santa ana river Fishing Report 2025

60+ yellowtail on the boat by noon. Good sign so far this morning. Stay tuned.

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 11-27-2018 The tuna started biting right away this morning! We had three going right off the bat in the gray light. We stayed real consistent all the way until about 11 AM keeping 3 to 5 going most of the time. It slowed the rest of the day but we still continue to pick right into the dark. Most of the fish were around 80 pounds with a few in the 60 pound range. Another great day of fishing! Our weather has been great. And of course were going to do this tomorrow. Wish us luck. Were having a great time. The Polaris Supreme Crew

~~Oct.16-20
 So for the last few days, I was either too busy to write a report or just too tired.  I knew these blogs wouldn't be making it out here until tomorrow anyway so I figured I would just do a 4 day report to explain the remainder of our trip down below so here it goes.

 When I left off, the sharks backed off and allowed us to have a great afternoon and we were hoping the sharks would do the same thing they did last year after the first couple of days which is leave.  That didn't happen.  It was a sharky trip for sure.  Brown Reef Sharks were in the picture for the remainder of the time we were down there.  Sometimes they were relentless and we'd have to pull anchor and go trolling for wahoo and other times they would back off just enough to allow us to scratch at the tunas and then other times they would back off completely.  They weren't tuna eaters though.  They let us wind in what we hooked, but they loved our kite baits.

 Anyways, we still had an excellent trip down there sharks or no sharks.  There were a lot of windows of opportunity and there were some slow windows as well.  There was almost always a window where we would get at least two cows before sunrise, and after that it never stayed consistent.  If we didn't need to sleep it would've been convenient.  I know we missed plenty of tuna bites in the dark hours through out the night but that's when we would sleep.  Like I said though we had an excellent trip and here are the numbers to prove it.

 130 yellowfin tuna and 60 wahoo for 8 guys for 6 days.  54 tuna kept.  11 over 200 lb's, 5 that may go when we weigh them on the dock scale, 6 between 170-180 and the rest were 100-150 pounds with much fish being in the 120-130 pound class.  We also released 76 of those too!  One release estimated to be around 200 pounds and several in the 150 pound range and like I said, many in the 120-130 pound range.  Our largest was 240 and next in line was a 234 pounder kept.

 Here are the team jackpot totals: 1st place goes to Charlie and Craig with 2 fish totaling 453 pounds.  2nd went to George and Scott with 2 totaling 414.  George also had 5 tuna over 200 pounds by the way.  One per day besides the last day.  3rd place went to the Jer-bear and JC with 399 pounds, and Brian and Bernie finished just behind them with 396 pounds.  None of this is official.  We still need to weigh them oin land.

 And that's basically how fishing was down there.  Here are some things that stand out to me while we were down there.  First of all I'd like to talk about KC.  I'm not saying he was scared, he just didn't seem too pumped on fighting one of these fish we call cows.  He wasn't the first or fifth for that matter to jump on a spot on the kite for example when one was available.  On the third day it couldn't be avoided.  He got up on that kite and when he did this particular time he hooked a big one and he handled it as well as anyone.  I mean he kicked that fishes @$$.  He came to battle and he won.  It taped out as a 193 pounder.  After that it wasn't hard to get KC up on the kite when a spot was presented.  It went from where the heck is KC, to him not leaving the rail at all.

 I let Mark know the Raiders lost.  I did it in a mean way too.  His birthday was the 16th I believe, and Chef Mike baked him a cake and we all sang happy birthday and when it was over, I gave him my birthday present which is spilling the beans on lying about the Raiders beating the Chargers.  Ha ha Mark.

 The weather was a lot less steamy the last few days down there.  It was still hot, but once the clouds went away it didn't feel like a sauna there anymore.  Although myself and a few others got the worse case of burnt lips we ever had.  I did it in a dumb way too.  I knew I should go get my chap stick from my room on the first day down there but my lips did;t feel like they were getting chapped so I thought, because of the humidity my lips weren't drying out and I didn't need protection.  Dumb, stupid and idiotic.  My lips may not have dried out but they still got as burnt as ever.

  So that's it.  We now travel for a few days.  The crew has plenty to do.  Clean, clean clean and sleep.  The passengers will be sleeping and celebrating a wonderful trip.  We'll be trying to break up the ride on our last day of travel by looking for a dorado kelp but that's still not for a couple more days.
      

 

Aug. 23

The morning started off as predicted. Good fishing on a beautiful grade of fish. Seniors for sure. After a few hours of pumping and pulling the fishing shut off and stayed that way till after the appetizers were put out and wouldn't you know it, the fish wanted some too. So we pumped and grinded ( or ground?) again on the Polaris Supreme for a while longer and now we're headed for new grounds. Should be great tomorrow for our last day. We'll see.

No helmet time for Mark today. His litlun Chase must be keeping him under control. See you tomorrow. Polaris Supreme clear.

23 pass private charter. 13 bluefin tuna 26 yellowtail. Stopped on many schools of both bluefin and yellowtail. Picked away on 25 lb flyline and surface iron

Rolling down on the Ranta trip! Grease calm seas here rolling down on the Ranta 6 day trip. We had a great day of rigging, and are ready for action tomorrow. We may have a little wind this evening but it should subside by about 1 am for us. We start fishing tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Aug. 29

Here we go again. We arrived early this morning and unloaded a deck full of bluefin and yellowtail, loaded up some sysco, put on a bunch of fuel, then loaded more groceries, put the new peeps on and took off on the glory run. The Gary Roberts 9 day baby. We got a good load of bait and we're headed down. It looks like we're going to pass by where we caught our bluefin last trip after daylight so we'll definitely be looking for those as we roll down. We'd never pass up that kind of fishing but we're not going to give it our all. If we don't see it and the other boats in the area aren't seeing it we're going to keep her rolling on down down down to destinations unknown. Or better yet not decided on. Either my next report will be about us catching bluefin or it will be about our traveling down.