lake shelbyville il Fishing Report 2025

We are continuing to see impressive schools. It seems everyday we are getting better responses out of them. Our last trip we had a good opportunity on the 60-90 pound fish, keeping 1 to 5 fish hooked for the better part of 4 hours. Getting a bite wasn’t the hard part but because we were forced to use our “finesse” gear we had to work very hard to land them. Hopefully the trend continues ! 

Bluefin Tuna! The Apollo will hit the dock around 6 PM tonight. They scored 16 Bluefin Tuna and 6 Yellowtail. That is the best score on the tuna this season. Call Fisherman's Landing now at (619) 221-8500 to book your spot.

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Hi friends. Fishing today was just beautiful today on 16-22 lb. yellowtail down here. We had a few of those "premiums" in the mix and a few shakers but for the most part, it was a really nice grade of 'tail. Our key to success today was finding--as Tommy puts it--fresh balls [of yellowtail]. Classic run 'n gun fishing for the morning as the guys on jigs and fly-lined sardines were getting their fill but once our drift was established, the dropper loop guys got in on the action too. Anyways, it was a good morning bite in the "drift zone" but a little after lunch, things shut off and we toured around trying to find another ball without much success. Speaking of lunch, chartermaster Joe Gigliotti did it again. He owns the pizza game and made a really awesome lunch for the guys. Sausage, pepperoni, olives, barbecued chicken, chicken and pesto, and smoked fish, capers, and onions were being devoured by the gang. Joe rocks. I only had a couple bites of each because my nutritionist, Chef Shawn, didn't think I needed the extra carbs and fat. I had salad and a banana. Eyes on the prize, baby. Anywho, it was definitely a morning thing and we'll be here for one more morning to see if we can't connect on some more fresh balls [of yellowtail] and let the weather fade out before we boogie out of here to get in some offshore tuna and dorado action. Oh yeah, we need to make some bait too.

As I type this, the time is 0245 hours in the morning and it's starting to rain, Gunny is all slicked up downstairs braving the elements, and I'm up here in the cozy wheelhouse contemplating typing a report for another hour and fifteen minutes until we have to wake up Tommy and Mark. Nah, I can't do Gunny like that. Anyhow, bait-making isn't all that great as Gunny has made a couple pieces and a couple of flying fish for next trip and I've made one lizard fish. Pumped.

Speaking of pumped, the gym here on the Polaris Supreme is overloaded with muscle right now. Last night before dinner, Tommy was in the wheelhouse gettin' his leg and core workouts in while I was out back in the "gun zone" getting my diesel on with some upper body workouts. Tommy was rockin' out a few sets of crunches, squats, and toe raises, I was in the gun zone jackin' out sets of chin-ups, tricep dips, push-ups, and leg lifts. It was on. So my fellow pump brother, Riddler the Ripped One, and I were getting all swollen and admiring each others work, and here's Gunny taking a shower. He doesn't have a membership to the gym yet but we'll find a way to get him one, don't you worry, Tommie. If you're nickname is "Gunny", you'd better be shredded to the max and not applying cocoa butter moisturizer when Riddles and I are getting wrenched. I'm proud of you, Riddler, I'll be your spotter anytime. If only we could get him bronzing...

Staying with the last topic, Drew and I took what might be the best photo ever this evening. A rainbow showed itself in the distance and what a beautiful rainbow it was. Instinctively, Drew leaped into my arms and I held him like a baby lamb in my toned arms and Mark snapped a photo of the exchange. The picture is just fabulous, Drew being held up by "Richie Gun Racks", his smile ear-to-ear, and a beautiful rainbow in the background. Just lovely.

So that's all. Life on the Supreme is grand right now and I've got to go and make some bait. Like I said, we'll be here tomorrow trying for some more 'tails. Hopefully, the action is a real fat burner and we're just going crazy all day. We'll see. Okay, I gotta go. Bait, bait, bait!

-The Supreme Team

~~
 9-6-2014

 Good evening friends from the bridge of the Polaris Supreme. I'd like to start with a little recap of the Gary Roberts 9 day trip. What an epic trip! We really did cover all the grounds you cover on a 9 day and boated all the species that we were looking for. Although we didn't get the numbers on the dorado that we were looking for, we more than made up for it in wahoo and tuna counts. I really think Drew did an exceptional job of trip planning with avoinding any bad weather and putting us in position for the best fishing we could possibly have. I don't recall the last time in my 9 years on the boat that we've had that consistant fishing for the "skinny's" as we did. The guys fished hard and were rewared for there efforts. We ended the last couple days of the trip at the tuna grounds to pick up a handful of quality bluefin to settle jackpot and all you could eat beautiful grade of yelloefin tuna from 20-40 lbs. What an awesome 9 day! We really missed you this year Gary and look forward to seeing you back next year with the same group of awesome guys you bring out year after year.
 We also departed this morning on our 6th annual 5 day trip with Robin Gledhill and his Blue-White Industries charter. We are always excited to have these guys out with us. It's quite the unique trip with a special menu, different types of wine every night depending on the dinner all the way to our fancy dinner attire consisting of the classic tuxedo t-shirts! Love it! You never know what Robin is going to bring to the table. We started offshore looking around on the tuna grounds to get the lines wet, didn't find much to start, but fishing the first day of a 5 day is a bonus anyway. Tomorrow at the crack of light and get this party started. The weather looks great so far and looks just as good for the next few days, so let's hope the weather man is telling the truth.
 It's almost that time to head downstairs for some grilled pork chops and the wine of the night Chalk Hill Chardonnay, for the passengers of course. Robin also wants to send a shout out to Janet, Taylor who couldn't join us this year because him and his wife are due to have a little one any day now, and all of the rest of his friends and family that are tuning in over the next 5 days.
 Before I check out though, I do have to mention some day and a half and 2 day tuna trips that we've added here starting at the end of September. Here's some dates to mark on your calender: 2 day departing Friday 9-26 arriving Sunday 9-28, 2 day departing Monday 9-29 arriving Wednesday 10-01, 2 day departing Friday 10-03 arriving Sunday 10-05, 1.5 day departing Sunday 10-06 arriving Wednesday 10-08. You can book any of these trips on the website polarissupreme.com or call Susan at the office at 619-390-7890.
 Til tomorrow my friends, a good night to all and to all a good night.

 Jed and crew

~~Oct.16-20
 So for the last few days, I was either too busy to write a report or just too tired.  I knew these blogs wouldn't be making it out here until tomorrow anyway so I figured I would just do a 4 day report to explain the remainder of our trip down below so here it goes.

 When I left off, the sharks backed off and allowed us to have a great afternoon and we were hoping the sharks would do the same thing they did last year after the first couple of days which is leave.  That didn't happen.  It was a sharky trip for sure.  Brown Reef Sharks were in the picture for the remainder of the time we were down there.  Sometimes they were relentless and we'd have to pull anchor and go trolling for wahoo and other times they would back off just enough to allow us to scratch at the tunas and then other times they would back off completely.  They weren't tuna eaters though.  They let us wind in what we hooked, but they loved our kite baits.

 Anyways, we still had an excellent trip down there sharks or no sharks.  There were a lot of windows of opportunity and there were some slow windows as well.  There was almost always a window where we would get at least two cows before sunrise, and after that it never stayed consistent.  If we didn't need to sleep it would've been convenient.  I know we missed plenty of tuna bites in the dark hours through out the night but that's when we would sleep.  Like I said though we had an excellent trip and here are the numbers to prove it.

 130 yellowfin tuna and 60 wahoo for 8 guys for 6 days.  54 tuna kept.  11 over 200 lb's, 5 that may go when we weigh them on the dock scale, 6 between 170-180 and the rest were 100-150 pounds with much fish being in the 120-130 pound class.  We also released 76 of those too!  One release estimated to be around 200 pounds and several in the 150 pound range and like I said, many in the 120-130 pound range.  Our largest was 240 and next in line was a 234 pounder kept.

 Here are the team jackpot totals: 1st place goes to Charlie and Craig with 2 fish totaling 453 pounds.  2nd went to George and Scott with 2 totaling 414.  George also had 5 tuna over 200 pounds by the way.  One per day besides the last day.  3rd place went to the Jer-bear and JC with 399 pounds, and Brian and Bernie finished just behind them with 396 pounds.  None of this is official.  We still need to weigh them oin land.

 And that's basically how fishing was down there.  Here are some things that stand out to me while we were down there.  First of all I'd like to talk about KC.  I'm not saying he was scared, he just didn't seem too pumped on fighting one of these fish we call cows.  He wasn't the first or fifth for that matter to jump on a spot on the kite for example when one was available.  On the third day it couldn't be avoided.  He got up on that kite and when he did this particular time he hooked a big one and he handled it as well as anyone.  I mean he kicked that fishes @$$.  He came to battle and he won.  It taped out as a 193 pounder.  After that it wasn't hard to get KC up on the kite when a spot was presented.  It went from where the heck is KC, to him not leaving the rail at all.

 I let Mark know the Raiders lost.  I did it in a mean way too.  His birthday was the 16th I believe, and Chef Mike baked him a cake and we all sang happy birthday and when it was over, I gave him my birthday present which is spilling the beans on lying about the Raiders beating the Chargers.  Ha ha Mark.

 The weather was a lot less steamy the last few days down there.  It was still hot, but once the clouds went away it didn't feel like a sauna there anymore.  Although myself and a few others got the worse case of burnt lips we ever had.  I did it in a dumb way too.  I knew I should go get my chap stick from my room on the first day down there but my lips did;t feel like they were getting chapped so I thought, because of the humidity my lips weren't drying out and I didn't need protection.  Dumb, stupid and idiotic.  My lips may not have dried out but they still got as burnt as ever.

  So that's it.  We now travel for a few days.  The crew has plenty to do.  Clean, clean clean and sleep.  The passengers will be sleeping and celebrating a wonderful trip.  We'll be trying to break up the ride on our last day of travel by looking for a dorado kelp but that's still not for a couple more days.
      

 

Nov. 19

Good evening once again everyone. Well, we broke up the day this morning with a couple hours worth of fishing. Unfortunately we didn't catch much but we were due to travel all day today but we had an hour or two to spare so we took it. The weather has breezed up for sure. It is a bit of a bumpy ride but it's not horrable. We only had one other day of windy weather the whole trip so we'll take it. In a whole it was a rather slow trip. We did catch a lot of big beautiful dorado and we can't complain at all about the amount of wahoo we caught or the amount of tuna we caught either for that matter. We lacked on the larger sized tuna and we didn't connect with the yellowtails on the way home either but hey, you've heard this before, "that's fishing". I hope and I think I can speak for everyone on board and say we had a great ten days out here. I said it in my first report and I'll say it again, I love this group. This is not your mystery passenger Ed writing to you but your captain/ co-captain/ deckhand Drew writing this and I'll write this on behalf of all the crew members abourd the Polaris Supreme, thank you charter heads Lon and John and thank you to all who joined us.

I would also just like to thank all who came out fishing with us this year and in years past. You are what allows us to do what we love to do and what allows us to pay our bills and raise families doing what we love to do so unfortunately, for the last time this year, we all say THANK YOU and we'll hopefully see you next year!

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 07-31-2016 We were all over the place yesterday we started off in the morning fishing yellowtail at one island with massive spots of bait and birds that were sitting on the water doing nothing with no signs of yellowtail. That didn't last long before we moved to another island for similar results basically no catching. After that we took off offshore and had a little bit of success on kelp's with Dorado and Yellowtail and that wound up our day! Throughout the day of we obviously had in mind catching yellowtail at one of the locations we frequented but in the back of our mind was our destination for tomorrow the local yellowtail kelp patty fishing grounds where the guys are just sleighing them! We got some beautiful weather and will be there tomorrow wish us luck. The Polaris supreme crew

Happy Easter! I have decided to put some ultra limited load open party trips together for fishing the northern Channel Islands this weekend. I have set up two trips on Saturday and Sunday the 10th and 11th of April. I anticipate trying to find sea bass in the morning and falling back on rock fish and ling cod for the rest of the day. These trips will be limited to only 20 people max!! This just seems to me to be such a great opportunity to get out to the islands on such a nice boat without having to deal with a crowd. The trips will depart from Sea Landing in Santa Barbara at 9pm Friday and Saturday night. The cost will be $175 per person. Please come join me and the crew aboard the Apollo next weekend. I look forward to seeing you.

Please call Sea Landing to make Reservations at (805) 963-3564.