merrill creek reservoir Fishing Report 2024

The Voyager returned this morning with 13 Bluefin Tuna and 5 Yellowfin Tuna. They landed a couple of monster Bluefin, with the largest weighing in at 298 pounds! Congratulations to Captain Todd and the passengers and crew of the Voyager.

Nov. 14

We traveled home today. Just one of those perfect rides. It was like we were driving in the bay. Flat calm is what I'm telling you. Just beautiful. The passengers broke down all of their gear in the morning and spent the rest of the day watching movies and taking naps or just chilling outside enjoying the ride while the crew did the end of the year cleaning. Spring cleaning you'd call it only in November. That's right, we have no more trips leaving the rest of the year. It's time for us to do the land thing. Time to get our land legs back, work on our golf games, plan our ski/snowboard trips, work off all the Polaris Supreme meals we took in throughout the year or whatever else it is we do during the off season.

On behalf of myself and the crew we thank O.T.R.'s Lon Mikkelsen and Mr. John Esler and all else who participated this year on their 10 day trip and to all the many anglers who fished with us this year. You guys are what makes our world go round. Without you who knows where we'd be. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~Sept. 2
 We hit the yellowtail grounds today. Not until 9:30. I started looking at 0400 but we weren't there until 9:30. "There" is where we had some good tailing. There's not a whole lot to write about it. We were there, and they were hitting. Most everyone was dropping jigs down and winding them back fast to achieve there tails. Before lunch I was considering fishing yellowtails tomorrow morning before traveling all day to put us in position for tuna the following day, but when I went in to eat lunch, there were 10 fish in the box. The crew dropped them, when I came back out there were 3 in the box and everyone was leaning against the rail not fishing except 3 passengers and 1 of those had 1 hanging. I got the hint. They caught enough yellowtail and they want tuna now. So we'll be traveling all day tomorrow to put ourselves in position to fish bluefin the following day weather pending.

 The weather today was windy, but the further north we get now the less wind there is. It's a nice ride now.

June 30

We tried our hand at the elusive White Sea Bass today and that's exactly what they were. Elusive. We didn't see the life we were expecting to see. We covered a lot of ground today looking for them but we never found them. We caught some trophy calico bass at one spot and we tried and checked a couple traditional yellowtail hot spots for nothing. One plus thing about today for me is we fished most the day where I have never fished before in my 13 full seasons on this boat. Now I know why. The day wasn't a total loss though. We found an area that had a huge bird school in it but it went down by the time we got there but we know the conditions were much improved from a week ago so maybe tomorrow they'll be hitting. We may have just got there too late. With about an hour left of day light we hit a spot of those big big yellows and we caught quite a few of those before our day ended. And last but not least we ended with a 20ish pound seabass and a 20ish pound halibut. We will stay the night and try it where we are in the morning. It's good sleeping weather where we are. I may be sleeping with my thumb in my mouth tonight.

~~Oct. 24
 We fished today with all our buds.  Obviously it was the best game in town.  We had boats from San Diego up to Ventura all nestled in sharing the same honey hole.  15 of us to be exact.  It all worked out though.  It was a nice spread of fish.  Everyone was able to scratch.  Scratch, scratch, scratch.  From after daylight until after lunch.  Then things went dead for the most part, so we pulled anchor and found a nice school to drift on.  After a long drift the day was pretty much over.  We drove around, made another anchor job but the fish were done.  Just like us.  We're done for the week.  It's up to you whether or not we fish this next up coming weekend.  Halloween weekend.  See you there?

 Oh, the fish today were tuna.  Yellowfin.  Smaller.  We had a couple handfuls of 30-40 pounders first thing, but as soon as the current picked up, for some reason the bigguns split.  So we stayed busy with the smaller ones.  Veal.  Oh, and they found sardine again.  Loaded up.  So don't worry 10 dayers.
                         

We have four spots available on this weekends 1.5 day trip. The ticket cost is $260 which includes Mexican permit and travel visa this trip departs at 6 PM on Friday the 21st, and returns on Sunday the 23rd in the morning. Please contact Jodie at 858-220-1593, or [email protected]

Skipper Drew Henderson docked the Polaris Supreme June 17 after a five-day trip to the mid-Baja islands, on the Pacific side, of course.

"It was windy until the day we came home," he remarked. His 18 anglers managed a good catch of yellowtail and rockfish, however.

George Farnsworth of Kenwood won first place for a 27.6-pound yellowtail. He said it bit on a sardine pin ned to a 3/0 Gamakatsu hook. He used 30-pound Yo-Zuri line on a Saltiga 30 reel and a Calstar 870 M rod to beat the fish in 12 minutes.

"We had a great crew," he stated. "And that made a great trip."

Regular long ranger Joe Beck of San Pedro won second place, for a 27-pound yellow. Michael Robbins of Santa Cruz, one of three generations of family members on the trip, won third place, for a 25.4-pound yellowtail.

Schools of bluefin where a little harder to come by yesterday fortunately we still where able to put together a day. 85 yellowtail 6-15 pounds 6 dorado and 3 bluefin.