northern illinois Fishing Report 2025

~~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.
 

The San Diego fisnihed with 63 yellowtail and few other odds and ends. A few quick opportunities today.

The Pacifica returned from a 2-Day 976-Tuna sponsored trip.

Final Count:

26 anglers

89 California Yellowtail

5 Yellowfin Tuna

42 Skipjack Tuna

5 Bluefin Tuna

Today we saw yellowtail, dorado, yellowfin and bluefin of all sizes. Unfortunately we were only able to catch 1 yellowtail. Hopeful for tomorrow. The wise angler would bring an assortment of setups from 20-60 lb.

We started off the morning with a few strikes on sonar schools of yellowfin tuna. We thought we were on the right track but things soon slowed down to virtually nothing. A few of the guys were seeing schools up above us, big schools but weren't producing much more then we where. We went and check those out and it looks like there schools of bluefin with a little bit of yellowfin mixed in it of course the bluefin don't bite. We spent part of our morning looking at eight giant kelp patties for two bites on yellowtail which we lost. Right now it's about 2:10 we have 20 yellowfin on board and were wondering where in the heck they're all at. We have good weather and six more hours to look wish us luck.

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 09-07-2016 Hi Supreme fans, Well it seem like the bluefin tuna decided to sleep in this morning. But the squid didn't, Before the crack of dawn we had plenty of squid under our lights that we scooped up for our morning bite. But only one lone 25 pound yellowtail took our offerings. Chef Mike called "first call for lunch" and that's all it took for the bluefin tuna to bite! From lunch time until first call for dinner we had steady action of bluefin tuna from 60 to 80 pounds! Once again Gary Jones would battle one for well over 3 hours and defeat a 80 pound bluefin just before we call it a trip. What a way to end a great trip.We turned the boat towards San Diego with a outstanding catch of bluefin tuna chilling in our RSW!! The Supreme Team.

Hello Everyone,
Today we were able to check everyone off on the Wahoo list. Everyone on the boat has at least one Wahoo! We are pumped about that. There was a nice shot on 20-30 lb tuna in the dark this morning, but as the sun rose the Tuna Stopped biting. Aside from the Wahoo we landed one nice Grouper to add to the mix! It ate a baby Yellowfin! Crazy!

Hopefully they bite for us tomorrow,
Team Supreme

~~Oct. 22
 Strictly a couple of travel days for us on these dates.  That's three in a row now.  1 1/2 days of that in good weather and the other 1 1/2 days in choppy weather.  The boats cleaned inside and out now.  The rails have been oiled.  Now we wait and do things like we do on these days.  You should know the travel day drill by now. 

 So anyway, we're fat, happy and lazy but we need to snap out of it now because tomorrow we're going to do some fishing.  We'll be looking for a dorado kelp tomorrow.  We should only need one dorado kelp to get what we need so hopefully we can get it done.  We'll find out shortly.  the weather should be nice tomorrow which will make the kelp easier to find.