lake erie western basin Fishing Report 2025

Polaris Supreme Trip Update 10-29-2018 We arrived at Guadalupe Island early after noon today. Within a few hours we were able to find excellent size schools of beautiful grade yellow fin tuna. It wasn't until the that they decided by. He stayed with them and drifted tell dark hooking about 15 yellowfin tuna. The landing ratio wasn't great but we had our shot. We are staying the night and definitely going to be here again tomorrow. We're very excited by the amount of fish we saw here today! The Polaris Supreme Crew

We spent our last day looking at school after school of albacore. A very good sign of no biting fish. Frustrating? Yes. Oh well. That's just how it goes sometimes. A very good trip in all. Thanks to everyone on board and to the charter master Wayne Martin with Catchy Tackle lures. We'll be rolling back out tomorrow on another 5 day trip. Stay tuned.

Strong south wind made things interesting today but we’re able to find a lucky kelp in the bottom of the ninth. We managed our quota of green dorado and 16 yellowtail.

After a couple of slow days for the fleet we decided to go out on a search mission. Our morning was spent chasing 30 lb bluefin that we’re very difficult to hook. Around 12:30 our sonar lit up with the sweet sound of shallow, spread out yellowfin tuna. After 3 1/2 hours and ten short stops. Our 30 anglers were able to drop 123 yellowfin and 1 bluefin into the refrigerated Sea Water. Best success came on flyline bait on 25-40 lb, colt snipers and poppers. We will continue to fish offshore and target whatever we see.

FOUR TRIPS LEFT!!! We still have 4 trips left on our 1.5 trips in February. We leave every Friday at 8 pm fishing for quality Yellowtail and Rockcod on Mexican Waters. Cost is $235 includes your Mexican fishing permit. For reservations or more information please give us a call at FISHERMAN'S LANDING(619)221-8500 or try our Book Online feature.

Tommy Rothery returned Polaris Supreme to Fisherman's Landing November 18 after a ten-day Ocean Tackle Research charter. The boat had 13 anglers aboard. Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen of Hood River, OR saw his father, Bill Mikkelsen of Olympia, WA land the season's first super cow; a tuna over 300 pounds.
"It was full-speed fishing," said Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen. Bill Mikkelsen's big fish won first place after it weighed in at 308.8-pounds, caught on a fly-lined sardine. Bill used the boats gear, including a 6/0 Mustad 7691 hook, 100-pound P-Line, and a Shimano rod and reel.
"Tommy said it was tail-wrapped from the beginning," said the elder Mikkelsen. "And he was, but he got lose and went on another run. He took me around the boat twice." "We started with yellowtail fishing on the ridge that turned out to be a real good bite," said Rothery. "We easily could have got limits on yellowtail and dorado, but these guys normally release most of their fish. We had one day of awesome marlin fishing, which this group enjoyed quite a bit." "I think we had maybe 200 hookups on marlin," said John Esler of Portland. "But our yellowfin bite was pretty amazing. Once Tommy would find them, he'd shut the motors off and just drift. They didn't need a lot of chum either, they were boiling all around the boat." Esler landed a 206.7-pound yellowfin.
Matt Kiesse of Cederville, CA was second place with a 279.8-pound yellowfin.
"The trip was just spectacular," said Kiesse. "We got everything." Lon Mikkelsen was third with a 277.9-pound tuna. The trip scored five tuna over 200 pounds.

A nice one!

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

Good evening everyone. We arrived this morning to the docks at around 0700 and said good-bye to our friends from SDG & E. We unloaded a beautiful catch of Yellowtail and a dazzling assortment of other tasty fish and the big Yellowtail honors go as follows: Lenny Campos - 26.2 lbs. Ulises Ochoa - 25.0 lbs. Rodger Schwecke - 24.8 lbs. Congratulations and thanks once again to the entire gang and we'll see everyone next season. After unloading, refueling, a couple of minor maintenance projects, loading groceries, and scrubbing the boat from mast to water-line, we loaded up another eager group of passengers and set sail for greater points south on another three day extravaganza.

 

Our group is quite the mix of Polaris Supreme veterans and Polaris Supreme first-timers but it's looking like we're going to have a fun group to fish with. We're headed right back to where we ended up last trip and with a steady flow of other boats in our wake, we're wasting no time in getting down there. We'll try and relocate some squid for a little while and if we can't, we're bombing on down to our honey hole with plenty of sardines and one tank of squid from last trip. We're knocking on wood and wishing upon lucky stars that our honey hole can give us one more chance at some good fishing before the place gets too congested. Please send us some luck from the beach. This is a team effort.

 

So there you have it. Our weather as we are steaming down the coast is gorgeous. A mild swell and light winds have made for premium traveling conditions and we'll be more than pleased if it continues until Wednesday morning but as we've seen, things can change in the snap of a finger. We're just enjoying the fact that the ride is currently beautiful, the Prime Rib was once again delicious, and our spirits are high. We'll report to you tomorrow.

-Richie and Team Supreme-

Saturday, July 9th, 2011

Hi friends. The result of this morning's squid float was two deck wells and the port slammer being loaded up with squid. It was a great float with the entire crew waking up to get the job done in just about twenty minutes. What was an ocean void of squid-life at 1:45 AM  was then corroded with calamari at 2:00 AM. Swimming with the thousands upon thousands of squid were baby Mola-Mola's that were about the size of a hub cap. We had to push them out of the way to close the crowder without getting a few of those baby beasts in the net. We got all the bait we needed and then some along with some cool views of amazing ocean life.

Back to Friday for a moment, it was a decent day of Yellowtail fishing on the Polaris Supreme and what kept it from being a very good day was our score at the end of the day. For various reasons, we lost more fish than we tagged but we ended up with a respectable count on the 'tails. We also added plenty of white meat to our RSW hold and when the hatch was shut for the evening, we felt content with a solid day of catching fish in nice weather.

Saturday morning found us fishing the bait balls of squid as we attempted to snag a White Seabass or two. We didn't give it long before we began the chase for some more Yellows' and after a couple anchor jobs, we found yesterday's batch of fish but this time we were armed with plenty of freshly caught squid. Even with our brand new supply of bait we once again lost more than we hooked but just like Friday, we managed to piece together a nice catch of Yellows' in the 15-28 lb. range. Beautiful grade of fish, from the Yellowtail to all the various "taco meat" fish that we captured as well. Again, we are satisfied with our day but felt we should have done a lot better with our hook-to-land ratio. That's fishing though. There will be days that we land most of what we hook and there will be days that we don't. Just remember that when on a trip fishing for coastal species on the Polaris Supreme or any vessel, don't treat it as if they don't require the respect and attention to detail that offshore tuna would muster. Make sure your gear is in proper working order, properly set your drags, tie good knots/connections, and always have fresh line to start the day after a day of catching fish. Regardless of the fish lost, we are happy with our load in the fish hold and we had a very enjoyable trip.

So that is all. Good times were had by all and we'd like to thank Bret and the SDG & E gang for joining us for three days of good fishing, good food, and good friends. We're rolling up the line in rolly seas and our scheduled ETA to Fisherman's Landing is 0700 hours. We'll be turning around for another three day adventure and we'll chat with you tomorrow. Good night.

-Richie and Team Supreme-  

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Good evening everyone. We arrived at the Yellowtail grounds today with the anticipation of a banner day as yesterday's reports from our long range brothers would give us no reason not to think so. We attempted to crowd some squid up for our bait arsenal but were unsuccessful in the early morning hours and continued on our trek towards the fertile fishing grounds. Once we arrived, it wasn't too long before we settled back on the anchor and had a few fish going. We hooked them using every possible method that we typically apply to catching Yellowtail...to be continued.

PS: 0200 hours update: Squid are floating!!! Gotta go, better report tomorrow. Sorry. Decent Yellowtail fishing today with some other tasty treats to join them in our fish holds. We'll be in Yellowtail land tomorrow.

-Team Supreme-

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Hi friends. We departed Fisherman's Landing this morning on our annual Seifert, Lane, and Da Silva three day trip with a full load of bait and a full group of familiar faces. Bait loading went smoothly and we're currently motoring down to points South to begin our fishing activities. Reports sound pretty good at one of our favorite Yellowtail fisheries and we expect to do battle with the mighty Jack's sometime tomorrow.

All is well with the crew as we're all back from our 4th of July vacation and happy to be back to work, just doing our jobs and doing what we love. Chef Schooler/Chef Barry are about to kick out the Prime Rib feast, Drew is showered up and ready to serve the feast, and Tommy is downstairs giving the troops the evening briefing. We have nice weather rolling down and we're ready to get after it.

Not a whole lot to report this evening. Hopefully we have more to report tomorrow, we'll see. From the bridge of the Polaris Supreme, we bid you farewell and have a fantastic night.

-Richie and Team Supreme-