lake james nc Fishing Report 2025

Many of you know Captain Ray Montera who has been involved in sportfishing most of his life. In March, his 32 year old Chris son was severely injured in a C4 blast in Afghanistan. We are holding a fundraiser on October 8th at the Bali Hai on Shelter Island. He is one of our own and we are rallying to support him.

As an Army soldier, Chris Montera was often taken aback when people would thank him for doing the job he loved. On a fateful day in March, he came to face the sacrifice. He was on a dismounted mission and was hit with explosion of C4, which literally blasted and propelled him into a grape field. He suffered major issues with blast lung and severe burns over much of his body. For 9 days he was on ECMO (lung bypass) until he was stable enough to be transported to BAMC in San Antonio for the treatment of his shrapnel wounds and third degree burns. On April 2 a fungal infection set into the wounds on his lower extremities and Chris underwent bilateral AK amputation of his legs. He was further diagnosed with an incomplete spinal cord injury in the thoracic area of the spine at VA Polytrauma Center in Palo Alto.

Through all of this, Chris remains focused and committed to rehabilitation. It is estimated that he will remain in Palo Alto for 3-6 months while he works to regain his upper body strength, which will be necessary for the next stages of rehab in the C5 program at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego where he will be fitted with prosthetic legs and with determination will learn to walk again. There is no doubt in our minds that Chris will recover to live an independent life. The goal of this fundraiser is to be able to assist Chris with expenses he will no doubt encounter on his journey to independence.

The event will be held at the Bali Hai Restaurant on Shelter Island On October 8th from 6:00-10:00 pm. There will be food stations serving food from many San Diego restaurants along with a no host bar. A raffle, live, and silent auction will take place during the event along with live entertainment by Mango Bay and World Famous Jim Gibson. The outpouring of support of raffle and auction donations from the sportfishing community, tackle, fishing supply manufacturers, and local businesses has been phenomenal. The evening will be great fun for all and will serve to help a young man who put it all on the line.

There are several ways you can help:
First and most important is attend the event.

Tickets are $50 in advance or $450 for a block of 10

Advance ticket purchases will include 3 raffle tickets and assorted swag

Cannot attend but would like to help, make a cash donation in any amount.

Donate an item for the raffle or auction. Anything from fishing items, art, gift certificates, clothing...anything is greatly appreciated.


We look forward to having you at the event. The sport fishing community has come together to take care of a wounded warrior of their own, and it promises to be a fun filled evening for all.

To purchase tickets for Island Nights at the Bali Hai, please visit our website at http://christophermonterasupport.com/island-nights-at-the-bali-hai

To donate items for our raffle/auction please visit our website and complete the donor form http://christophermonterasupport.com/sponsors-anddonors-supporters/donor-form

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

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.
         

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

Good evening friends. We arrived back from John and Ed's family 3-day trip this morning at 0600 and were back out to sea around 1030 hours embarking on our 11th annual Paul Hess 5-day adventure. Paul has brought his usual cast of renegades along with some Polaris Supreme first-timers. We're missing a few of the familiar faces but we'll see you all next year and we'll dedicate this trip towards y'all. Anyhow, the reports are sounding promising a little further south for the fish that get my blood pumping like no other, the Bluefin tuna. So we're motoring on down there and we'll be in the zone sometime in the morning and as for the weather, it's very fair right now and we're liking it.

So that is all. We'll be giving it a go for some tuna fish tomorrow and we'll base our decision for day two when the sun settles below the horizon. We're all a happy bunch. The passengers are well fed and sleepy and with our new subscription to SiriusXM radio, we're a happy crew. Things are just peachy and we'll hit you up tomorrow.

P.S. Special thanks goes to Dave and Sandra. Thank you for the cookies. Drew and I left the passengers with roughly a dozen and the seventy-nine that we ate before dinner were especially delicious. Dave: I miss your hot-white boots and Sandra, I miss identifying birds with you. We'll see you next year.

GREAT 1.5 TRIP WITH CAPT. J.J.!!!! APOLLO fished Colonet with 25 anglers for 5 Yellowtail, 30 Lings & 215 Rockfish. Checkout their next available trip. Book now before it's too late. Call Fisherman's Landing @ (619)221-8500 to get your reservation.

Monday, July 15th, 2013

Hi friends. Tough day out here on the Bluefin grounds for us. We saw a whole lot of fish today but we only had a couple of drifts that produced numbers for us. We had a respectable day but with the volume of fish we saw this afternoon, we were really hoping for a banner day but it never happened. The weather was beautiful once again so we're pumped about that but we were really hoping for another drift like we had yesterday. Anyhow, that's fishing and we're currently enjoying a southeasterly course to our next destination.

For tomorrows agenda, we'll be looking for bait and Yellowtail. It's time for a change of pace and we're hoping to get bent on some yella and some carnada manana. The gang is doing just fine and they're all having just a splendid time. It's dinner time and I have no idea what we're having. Some type of stuffed pork chop in a puff pastry or something. Chef Shawn, he's crazy. We'll chat with you tomorrow.

Aug. 6
    I'm back.  After taking the last trip off and spending some quality time with the fam I showed up this morning to meet the boat at 7:00 and was greeted by an impressive catch by the Chapparo group.  We did the turn around thing, got some bait and we were in the fishing grounds by 3:00 this afternoon.  It sounded like we missed most of the action while we were dockside.  It was mostly a morning bite.  We had a few stops this afternoon for over a fish per angler so we can't complain about fishing on a departure day.  We're currently drifting in nice weather and we'll be starting off here in the morning.  
                            

 

Still heading down here. Had to go a little further than planned, but we did manage to put our first fish on the boat. Here we have Wild Bill Walsh with the first Wahoo of the trip!