lake michigan perch Fishing Report 2024

Aug. 15
    We started our morning off in the local bluefin zone.  We caught 12 of them, 2 of them being the 50+ pounders while the rest were that beautiful manageable 30-40 pound fish and we caught a few yellowfin.  On drift number 2 we hooked and lost one.  Do to the amount of boats thinking the same thing we were and the lack of fish I was seeing being brought over the rail, I decided to leave early and look for yellowfin for a while.  It wasn't long before we found some, and then some more, and then some more.  It pretty much was like that for as long as we fished it which was until after 5 when we went back to the zone where we started.  We had good fishing pretty much all day long.  The only negative thing about it was the grade of fish was a bit on the smaller side.  They weren't runts but they weren't great either.  12 pounds is the short version.  They averaged out to be 12 pounders.  We looked all around for a bigger grade but it pretty much was what it was.  I did think that the area we finished up in yellowfin wise had quite a few more 20 pounders mixed in than what we'd been fishing so it may be something to look at tomorrow.  We finished up right where we started and we had a long 2 1/2 hour drift.  We caught a yellowfin every once in a while, we landed 4 of the 30-40 pound bf's and caught 1 70ish pounder and lost at least 4 of those.  We are going to drift tonight and do it again tomorrow.
                                

 

~~Sept. 1
 Hello again everybody. I hope everyone enjoyed a lovely Labor Day today. I know we sure did. It's hard not to with the kind of weather we're having right now. We could have not caught a fish today and we'd still be enjoying it. That's not how it went though. It went as planned. I knew we wouldn't have the kind of day we had yesterday. Wahoo fishing doesn't work that way. They need a rest after a whoopin. I told the passengers we'd stay until lunch and if we caught a quarter of what we caught yesterday we'd be stoked. We caught more then a quarter of what we caught yesterday and we're stoked. Distance wise it didn't make since to stick it out until dark for a few more handfuls of wahoo as apposed to leaving at lunch like we did to get into tomorrows fishing grounds at a reasonable hour. So we took off at lunch time and we'll be in the yellowtail grounds tomorrow at daylight. At least I'm hoping it's the yellowtail grounds.
 

~~9-9-2014

 Good evening from the bridge.  Today was yet another great day out on the water in the yellowfin tuna zone. We were blessed again with some awesome weather. The crew always loves it when we can go up into the mast from 6 am till the sun drops to look for fish and only have to wear some light long sleeves at the most, even driving straight into the wind.   The fishing was pretty good for most of the day today. We were getting on some descent schools this morning and scratching away. The grade was mixed again, some spots had the smaller 15-19 lbers and other brought in the same with some tuna up wards of 30 lbs so you can't complain about that.  The entire afternoon was bird schools galore, but a lot of them were just not the right kind. A lot of birds on kelp paddy's and spots of Skipjack. Instead of hitting every little school and throwing a bunch of bait, we just kept her rolling till we found the right sundowner school.  Rob was sure stoked we found that one since he was able to come in in the bottom of the 9th with his daily jackpot yellowfin of just about 30 lbs. Congrats to you Rob!! All and all we were please to add today into our books as a successful day out to sea.
 Right about the time we called it a day, Chef David rang the dinner bell and sat us down for the evenings cuisine. As he was dishing out the sesame seed crusted seared Ahi (yes, only 24 hours old, as fresh as it comes, so eat your heart out tuna lovers), forikake seasoned steamed rice and snow peas, Robin bust busy popping corks on the wine of the evening. 2013 Justin Sauvignon Blanc was the flavor and it smelled really good! I believe he told me it was a New Zealand white wine, but it really went great with the "catch of the day".  Dessert was a warm fresh peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream sending everyone to bed with nice full bellies once again.
 And  for Robins personal note of the day, he wants to let all of his friends know to make some room in the freezer for some amazing already packaged yellowfin tuna fillets. "I miss you all and want you to know this has been a truly amazing trip in all respects: a bit of heaven. 5 days and nights with the coolest people on the planet. The crew is off the chart and has been very accommodating".
 Thanks so much again Robin and friends for making this trip just fun working for you guys!
 So till this time tomorrow everyone, this is Jed signing off.
 
 Team Supreme

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

Hi friends. I don't know what's going on with me, it's like the fish just elude us in the morning time and around lunchtime, people start to get very down about our fishing day, myself included. We had a horrible morning. A boat just a few miles from us got on a kelp and had good fishing on bluefin, yellowfin, and dorado. Okay, maybe that means that we're in the right area. Nope. We went in all kinds of different directions only to find a boat already on a kelp catching fish or a boat already working the area. Very frustrating. Around lunch time, the mood on deck was starting to sour and the mood in the wheelhouse was the exact opposite of laughing babies, sunflowers, and Labrador puppies. It was straight death. I was pretty sure that I was about to lose my turkey caesar salad all over the dash and that would've been the highlight of my day up to that point. Yep, it was that bad. But as our boss's old boss, Steve Loomis, used to say, "west is best."

So I made the decision -- we're going to head west all day until we don't see a boat on the radar or we fall off the earth. As I was checking my water temperature charts, looking at the next area where I was sure that I was going to go and find another boat or non-biting fish, it happened. Not the sound of a single fish popping on the sonar or the mast-man yelling at me to rotate trollers, but the sound of a school -- a gigantic school -- on the sonar. I flipped from the computer screen to the sonar screen, throttled back the mains, and spun the wheel hard to starboard. In the excitement of the moment, I managed to tangle up the chord for the gyros in the wheel as I was spinning too (sweet), so I'm yelling in the P.A. system, chasing down the school, and trying to untangle the chord all at the same time and just like that, the school is off the edge of the screen, swimming away with my heart.

As I sit looking at a blank sweep of the sonar for a few seconds and the thoughts of ripping the wheelhouse chair from its base and throwing it out the window, I finally realize that Jed is screaming down at me from the mast. He was screaming profanities, but not directed towards me, at least not directly. His screams read something along this line, and I'll clean it up for everyone at home, "they're f-ing shinning!!" Bingo, as I came back around, the sonar lit up once again right in front of the boat and after a few seconds -- which seemed like a century -- the fathometer ran red. Oh my gosh, they're under us, thick! I can't remember if I cursed when I called for the bait to rain down on the school after we stopped the boat but I apologize to our anglers if I did. In all honesty, I don't think they could hear me on the P.A. as everyone was screaming their heads off as well and after shutting down the mains and running out to the back deck, the most beautiful sight I could've seen was right before my very eyes; fishing boiling everywhere and all the rods bent over. Sonny Jim!

We drifted with that school of five hours and after the initial rush where they were biting sixty pound line for a couple of hours, we kept two to five going for the remainder of the stop. We finished the drift with 120 bluefin tuna (limits) in the 15-30 lb. class and 40 yellowfin tuna in the 12-18 lb. class. Like I said before, Sonny Jim!

So there you have it. A day in the life of a sport-boat captain. It's life of stressing like you're a lady of the night in church and then in the blink of an eye, you're the fireman carrying out the baby from the house fire to place it into the loving arms of it's mother. Here you go, ma'am.

-The Supreme Team

Today we covered over yesterday’s hot zone and beyond to only locate one school. Ended the with 2 yellowtail, a round of bonito and plenty of bottom fish. Hopeful the yellowtail are ready to eat tomorrow after today’s hiatus.

Danny Erickson and his daughter with 2 bluefin and a yellowfin. After 8 hours of collecting Vitamin D in choppy seas. We stumbled upon an area and enjoyed some late action.

Nov. 10

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to the website of the Polaris Supreme. We're sorry we've been apart for so long but you guys didn't want to go fishing so we had to do other things. Here's a recap of what we did the last few weeks... Jed went to a Slayer concert in Vegas and won a bunch of money. Jed always seems to win lots of money when he gambles. I don't know why he just doesn't do that for a living. Either he's fibbing about the money he makes or he just really loves fishing. Gunny hung around and fished his local lakes a lot after flaking on Jed in Vegas. Shawn had some big plans on getting a new place and a new car while he was off but came back to the boat with neither so he probably had the most fun of us all. Or maybe it was Gringo because he spent his time where he does, Cabo. Tommy and Susan did what they always do which is work, work, work. Mostly in the office but they saved a little bit of time for pleasure mostly around the river. I spent my days either at the boat helping with various projects from minor fixes up to helping the mechanic replace a piston in one of the engines. I also did some work on my golf game which still stinks by the way. And Mark lost one pound while we were off! One pound! Way to go Mark.

But we're all glad to be back out and that's because it's the Lon Mikkelsen and John Esler 10 day trip! Things are always just a hoot out here on the Lon Mikkelsen and John Esler 10 day trip. Lots of return customers out here and a handful of fresh ones too. I love this group. I do. Anyways the boat is running in tip top shape and we're all fueled up and baited up and everyone is currently sleeping with there belly's full of prime rib as I write this on my watch. Fishing sure did sound poor out here the last few weeks but things sound like they're on the upswing as the Polaris Supreme rolls south. Not sure we'll do any fishing tomorrow as we need to keep her rolling down so the plan for now is to have breakfast in the morning and spend most of the day getting all our tackle in the best of shape. The weather just couldn't be better. Flat calm gorgeous without a cloud in the sky. Beautiful! Sweet dreams all.

Captain Drew

Hello everyone, Today we spent the day targeting Wahoo, Yellowtail, and what ever else we were able to find. We were able to scratch up some nice Wahoo and yellowtail, just not the numbers we would have liked. However the Wahoo we were able to find were quite large, some close to 60 lbs! Some truly great fish! We are going for big numbers tomorrow, wish us luck! Team Supreme