For up-to-date information, look up the fishing report for the water of your choice. Field staff update the fishing reports each week through the fishing season, reporting on fishing success, lake levels, water temperatures, and other important information.
πΊοΈ Location | LOWER LAKE MARY |
π Country | US |
β° Fast Updates | Every day |
π Species | All Species |
ποΈ Next Update | Tomorrow |
π Rating | βββββ |
You also can get helpful information from the Fishing Forecast.
Aug. 17
Today almost went as planned except for the lack of yellowfin. We were supposed to scratch pretty good at the yellowfin in the morning, like 40 or so and then get on that big bluefin, and then scratch out another 30 or so yellowfin in the evening. Well we did the middle part but the numbers were lower on the sides. We saw plenty of that yellowfin, it just didn't bite well. On with the cool part. We found a mega school of that 70-100+ pound bluefin mid morning. It's been a long time since I've seen a mega school and every time I do I forget about the time before and I think it's the biggest school I've ever seen and that's how today was. Of course it didn't bite, but for me up in the wheel house where I can see it well it was incredible. Just the area of fish was monstrous, and when you add in all the shiners and thousands of black backs swimming through, it's amazing. We fished it for 4 hours on different attempts. On the first, the youngster Brendan hooked up and landed about an 80 pounder. On the second, his dad Scott hooked up and lost it and we hooked and lost another one. On the third, Scott hooked up again but this time he landed his 107 pounder. So far it's looking like we'll have a father- son jack pot. On the next few tries we got no reaction so we let it regroup for a while and a couple hours later we found it again and we hooked two more and lost them both and we missed a bite on the kite. We tried it one more time after that for no reaction before we left it for good. We're going to fish again tomorrow. We'll make a small move and relocate but as things are right now, we don't need much more yellowfin so we'll concentrate on the other kind of tuna.
22 yellowfin 3 bluefin(2 over 100lbs). Always a good idea to have a rod to fish 40-60lb line, never know what we might encounter.
Cowboy Cuts Out Supercow
Tom Rothery took PIER founder Tom Pfleger and eight other anglers on a 17-day excursion that started on the inside, visited the outside and came back to the inside to finish off the trip with six cows; tuna over 200 pounds. ("Inside" means off the coast of southern Baja, and "Outside" means the Revillagigedos archipelago and the Hurricane Bank.)
"All our days were good," said Rothery, "except for the time we spent off Clarion Island where there were a lot of krill balls and green water. The wahoo on the Hurricane were a little bigger than usual. The skin fishing was good on all methods."
Tom "Cowboy" Fullam of Oceanside pulled off the coup of the adventure when he decked a tuna that taped out around 280 pounds.Β¬β When Rothery hung it on the scales a shout went up from the gathered spectators, as the fish hit 303.4 pounds on the certified scales.
"He bit on the slide," said Cowboy, "and he went down right away. He fought for an hour and a half, and then he came up on the bow. He's my best fish."
Tom said he dropped in a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook. He used 130-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon and 130-pound Spectra on a Tiagra 50 W reel and a five and a half-foot Calstar rod.
Roger Foster of Orange won second place for a 261-pounder. Foster got his big cow (his best-ever fish, in only 20 minutes) and a 259-pounder with sardines. He said he used sardines on 8/0 hooks with 130-pound P-line and 130-pound Spectra on one of the boat's rigs, featuring a Penn 50 SW reel and an unidentified rod.
Chugey Sepulveda, senior research scientist for Pfleger's PIER Institute, caught a 228-pounder with sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook. He used 130-pound line and 130-pound Spectra on a Penn 30 W reel and a Penn five and a half-foot rod.
Pat Jaeger of Bishop, a mountain fishing guide, got a 215-pounder in 40Β¬β minutes, after it ate his sardine on a 6/0 Eagle Claw hook. He fished with 100-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon and 130-pound Spectra on a Penn 50 SW reel and a custom Calstar Baja Boomer rod.
Chartermaster Tom Pleger said two of the ongoing projects for PIER are a kelp study and a tagging program. The archival tagging study for white sea bass may provide some answers for questions long in the asking regionally, such as where the fish go and what they do when they're not in local waters and available to anglers.
"We'll offer rewards," said Pfleger, "and we'll put out about 100 archival tags."
Polaris Supreme will be her berth in for boat work for the next few weeks.
Fishing reports for lower lake mary are updated each week, usually by Thursday morning. The reports are compiled by an outside contractor who receives the information from bait shops, marinas and fishing guides.