mantua reservoir Fishing Report 2024

This morning was slow and the weather was rough. We lost a couple of nice fish because of the weather, but as the afternoon came so did good weather and really good fishing. Roger got a pair of bookends now as he landed another big tuna weighing in at 255 lbs. Most of the fish were 120-170 lbs. Fun afternoon. Dinner was an incredible roasted duck, my favorite. We are hoping for good weather and more great fishing tomorrow.

Capt. Ray went out today with 22 passengers. Final fish count for the day is. 1 calico bass 2 sheephead 7 red rock cod. 90 whitefish 110 rockfish. Tomorrows trip looks to have a light load. On January 1st we will shut down for our annual maintenance period.

Nov. 7

                First of all, what the heck was that?!  Did you see that tonight?!  Holy Toledo!  It was like a rocket or something, blasting through the sky, then all of a sudden, boom!  It just lit up.  For a second there, I thought that was it.  I thought, see you later world,.  This is it.  Then it was just out of control.  I watched it with the gyros for a while and it was zippin and zappin all over the place with a huge green glow in it's wake.  Wow!!  And the whole fleet saw it.  From here, out to there, and into there and all the way down there.  I can't wait to hear the explanation.  I'll remember that forever.

 

                  OK.  Onto fishing.. Today, we had a bad day.  Just an old fashioned bad day.  And I wish that was all I had to say about that, but you make me write more to you.  That wouldn't be good enough.  So I'll explain it.  Last night I downloaded what I thought was a tasty looking water chart.  It shows much much less warm water around but there was a lovely looking strip of warm headed southeast from Clemente.  So I thought I had this great idea to start at the Island, and leave when they closed it down at 11:30.  Well it's what we did.  We started at the Island, only we didn't catch a whole lot.  A handful of nice yellows and some junk was all.  So we stuck with the plan and headed down that strip of warm water.  You know, the promise land, so I thought.  I was wrong.  And that's all I have to say about that.

 

                We did experience some great flat calm weather.  And we caught our first ever American wahoo in November, so that was cool.  Good boat, good crew, and good food.  We just missed the good fishing.  Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.  Sometimes you're sitting field level, and sometimes you're sitting nose bleed.  That's all a part of the game.

                                                                                                                               

Plenty of room at the rail this past weekend ! On Saturday our 8 passengers caught 25 quality calico bass and another 25 miscellaneous rockfish. On Sunday our 7 passengers caught 20 nice calico bass and 20 rockfish. The highlight of the weekend was a 15 lb. white sea bass caught on Sunday. We also released a short sea bass. If you are one of those people that do not enjoy fishing with a crowd. This is the time for you ! Our next trip is Friday December 7. Make those resos !

~~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.
       

 

Polaris Supreme Trip Update 09-27-2019 AM Gust waiting to get to the fishing grounds! Standing By!

~~Sep. 7 "Feeling Better"
 I can't say I had the highest of hopes for this morning.  It seems like up and down this whole coast in the mornings has no current.  As you know, no current = no fish.  So we bailed on our yellowtail spot after 8:00 am and went kelping.  I believe we found our first winner ohhh around 10:00 or so.  It was good for 20 dorado.  Another 1/2 hour later we found another that was good for another 20.  Another 1/2 hour later... and so on and so on.  We had a good day of kelping.  Most of our passengers on board have never been in a dorado bite before today.  It was jaw dropping for them.  Lots of fun.  We're feeling better. 

 Now we're going to catch our yellows.  We're going to head into the coast for tomorrow and try and get a bunch of those.  See?  I write short reports on good days.  Hopefully I keep them short.
     

~~Oct. 6
 Here we go again.  One last short trip of the year.  My last trip as the captain.  El Capitan, Master, number 1,el jefe, the chief...  After this one Tommy comes out for 15 days.  You'll still get my blogs though because I'll be here.  Right now though I'm thinking about this trip right here that we're on right now.  I'm feeling some dorado and tuna tomorrow.  I'm hoping we get it done early and I have the problem of figuring out, OK, what next?  That would be real nice.  We'll see.  I have her on course and I'm feeling prime rib tonight.  I don't think I've eaten it in 2 years out here but tonight might be the night.  I haven't been very healthy lately so what's one more drink on the Titanic right?