next?  That would be real nice.  We'll see.  I have her on course and I'm feeling prime rib tonight.  I don't think I've eaten it in 2 years out here but tonight might be the night.  I haven't been very healthy lately so what's one more drink on the Titanic right?
       
 

August 22   
We got in there and got things done pretty fast this morning.  We docked at 6:30 and were off loaded and on our way to the fuel dock after an hour.  We handled fuel and an oil change and had passengers on the boat by 10:00.  So we got a good jump which allowed us extra time and the bait receivers to search through our options to ensure we had the best bait available.  We took what we call firecracker sardine.  A mix of mostly 4-6 inch sardine.  It didn't look so hot going in but it's seems to be getting the hang of living in our wells now.

 It didn't take long before we were arriving to the fishing grounds.  We found a few schools before dark and scratched out 20 something tuna before dark.  We're going to drift here tonight and start off here in the morning.
      

The Annual SFR charter aboard the Apollo with Captain J.J Gerritsen and crew was a big success !! The Apollo is running out of Sea Landing on beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor, the closest harbor to the outer Channel Islands. Great weather meant an ideal cruise over to San Miguel Island for some of the finest shallow water rockfishing you'll find anywhere. 300 feet down you say, maybe 200, how about 100 feet ? No way. The offshore terrain around San Miguel is so rugged and marked with underwater pinnacles, we spent most of the day fishing in 25 to 90 feet of water. Lighter rigs, jigs, leadheads and swimbaits were the order of the day, and the San Miguel rockfish were in a hungry mood. We started catching fish before daybreak and spent the rest on the trip hauling up huge reds, chuckles and lings, all sporting some of the most vibrant colors I've seen on any fish in a long time. Awesome day!! We limited out on huge rockfish, slammed about 50-60 grumpy whitefish, 5-6 huge goats and 16 or so pre-historic looking lings before calling it a trip. Epic day !!!! The jackpot was a nail biter as Shawn Suhr's huge lingcod and Art Moralez's giant goat battled to a near dead heat. Captain J.J needed to come down and settle the score, with the final vote went going to Shawn's 12-13 pound ling. Great job Shawn. Captain J.J and his crew did an awesome job as always and the Apollo is looking as spotless as ever. The Apollo will be in Santa Barbara till around mid May before moving down to Fisherman's Landing in San Diego. Call Sea Landing at 1-805-963-3564 or log onto www.apollocharters.com for their schedule. Great trip everyone !!!. email me at [email protected] for any photos. Thats the word on the water. Don

The San Diego out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego,CA checked in with us today:

32 yellowtail. Still good sign of yellowtail around but they definitely felt used and abused after the busy weekend. Back at it tomorrow hoping for an attitude adjustment.