pere marquette Fishing Report 2025

"We fished at Cedros Island and we fished on offshore kelps," said Polaris Supreme skipper Drew Henderson July 28. He'd just ended a five-day Catchy Tackle trip with 24 anglers, and was weighing the catch at the Fisherman's Landing scales.
"We got yellowtail, dorado and some non-biting albacore," he added, "and; wow!" The albacore he hung on the scales pushed the numbers up to 41 pounds even. "That's the best one so far this season," I remarked. Henderson high-fived angler Al Brandenburg, who grinned and brought his fish over to the side for some photos. Brandenburg said he got the big longfin on a sardine and a 2/0 Flyliner hook. He used 30-pound Izorline on a Trinidad 30 reel and a Calstar 700 M rod. He won second place in the jackpot. Harvey Rosen of Benecia bagged a 43.6-pound yellowtail on the dropper loop to win first place. "He fought like a bulldog," said Rosen, who used a sardine on a 4/0 Mustad hook with 60-pound Izorline XXX mono, an Avet 4-2 reel and a Seeker 6460 glass rod to beat his fish in ten minutes. Don Spitzer of Petaluma was third, for a 33.8-pound yellowtail. Chartermaster Wayne Martin hoisted a dorado he said was typical of those encountered on kelps.

220 yellowfin 4 bluefin. Truly amazing November fishing.

~~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.

Reed checked in from the Fred Hall Show down in San Diego and just heard from Capt Ryan Bostain aboard the San Diego 3/4 day boat. The have limits of Yellowtail for their 20 anglers from 16 to 22 lbs, they were biting everything today. When you come out with us make sure you have your passport or passport card, cost is $145 per person. You can call the landing at 619-224-3383 or go to the website at www.seaforthlanding.com and reserve your spots.

Polaris Supreme Trip Update 10-22-2019 Today was one of those mind numbing days where you just can't believe fishing is that good. We had fantastic fishing on just monster size Wahoo and unbelievable fishing on beautiful big Dorado. We got Wahoo throughout the whole day and Dorado was a steady 2 1/2 hour bite of catch and release with the guys keeping only a few of what they wanted. Both the Dorado and Wahoo are just an absolute premium grade. Beautiful weather again today and will be out offshore again tomorrow looking for those big beautiful kelp patties that produced such a phenomenal day. We had plenty of Wahoo photos but neglected to get one single Dorado photo. You'll just have to believe me it was good and they were big. We'll see you tomorrow hopefully we have the same glowing report. The Polaris Supreme Crew.

~~Oct. 13-14
 Nothing to report on Oct. 13.  More of the same.  Though it was our last day so the cocktail hour was to a minimum.  We arrived to our destination around 1:30 in the am Tuesday morning.  We did a tour for flying fish (to use as bait) but we only caught a few.  We kicked the anchor over and most of us got a couple more hours of sleep.  Everyone got up at 0400 hours and got to work.  Some faster than others.  When I woke up George was the only one in the water so I thought I'd give him a hand.  I threw a sinker on a rig and dropped down a sardine and 5 minutes later we had our first tuna aboard.  About an 80 pounder.  It was our sashimi fish.  After that there was a whole lot of good shark and small tuna fishing going down so again during a time when no one was in the water (due to having to retie because of shark teeth), I dropped another bait down, this time on the rod Mark likes to call the OJ (no one knows why), and about 20-30 minutes later we had a 196 pounder aboard.  While that was going on George got hooked up and brought a 218 pounder over the rail.  It wasn't even light out yet.  After that the sharks fully took over.  It was pretty much unfishable so we didn't give it much time, we pulled anchor and got to trolling and for the next 8 hours or so it was steady striking on the wahoos.  Damn.  We caught about 5 per angler so I'd call that good for sure.  For the last few hours we got steady strikes on one of this groups favorite fishing methods, trolling the yummy fliers.  We caught a lot of tuna today on those and on the marauders and some on bait.  They were all mostly in the 120 pound range.

 The weather today sure was interesting.  The wind never had much strength but it couldn't pick a direction.  One minute it was coming out of the northeast, and the next it was coming out of the west.  It did that all day so for that and the sharkies giving us grief we never tried another anchor job today and we're spending the night adrift.  It also rained a whole lot this evening.  I'd say it was raining cats and dogs when I went to bed but it's cleared up now at 0100 hour as I write this on my watch.  One more hour and I'm going back to bed until 5 when we'll all be going back into battle.  Hopefully tomorrow these dang sharks leave us alone.

 

Happy July 4th everyone.
    We started our morning off doing some bluefin watching.  It's like whale watching but instead of whales you watch bluefin.  In other words they didn't bite.  We got on one spot and they were practically smacking the side of the boat they were so close but they wanted nothing to do with us.  After a little bit of that and a kelp for some yellows and our first dorado of the year we started getting strikes on yellowfin.  It was pretty steady for 1 1/2 hours then shut down for 1 1/2 hours then started up again for 1 hour then went completely dead.  We went west because west is best.  After lunch things got interesting.  We started to see big schools of yellowfin and it didn't stop until dark.  As my grandma would say, "holy Toledo!".  Unfortunately they were not biting fish.  We would get stops for 2,1,1,2,4,1,1,2,2,3,3,3,1,2, like that.  But we stayed busy and worked  hard at it and scratched out a nice catch.  We had 40 tuna stops and averaged 2 per stop.  Now thats scratching.

    The weather was incredible.  As my grandma would say, "holy Toledo!".  Variable winds all day.  That means there wasn't enough wind to measure.  I think that's what it means anyway.  We're headed back in and will be docking at 7:15 in the am and we will be turning around on a 6 day.  I'll be your captain.  See you then.
                                

 

Tommy Rothery returned Polaris Supreme to Fisherman's Landing November 18 after a ten-day Ocean Tackle Research charter. The boat had 13 anglers aboard. Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen of Hood River, OR saw his father, Bill Mikkelsen of Olympia, WA land the season's first super cow; a tuna over 300 pounds.
"It was full-speed fishing," said Chartermaster Lon Mikkelsen. Bill Mikkelsen's big fish won first place after it weighed in at 308.8-pounds, caught on a fly-lined sardine. Bill used the boats gear, including a 6/0 Mustad 7691 hook, 100-pound P-Line, and a Shimano rod and reel.
"Tommy said it was tail-wrapped from the beginning," said the elder Mikkelsen. "And he was, but he got lose and went on another run. He took me around the boat twice." "We started with yellowtail fishing on the ridge that turned out to be a real good bite," said Rothery. "We easily could have got limits on yellowtail and dorado, but these guys normally release most of their fish. We had one day of awesome marlin fishing, which this group enjoyed quite a bit." "I think we had maybe 200 hookups on marlin," said John Esler of Portland. "But our yellowfin bite was pretty amazing. Once Tommy would find them, he'd shut the motors off and just drift. They didn't need a lot of chum either, they were boiling all around the boat." Esler landed a 206.7-pound yellowfin.
Matt Kiesse of Cederville, CA was second place with a 279.8-pound yellowfin.
"The trip was just spectacular," said Kiesse. "We got everything." Lon Mikkelsen was third with a 277.9-pound tuna. The trip scored five tuna over 200 pounds.