smith lake Fishing Report 2025

RECENT NEWS!!! I WILL BE PUTTING SOME MORE OPEN PARTY TRIPS ON THE APOLLO. These trips will be limited to only 20 people. Can you imagine a boat like the Apollo with only 20 people or less every day. I will be running Saturday and Sunday the 10th and 11th. I'll be fishing the northern Channel Islands for rock fish, lingcod and potentially Sea Bass and Halibut. The price will be $ 175 pp. Please email me at [email protected] for more details or to make reservations, call Sea Landing at (805)568-0460.

After another slow day offshore. We have decided to make Monday and Tuesday an island trip. We will be targeting yellowtail, kelp bass, barracuda and we even heard of a bluefin sighting today. Summer island tackle consists of a 25 lb bait rod, a 40 lb yo-yo rod, your favorite jig stick and your favorite kelp bass rod. Passports are required. Reservations are light but both trips are a definite go.

~~This is the after picture of the port side navigation system. If you notice, the monitor itself is a daylight monitor. The sun is shining directly on it and you can still see the screen. This system has radar, a plotter, and a fathometer. And it's all AIS capable. (Automated identification system) All ships that have AIS, can be tracked on a website, called www.marinetraffic.com. All of the systems can be overlaid so you can have your plotter, radar, and depth viewed at the same time

 

 

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This is the starboard side navigation system. Which is identical to the port. In addition to the previous mentioned features, the monitor can be switched to a computer system which has Nobel Tech times zero catch navigation fish finding and my favorite, bottom mapping system on it. You can, and we have been, making our own bottom maps for the previous three years. Cool stuff. In addition it has live weather from Weather Works XM Weather. Also it has SeaView Ocean Imaging capabilities to where we can download water temperature, chlorophyll, sea height, ect. The port system also has its own computer.

 

~~The monitor on the left is a sound activated fathometer for fish finding. And the monitor on the right is a daylight monitor for our sonar, for fish finding. In the front is one of our pairs of Gyroscopic binoculars

~~All of these electronics need new antennas. And this is how they get there. We literally pulled out a third of a dock cart of old wiring

 

 

~~Say good bye to the old radars.

~~Drew grinding away on a little cancer on the deck.

~~The roto hammer is one of our favorite tools for chipping up cancerous areas on the deck, but the noise is unbearable to our neighbors in the boat yard.

~~The deck hatches had to be completely stripped

~~We re-skinned the outside of the galley doors. They now have a nice white formica finish.

~~Creative, yes. But I bet he spent a half hour looking for that office chair in the boat yard!

~~The boat looks kinda small in some of these upcoming pictures without Tommie in them for perspective.  ~~Jed's missing from these shots because he was taking the pictures.

 

 

~~Drew resealing inspection plates for exhaust

~~Tommie detailing wood work

~~Tommie prepping for paint

~~Final coat of deck paint. Looking good!

 

 

We departed today on Eric Rogger's annual 5day trip. We have an excellent group of anglers onboard and picked up some great looking bait. The fishing prospects are looking good and we are anxious to go. We started rolling down to Cedros dinning on some terrific beef and shrimp kabobs, in some great weather. Last trip Drew got some huge yellowtail there. But reports from the albacore grounds got a lot more interesting so we did a 150 degree right turn and headed for the albacore. We will be there tomorrow at daylight. Fishing sounds really good.

Friday, August 10th, 2012

Hi friends. We finished up our trip today with a decent score of small bluefin, medium bluefin, small yellowtail, large yellowtail, dorado, and two very nice yellowfin. Mark also caught a yellow hard hat which he promptly wore the duration of the day. Anyhow, our weather started out kind of windy but by days end, it was absolutely gorgeous. We're happy everybody had a good time and we'll be in tomorrow morning sometime around 0800 hours. We'll be turning around and rollin' back out with Eric Rogger and company for a five-day adventure. Check back tomorrow and have a lovely day.

Here we go again. We are off for another 5 days on Paul Hess's annual charter from Napa. We are anticipating good weather and great fishing. Wish us luck!

On the recent Simpatico 6 day trip, anglers had access to fishing with Accurate rods and the new Valiant and Tern reels.

The outfits were perfect for the fish we encountered on the ridge. Wahoo, Yellowfin Tuna, Dorado, Yellowtail, and Grouper. 

Thank you Accurate for letting us try out such great gear!

Tommy Rothery finished up a three-day trip on his Polaris Supreme and tied up at Fisherman's Landing July 12. "We had good fishing on albacore," he said, "and bluefin fishing was okay, too. I think I saw the longest spread of albacore I've seen in five years. We had some kids who fished for tuna with iron from the bow, The Ironmen. They did great!" Hubert Bell of Bonita won the jackpot for a 47-pound albacore, the best one to come in to the docks this season. He said it bit on a sardine pinned to a 2/0 Super Mutu hook on 30-pound P-Line. He used an Accurate B-2 500 reel on an 800 M Calstar wrapped by Don's Bait & Tackle. Tom Carr of San Diego won second place for a 42.4-pound bluefin and Lohn Storms of Vista won third place for a 38.6-pound bluefin tuna. The Ironmen kindly posed for Bill Roecker's camera. They were Hugh Seifert, 14, Hunter Lane, 14, and Jorge daSilva, 13, all of Poway. Hugh and Hunter will go to Poway High and Jorge to St. Michael's. The boys said they got most of their fish with chrome and blue Tady 9 jigs and Megabait darts or knife jigs.