north shore mn Fishing Report 2024

Fishing was excellent today. Most of the tuna were 70-125 lbs. they started biting in the gray and continued just until dark. We released all of them except Al kept a 197 lb. tuna and Craig kept one that was 187 lbs. We also had a few wahoo mixed in. Weather is gorgeous. We are going to give it a try again tomorrow. Lunch was Chili Colorado, hors d'oeuvres were shrimp, crab claws and sashimi. Dinner was tuna Baja (that's a tuna fillet split and stuffed with avocado and crab meat with a sweet teriyaki ginger sauce to top it off).

~~Sep. 17
 We had bad odds today.  We fished for wahoo and our fish hooked to fish landed ratio was poor.  It always is with wahoo but I feel today was extra bad.  I think if you're landing half of what you hook with wahoo you're doing OK.  Today at best we were 1/3.  At best.  I called out to 2 of our anglers fishing today and asked what there ratio was for the day and I got a 1/2 and a 1/4.  Then my buddy Dave came up to the wheel house and said he was 0/4.  So that gives you an idea.  If we would've caught half of what we hooked today we would've had a really good day.

 Alright.  I'm done whining.  I'm still glad we came here.  Everybody got there chance at a wahoo and there's still a chance for some more tomorrow.  We're headed inside now and we'll be fishing for wahoo while we're looking for tuna first thing tomorrow morning.  The weather now is fantastic.  A little weird this morning with mixed swell and a wind coming from the southwest but it's beautiful now.

 We couldn't come to an agreement on a price for someone to wear Mark's shirt today.  Justin wanted 200 and Mike said he'd do it for 150 but I couldn't find enough people to chip in.  It was a good one too.  He was wearing a white shirt today, so by 9:00 this morning he could've entered a wet t-shirt contest.  He may have won too if you're into guys like Mark.
        

AWESOME 2 DAY TRIP!!! For 25 anglers caught 100 ALBIES, 10 Dorado, & 25 Yellows. Great trip. Get more info & reservations at Fisherman's Landing @(619)221-8500

Sep. 17

Our morning started off at 4:30. There was some good meter life on the first spot we looked at so we woke everyone up to try it and we had it figured out in the first 45 minutes. A few good grade yellows and a whole lot of smaller ones so we brought the lines in and continued down. An hour later we tried another spot for some more nice yellows but not enough so we continued down. The next spot a couple hours later was a disappointment. Not much yellowtail and not much wahoo. We got one wahoo almost to gaff before it spit the hook and swam away. So we continued down. The next spot we tried produced one beautiful wahoo and showed pretty decent sign of good grade yellowtails that didn't bite like you'd think. We caught some but it didn't keep us anchored up till sunset so we continued down. 1:30 hours later we were anchored up on our last spot of the evening and again it showed pretty good sign of yellows that bit pretty good for us up until dark. It was good enough to stay put and try it in the morning. We might of caught 1 million dorado today. I lost track at around one hundred and three but it might have been around 1 million. Unfortunately most of these dorado weren't much bigger then a neck tie and we let most go to fight another day. The weather was windy today. Wind and swell but for some reason it wasn't bad fishing weather. Maybe because our usual direction we worked was down but even when we would slide on a jig strike we never took any mean snaps. The wind came down after the sun went down so we're hoping it stays down.

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Captain Mike Pritchard called in this evening with an update from the Tribute. Today we had limits of Lingcod with many of them over 20 pounds. The jackpot fish should be around 30 pounds. We also had limits of rockfish including some very nice reds. We did catch some nice whitefish too.The Tribute is running 1.5 day trips to Colonett every weekend departing on Friday nights. Check out our website for the latest pictures.

~~Sep. 8
 Today was not a bad day at all.  We tailed it.  The yellowtail bit a little.  We fished a fun little pinnacle rock most of today.  Conditions weren't perfect for drifting today.  For starters it was windy as heck here last night and yesterday.  We didn't see any of that because we weren't here but we got some of the after effects of it.  We had no wind at all yet we were rolling our pa toots off for the first couple hours of the morning.  Because we had no wind we were drifting with the current so it made fishing that spot difficult.  The fish wanted to be right on the edge of it and we would end up drifting right on top of the pinnacle and we were losing a lot of the fish we would hook.  The simple solution would be to anchor up off the edge but we tried that and the fish wouldn't bite on the anchor.  So it was really good fishing but landing them was tough but we were still able to land plenty.

 After lunch things straightened out and we were able to make a few good drifts but then I watched the entire school on my meter swim to the deeps and vanish.  After that we couldn't find the fish on that spot anymore.  They swam away.  So we looked else where and we were unsuccessful at finding any more yellers.  That was fine though.  We still caught plenty today.  It was a good day.

 Tomorrow we're going to finish the trip off looking to top off on dorado.  If we can get it done early enough we may have some time to try for some more yellows.  Otherwise we'll just be rolling on home after wards.
       

Aug 12

We had a descent day of yellowtail fishing today. We were looking at schools of yellows this morning that wouldn't bite before making a move where we looked at schools of yellows that would bite. Not full speed but just a comfortable pick for hours. The quality was good. 20-25 pounders. After lunch it stopped biting for the rest of the day. We took a tour of the island for nothing then settled back in where we were before but it never picked up again. We're headed back offshore for a couple days in hunt for those tasty BFTees with plenty of bait now.

Drew

~~Sep. 12
 Slow morning, strong afternoon was how the fishing went down today.  We had 2 fish by lunch time and I was feeling the pressure.  Thankfully at noon the sonar went boom boom and we went sideways for a few hours.  Let me try and give you a picture of how things looked out here.  The fishing was wide open on a mixed school of skipjack and yellowfin.  We had 23 passengers and basically 23 rent rods.  Chaos out here on the Polaris Supreme.  And by chaos I mean fun, fun, fun.  At any given time we had half the passengers with fish on while the other half were tying on hooks.  It was pretty funny looking at 12 people at a time in the center of the boat tying on hooks.  Usually our customers have 10+ rods with hooks on them ready to go but all our anglers had one.

 Here is how I describe stand up tuna fishing.  It's not like freshwater angling.  Freshwater angling is more like an art.  It can be very peaceful and relaxing.  You use light tackle and  finesse.  With stand up tuna fishing, we can hook 24 fish at one time with every fish swimming a different direction with every crew member screaming out directions.  Gaffs are flying, reels are screaming and lines are snapping and it's some of the funnest $%^& in the world.  That's what today made me want to write.  We had a good time.

 We're on our way in already and we leave again tomorrow for 8 days.  See you then.