lower potomac river Fishing Report 2024

Incredible amount of fish in our range right now. We see bluefin from big to too big. Yellowfin tuna from 5-25 lbs. open water yellowtail from 8-15 lbs. most of the fish are slurping small anchovies on the surface and do not bite. We did manage to land 7 bluefin from 30-75 lbs and 4 bonito.

Oct. 7

Hello out there in the internet world of the Polaris Supreme. It's been a while since I have been able to write to you all. This is because down there in the lower lower latitudes our satellite service isn't available therefor I am unable to send out any emails. So this will be a trip wrap up of our time spent down below...

First of all we had a great trip. Of our 5 1/2 days down here we landed 50+ tuna over 100 pounds. 15 of those went over 200 pounds and 1 of those will most likely go over 300 pounds. It taped off at 297. A real beaut. We also released at least 17 tuna over 100 pounds and threw in 50+ wahoo as hole fillers. That's not a bad fish count for 20 anglers. We had 8 anglers. Fantastic.

We got a little nervous when we first arrived down there at 4:00 a.m. of the 2nd. We stopped the boat first on some flying fish to try for some of them to put on the kite and during the drift we could see many sharks swimming around and chasing the flyers. We got the anchor down around 5 and it wasn't getting better. A big shark problem is what we had on our hands. They were making it unfishable. We had a 1 hour window that morning when the tuna were more aggressive then the sharks and managed a handful of big tunas with the Jer-Bear getting one over 200 pounds but it was short lived. The tuna backed off and the sharks took over again. We had enough and tried pulling the anchor but it got stuck and we lost everything. Damn. While we were putting one of our spair sets on we trolled it up for wahoo but we couldn't get past the 50-80 pound tunas to get to the wahoo. On most trips that would be good but on this trip we release those babies. After doing that for a while we got the anchor back down and things never really got rolling. We had a shark problem. Like I said we, were a little nervous after the first day.

Day number 2 didn't start off any better. We had a shark problem. Every bait we put out hooked a grinner. We didn't give it too long before we got to trolling again and this is what we found out. The cows were biting the marauders. We were trolling them up! ? That was a first for me. We were getting fish from small ones we would release to fish up to 215! You never know with fishing. It's a crazy game. So we had it all figured out. For the rest of the day this is what we did. We would troll around with our marauders and our yummy flyers on the kite and catch tuna and wahoo. The 4 remaining anglers not trolling were getting them fishing sardines on the slide. We stayed very busy. 15 fish over 100 that day with 2 of those over 200. The weather picked up that day and would stay windy for the remainder of our time here.

Day 3 was more of the same except the sharks disappeared and we were getting more tired. The fish were getting harder to pull over the rail. We also lost our Matt to an injured knee. We're not sure how it happened. To much of banging it on the rail scooping flyers and he may of hit it on a tuna some how but however it went down he was done. He could barely move about the boat let alone gaff a 200 pounder. Also our fearless leader, and I mean that, hurt his back prier to the trip and has had a hurt wrist for some time now was of little help gaffing 200 pounders as well so we were down to 3 of us and a "Gringo". That's our galley assistant. That's right Gringo fans, he's been back for some time now. Any hoo around 5:00 p.m. things started to really liven up with tuna flying out of the water everywhere so we threw the anchor over and had pretty much wide open fishing on the bigguns till about 7:30. We landed 12 over 100, most of those closer to 200 with 4 of them over that mark. Nice.

Day 4 was different. The tuna stopped biting on the troll and things got back to the way we're used to. Anchor fishing and we did well. The fish started biting at 1:00 p.m. for a little while then things slowed down until around 5:30 when things went ballistic similar to the night prior. 11 fish over 100 with 4 of those over 200 and George getting his personal best which went 297. We're hoping it goes over 3 at the dock. We'll see. When I'm giving these fish counts keep in mind we are releasing many fish if they aren't in the 200 pound range.

Day 5 was pretty much spent on anchor. We had a late night with Brian being stuck on a big one for hours. We didn't get to bed until 11:00 p.m. so when the crew woke up at 4:00 a.m. nobody was awake except Charlie. Here's why. He had a 186 pounder completely wreck him. I mean he got his but kicked like I've never seen him get his but kicked before. This happened the day before so he went to bed early that night and was up with us bright and early. Anyways he had a 207 landed before anyone else was even up besides the crew. He hooked another one shortly after that too but after a long battle the fish one and lived to fight another day. We had more action throughout the day but there were many lulls in between the action but it was a slower day for sure. Not a slow day though. We had 7 over 100 with 3 of those going over 200 pounds. Tommy had been keeping an eye on the storm that's been brewing the whole time we were down there and decided on this night to start heading north to keep us all safe. The storm became a tropical storm and was still getting stronger and closer so we had to take off leaving 1 day to fish somewhere north.

Here are some firsts for me and most others on this boat that happened while we were down there: I have never seen a shark problem that bad and then seeing them disappear like they did. One hour it was not fishable and that afternoon they were pretty much all gone,. I have never seen a 200 pounder let alone so many 200 pounders and just big tuna in general bite the trolled marauders like they did for a few days down here. I have never seen a 186 pounder jump completely out of the water right next to the boat after being on the line for 5 minutes or any amount of time for that matter. The fish must have thought it was a dorado. I have never seen Charlie not at the rail 100% percent of the time the fish were biting and it's because of A. he's reached the age of 60 but mostly B. I have never seen fish fight as hard as they fought on this trip. I mean they were brutal. Mean mean fish. I have seen 350+ pounders come in much easier then the 160+ pounders we were hooking. We lost a lot of big fish on this trip. We think about 50% of the big ones we hooked we lost. Not because of angler error but because these were just mean mean fish.

Here are some of the pricey things that happened during the trip. We lost one set of anchor gear, we lost 2 big giant 12 volt batteries, our refrigerator broke down , we lost and broke 3 gaffs, fuel prices are nasty, but the look on Matts face when I offered him a sponge bath because he couldn't stand up in the shower was priceless. Oh Mathew. He's doing a little better then before. The swelling went down a little and there is a little less pain then he had before but the poor guy has got to be just borred out of his mind and just bummed he missed out on some great big mean tuna fishing.

We will keep you filled on the ride home .

Polaris Supreme Update Nov.5

 

We weighed jack pot yesterday. Big fish went like this. Bernie 218, Charlie 208 I think, Jeremi 206. So once again myself and the crew thank George and his guests for another fun trip. J.C. thank you for the sun glasses. We'll see you guys on the golf course if we ever get it going. If not we'll see you in Big Sky. Can't wait!

I'll leave this trip with a story about a few of the crew and my friend," big fish" Charlie Middleton. At the beginning of the trip Mark the crow member Clark thought it would be a good idea for the crew to have a personal jackpot for the tuna they catch during they're watch. The rules were simple. To qualify your fish had to be caught between 8 at night and 5 in the morning. They allowed passenger Charlie Middleton to join them too. Immediately I'm out. I know better then to go up against that man but the rest of the crew did not. Unfortunately the fish didn't bite this time during those hours but Charlie managed to get one the second to last morning at 4 30 in the am. On the way home the crew finally paid him. I come to find out the morning we got in Charlie gave the crew they're money back and they excepted it. I am very disappointed in Jed, Gunny and Mark. They excepted it! Can you believe it? If it were me I would have burned the money before taking it back from Charlie. I know that's illegal but come on. I think that was in Charlie's plans the whole time. To just demoralize these crew members.

Now we've left on Lon Mikkelsen and this years co charter master John Esler's 10 day adventure. We have an awesome load of bait on board. Best of the year. We're going to have breakfast in the morning, have our seminar and then we're going to spend tomorrow pulling on nice yellowtails. It makes more since to Tommy to fish this species early in the trip as apposed to later on in the trip due to where the rest of the fishing will take place later on in the trip. So that's the game plan to start. Check back tomorrow for more details. As I was typing this I thought of a Hedburgh joke. If I lost 9 fingers I would still type just as fast. So true for me.

See yah. Drew

~~Aug 23
 Good morning to you all from over here on the Polaris Supreme. As I write this I'm on watch at 2:40 in the am. We arrived from our 4 day "Let's Talk Hook Up" trip this morning and as soon as the RP was out of our way we off loaded a beautiful catch of yellowfin and 30-40 pound Bluefin. Jackpots went 96, 68, and 43 I think it was. Close enough. We did a super fast turn around. We smoked team galley that's for sure. Things at the bait receivers went well and we were back at it again yellowfinin it. It wasn't some crazy start like it had been lately but judging by some of the counts we were hearing we were very happy with what we got. We got spoiled these last few days with the power counts out here that when things got back to normal, which is still good, it seems slow. We ended up with a couple rounds of mostly the upper grade of yft and we're currently drifting in lovely sea conditions and we're ready to go at it again tomorrow.

 Tommy is back out here with us so in a way, it's like having a trip off. I'm not stuck here in the wheel house all day thinking of my next move. I spend lots of time down hanging with the customers and being a goof ball with Mark. I love running the boat but like I said, sometimes it's nice not to have to think so much out here. See you all tomorrow. We're out.
 

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Hi friends. Back at it today and it was a pretty good day of boatwork. Well, as good as a day of boatwork could be. We shifted our cleaning and organizing efforts to the wheelhouse today. In all honesty, it looks beautiful. Everything is neatly placed in it's correct spot and it's easy to locate and get access too. But in all honesty, in about two months, it's probably going to look exactly how it did before we cleaned it up. But, that's how it is on a boat. Things get thrown around in the heat of an on-water emergency and roll around during rough seas. For now, it's looking good. Speaking of looking good, our friend Stanley Steamer payed the boat a visit today and our carpets got a nice cleaning as well. All in all, a fine day of boatwork and we're one day closer to our first trip on Saturday.

Projects for tomorrow include: some refrigeration maintenance, some A/C work, more cleaning and organizing and we'll take a ride to the fuel dock to change oil and fuel filters, take on more oil and fuel and take a little boat ride about San Diego Bay and see how things are running while we're underway. We'll chat with you tomorrow.

-Richie & Team Supreme

P.S. A little news update for you, our fellow long-range companion, the American Angler, spotted lots of scattered tuna jumping about in overnight range. Check out our schedule and take a peak at some of our early season 1.5, 2 and 3-day trips. Give Susan a call ASAP at 619 390 7890 and get in on some of this early season action that seems to be perking up more and more everyday.

~~July 26
  Today was rough.I'm not talking about the fishing.  I'm talking about the weather.  We were expecting this though.  We knew it would be this way so we had plans all along to keep it a down swell day.  We started west and moved east jigging up small tuna.  We expected this as well.  We must of caught 50 tuna this morning but only 10 of them wound up with tags stapled to there gills.  All the rest went back into the ocean to fight another day.  Right before lunch we hit a nice kelp and caught 20 nice yellows.  We thought we were going to string together a few kelps after that but that was the last thing we saw all day long other than a few jig strikes on throw back tunas.  So we're headed to the Island now and we'll be there before daylight.  Wish us luck.

  Good news.  We're getting our Gunny back August 8th.  I miss that well done steak eating man.  If you're reading this Guns, bring another blanket.  I've been using your's aqnd it's been working great.  I've been putting it on top of my blanket though so if you want it back it shouldn't have my cooties on it.
             

~~Sept. 4
 About mid morning today I was pretty bummed. I felt we should've been here yesterday. I was thinking we were going to have to run in tonight to catch our tuna for the trip. I was wrong. Before lunch we had our best stop of the year on yellowfin. Not just number wise but size wise too. 20-30 pounders with a few 18's and a few 35's. That's right, feeling pretty good now. It didn't take very many of them to fill up a fish hold. We pretty much have 2 full fish holds and fortunately/unfortunately, we have to prepare another fish hold for tomorrow. I only say unfortunately because we'll be forced to use the beautiful sardine we've been saving. Out here we've been catching our own bait so we wouldn't have to use our stock but we have no room to put the bait we catch now.

 The bluefin weren't in the biting mode today. We still saw the schools as we have everyday since we've been fishing in this zone, but some days are bite days and some aren't. Obviously we're hoping tomorrow is a bite day. Some bluefin would be the cherry on top of this wonderful sundae.

 The weather sure was nice today and to top it all off, it looks like we'll have the same tomorrow. Sweet dreams. Life is good.
 

The 21st annual Eric Rogger charter arrived at Fisherman's Landing August 16, after five days with 18 anglers aboard Polaris Supreme. Owner-skipper Tom Rothery was at the helm. "Wow!  What an incredible day," wrote Tom August 12. "This albacore is in the cooler 76-degree water.  It wants to bite wide open. Can't say enough about how much fun today was catching big fat jumbo albacore. They tired our anglers out. By the end of the day only a few fishermen were still standing.  Chef Pedro fixed a spicy teriyaki albacore lunch that was fantastic.  For dinner he served some delicious veal chops. Today was just a great. This is what albacore fishing is supposed to be like." John Lindsey of Newport Beach won first place for a 41.4-pound albacore. He took it with a sardine on a Mustad 2/0 94150 hook on 20-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon leader, 20-pound P-Line, an Accurate 197 reel and a nine-foot rod of unknown make. "He fought hard," said John. "He fought for 20 minutes."
Cole Pearce of Huntington Beach was second, for a 36.4-pound albie, and Brian Harnack of Culver City took third place for a 36-pound albacore.