lake michigan Fishing Report 2024

Longtime charter company Burgesons Heating and Air experienced a good stop on 18-30 lb yellowfin as well as good Skipjack fishing. Back to open party fishing tomorrow. Please bring a 20 lb rod and a 40 lb rod.

Our private charter had passports and wanted to fish the islands so we enjoyed a day of stop and go action. They were rewarded with 73 yellowtail 68 bonito. Back offshore tomorrow.

Drew Henderson docked Polaris Supreme at Fisherman's Landing August 12 after four days of fishing. His anglers had near-limits of yellowtail, mostly from Cedros Island, where he found mackerel to be superior bait, and fish biting at both ends. Drew said his anglers released some 200 fish. Henderson's posting for August 10 read: "We started our trip making the long haul down to Benitos Island due to the bad weather and bad offshore report. We got to the Island at about two thirty. We got held up with a giant school of 3 to 4 foot giant squid. I can't say it was bad there, I mean we caught a lot of fish we just had to go through lots of little ones to get the bigger ones. We gave the night bite a couple hours only getting ten fish and took off towards Cedros. "The morning was great. Everyone woke up to bent rods. After a couple hours the current slowed and the slime (barracuda) took over. We did a little scouting and found some large model yellows and had a couple of long plunking drifts. Then we took off to the northern head to gain some time for tomorrow and give it a check and found the honey hole. Mucho Fisho. All the beautiful grade, and they chewed until we all got our fill. We're traveling up tonight to do some offshore tomorrow until it's time to go home." Dave Betz of Huntington Beach won first place for a 27.6-pound yellowtail he bagged with a sardine on a 1/0 ringed Gorilla hook and 20-pound P-Line. He said he fished with his favorite Accurate 270 reel, and a Calstar six-foot rod. The fight ran to 35 minutes, he said. Forrest Broyles of Kelseyville got a 25.4-pounder. He was tied by Ken Wan of Oakland for second place.

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!

"Today was another great day of bluefin fishing," wrote Polaris Supreme skipper Drew Henderson June 24. "We found the first school at 6:30 in the morning and we plunked on it again for 5 hours. Plenty of fish came aboard but again the landing ratio was a bit poor. It's a war zone with all the net boats out there. They drive 100 feet from your boat at 15 knots to get at your school."

At Fisherman's Landing June 26, Drew said, "We got rained on a bit yesterday." He weighed the fish, and the hands-down first-place winner was Harv Domsalla of Douglas, WY, with a 73-pound bluefin that came out of a school of albacore. It beat Domsalla up for 45 minutes.

"He kept making runs," said Harv. "I credit the crew for helping me get it aboard. I'm a novice. The other anglers helped a lot, too, by moving out of the way while he waltzed me around the boat about four times."

Harv said he fished a sardine on a 2/0 Mustad hook, with an outfit borrowed from the boat: 30-pound P-Line, a TLD 15 reel and a six-foot rod.

Harry Harms was second, for a 38-pound bluefin, and Bruce Burton of Wildomar won third place for a 37-pound bluefin tuna.

Offshore kelping today was tough. Not a whole lot of action. Plenty of kelps with not much on them at times, and areas of water with no kelps in it. We had one kelp mid afternoon where we had some action on shaker size yellows up to 20 pounders and a kelp in the morning with a handful of dorado on it. We'll be at Cedros in the early morning trying to get a tank or two of bait and begin our day yellowtail fishing.

Captain Alyar called in last night last night with a dual update. We returned this morning from a 1.5 day trip. We ended up with limits of Bluefin Tuna. We then ran a full day trip and caught 37 Bluefin Tuna and 5 Yellowfin Tuna. The Bluefin are 15 to 40 pounds and the Yellowifn are 35 to 40 pounds.

We have a Full day trip departing Tuesday morning and a 1.5 departing on Tuesday night. Be sure to bring outfits for 25 to 50 pounds with flurocarbon leader. Right now we are using size 6 or size 4 circle hooks.

Today we turned and burned in hopes of getting back into that great biting tuna! Hopefully they are just as eager as we left em!