nw florida Fishing Report 2024

Great times catching Bluefin, Yellowfin and Yellowtail over the last two days on our Okuma/ Soft Steel sponsored 2 day trip.

Hello everyone, Today we departed on our Hess 8 day charter. With a nice load of bait we are headed south. Our 8 day charter this year is a celebration of life and dedication to Shane Maynard who we lost September 13 and Bob Snyder who passed away may 30th both were the type of friend everyone should be: fun, honest, generous, and humble. Neither wanted to be the center of attention, but always the rock, dependable, reliable, solid. Both loved our trip as a highlight of the year. Part of them will always be on the Supreme. Sadly missed but never forgotten. Our love to Shelly and Diane. Will report again tomorrow, Team Supreme

Had to cover some water, but mid morning the ocean came alive with feeding Bluefin everywhere. We caught 5 and a nice yellowtail. 

Mike Pritchard called in with this report for the Tribute. "The fishing has started off well this morning. So far we have 20 Bluefin and a handful of Skipjack. Weather conditions are good, hopefully the good fishing will continue. We'll keep you posted."

Pictured Above: This is a photo of yesterday's catch.

~~Aug 25
 We had a slow day today.  The morning seemed promising.  We caught a little but we saw a whole lot.  If just one of those schools we saw this morning wanted to bite a little we would of had a great day.  That seems to be the deal this year though.  Today, we hit the wrong schools.  We caught about 20 ish this morning from 30-50 pounds.  The afternoon stunk.  We ran in to where we finished up last night and it was muerto.  We ended up in an area late that had mucho fish but unfortunately they were all small.  We didn't even try them.  It wasn't worth wasting our precious sardine for. 

 The good news about not catching much fish this afternoon is we still have some of a tank of sardine left to fish with this morning.  It's 4:00 AM as I write this and we just finished up with our attempt at bait making.  We caught plenty of bait, but it wasn't a good size for the tuna that's out here so we're going to try and make some lemonade here.  We're going to take our big spanish mackerel and take it to where the 150+ pound bluefin live.  We'll do this after we run out of sardine this morning.  No one has tried that cow BF with a couple tanks of spanish yet.  Maybe that's the key to it all.

 The weather remains great.  We had a few hours this afternoon where things were getting interesting.  We had a descently strong wind out of the southeast and with it came some rain.  It wasn't all that neat but it didn't last long.  Things went back to butter.  Nice.
       

Started where we found fish yesterday, it had slid up and out. Found big Bluefin right away, hooked one and lost is 15' from the gaff. Chased Yellowfin most of the day, managed only 2, but we were happy to capture those. Offshore again tommorrow and it's a new day!!

Polaris Supreme docked at Fisherman's Landing July 24 following a five-day, 24-passenger charter with owner-skipper Tommy Rothery, who was credited by other skippers with finding a new area of albacore to the west of the previous location. Brad Donnelly of San Clemente won first place on the Tuna Trackers trip, for a 52-pound yellowfin. He said he took it with a sardine on a 3/0 Eagle Claw hook and 40-pound Soft Steel line. He used a Penn 4/0 reel and a Seeker 6465 H rod. Mike O'Donnell of Palmdale was second, for a 45-pound albacore. Jason Severen of Petaluma tied with Tom Donnelly of San Clemente for third place. Each had a 42-pound albacore.

29 passangers

49 yellowtail

11 bonito

The Coronado islands continue to produce.