lake pontchartrain Fishing Report 2024

Our hunt for mahi mahi was rudely interrupted by big schools of 10-30 lb yellowfin tuna. 107 yellowfin, 23 skipjack. 20-30 lb and size 2 hook was the hot setup. Few fish on colt snipers as well !

22 passengers on todays boat. We hauled in a catch of 30 yellowtail and 40 bonito. Capt. Matt Bralla and the boys enjoy some quality Fall yellowtail fishing. Come and get in on the “Locals summer”.

Skipper Tom Rothery docked his Polaris Supreme after a five-day Stern Hog Chartered trip. The boat's 18 anglers got off at Fisherman's Landing August 8. Chartermaster Tom Chaparro, of San Clemente recalled one offshore stop that produced almost a hundred fish.
"It wasn't even that big of a kelp," said Chaparro. "But it was full of dorado and yellowtail. We had a great time, a good group of guys. This is our ninth year chartering this trip." Ron Rose, of Jacksonville FL took first place with a 31.8-pound yellowtail. Ron used a 3/0 Eagle Claw hook on 30-pound P-Line, a Pflueger Reel and a Calstar 970 rod.

Rich Vandenoord of La Jolla was second with a 30.6-pound yellowtail, and Pat Kennedy of San Francisco was third, for a 30.4-pound yellowtail.
"We had great quality yellowtail at Cedros," said Skipper Rothery, "and one real nice white sea bass. We had that one big kelp bite yesterday, and the tuna are around but they're not bitin'."

~~Sep 13
 Thank goodness for slow speed.  Even though we got a really good jump yesterday, we weren't going to be getting anywhere down below till late tomorrow.  Our speed was horrible.  1.5 knots below average.  But we sped up this morning.  Yup.  This morning we were only making .75 knots below average.  That all costs a whole lot of time when you're traveling great distances so we decided we'd have to be stopping short.  So that's what we did this afternoon, arriving at 4:30.

 Wow!  It didn't take long before everyone had a tuna on.  And they weren't those 8-14 pounders either.  There were some of those, but the majority of them were those 20-30 pounders.  I say again, "wow".  It bit steady the whole time we which is a couple of hours.  During the stop, I had tied a few hooks and cast a few baits out, you know , like we do, and quite a few times the hook would fall off and I would scratch my head and ask myself, " are my knots failing"?  They weren't.  It took crew member Justin to spot a wahoo flying out of the water to figure it out.

 So we wound them in and threw back the marauders.  Before dark, which wasn't long, we had a little binger for 5 and then one for 1 50 pounder.  Say it with me now.  "Wow"!  We aren't going anywhere tonight.  We'l just kick back and see what the day has to offer.

 My buddy Glen caught the 50 pound wahoo today.  Every year for a while now he has been the last member of the little troll team that I like to call, " the troll of shame"  That's the last few people on board who have not yet caught a wahoo.  He will not be joining that team this year.  Nope.  This year he can join the heckling party.  He get's to see what it's like from the other side.  Way to go Glen.
       

 

Mike Pritchard called in to give this report for the Tribute. "We're on day 2 of a 4 day charter trip with a light load of guys. It is just an 8 man charter. We're having very good fishing. We started off fishing for Bluefin yesterday, with a little bit of Rockfishing in the afternoon. We also caught a couple of nice Lingcod up to 28 lbs. We made a move about 100 miles down the beach and got into some really good Yellowtail fishing, 35 to 40 lb. yellowtail. The best techniques have been fly-lined fish, yo-yo jigs and surface irons. Just very fun fishing. We're going to spend the rest of the day down here and go offshore tomorrow. We'll target some yellowfin tuna and keep you updated.

Aug 17

We started off early yesterday morning in the hunt for yellowtail unsuccessfully. Great fishing on it the day before but the water dropped 2+ degrees and they were very inactive. We were getting the "should've been here yesterday" vibe so we took off to fish for yellowfin. After a couple hour move and a few hours in the zone, we were getting the "should've been here yesterday" vibe again but shortly after chowing down a big fat cheeseburger the call came down from Gunny. "kelp". It's those black eyes I tell you. Gets um every time. After that we pretty much drifted till dark scratching at 20-40 pound yellowfin with the occasional flurry for 20 or so. In fact right at dark there was about 6 people fishing, all with one on and the 18 other anglers standing around with a cigar and a cocktail in hand.

The weather was choppy and rolly today but it didn't bother us. As long as your catching fish who cares what the weather does. We were all very sore and tired after today and I think we're all ready for a nice pork chop meal and a pillow and blanket. We'll be fishing for yellowtail all day tomorrow then setting us up for our last day of bluefin fishing.

Mama bear- The litluns doing fine. Pretty much had a bent rod all day.

Hello everyone, Yesterday we departed on our Billy Stephens 7 day trip. This trip grew from a five day to a seven day. We are excited to be able to take this charter to a new neck of the woods and try for some new species that would not normally be possible on a five day. Today was mainly a travel day and was spent assembling our Wahoo rigs and leaders. An all day task that will hopefully pay off with some alligator sized Wahoo tomorrow. We will be fishing tomorrow, wish us luck. Team Supreme

73 yellowfin 105 yellowtail 10 skipjack 2 dorado. Change your bait, change your luck.