spinney mountain reservoir Fishing Report 2024

~~Sep. 21
 Well, as promised we left on another trip today.  This one being an LA Rod and Reel Club long range 2 day trip.  We got a nice jump on things.  We were done getting bait and leaving the harbor by 11:00 this morning which allowed us to get to the tuna grounds by 5:00 this evening which allowed us to find a school of yellowfin before dark which allowed for most of the anglers on board to catch at least one which allowed me to feel satisfied about our day today.  Catching fish on a departure day.  Those fish were free.  Tomorrows the true day.  That's when we get real nasty.  So right now we're anchored up in the cove of an island and I couldn't be happier about it.  For the last week at night this boat has been running.  We've always been traveling somewhere so it feels real nice to be on anchor with the engines off.  It's even better that we're in a protected cove.  It's like being in the bay.  I can't speak for everyone on board but I'm pretty sure I'll be sleeping with my thumb in my mouth tonight.  Until tomorrow....
        
 

9 Bluefin, 6 Yellowtail, 1 Yellowfin and 1 Yellowtail for our 14 Angler’s today. Not too shabby, we go again tonight with a light load.

Good evening from the Polaris Supreme bridge. Today was our first full day of travel. We still have this big swell following us down the line, but it's not doing us any harm.  We're rolling down swell with it, so it's not a real big deal.  I wouldn't mind it being a few degrees warmer, but it is the middle of February.  Everyone got to sleep in a little bit and have a nice breakfast at 0800.  The crew gave a wahoo seminar mid morning the get the guys tuned up on catching some "skinnies".  It's nothing new to the OTR guys,  but a little refresher course never hurts.  They got right into making their leaders, rigging wahoo bombs and so forth. Certainly helps break up a travel day.  Chef Mike and Gringo put out a real nice Chicken and artichoke penne pasta with pesto sauce and garlic bread for lunch. That dish always makes for a nice nap afterward.      

                The rest of the afternoon was just a bunch of catching up with old friends, eating more food as we always do on these trips and the crew doing a few chores before dinner.  Just another standard travel day here on the Polaris Supreme. Till tomorrow, this is the Supreme boys out.

 

Jed and crew

Oct. 7

Hello out there in the internet world of the Polaris Supreme. It's been a while since I have been able to write to you all. This is because down there in the lower lower latitudes our satellite service isn't available therefor I am unable to send out any emails. So this will be a trip wrap up of our time spent down below...

First of all we had a great trip. Of our 5 1/2 days down here we landed 50+ tuna over 100 pounds. 15 of those went over 200 pounds and 1 of those will most likely go over 300 pounds. It taped off at 297. A real beaut. We also released at least 17 tuna over 100 pounds and threw in 50+ wahoo as hole fillers. That's not a bad fish count for 20 anglers. We had 8 anglers. Fantastic.

We got a little nervous when we first arrived down there at 4:00 a.m. of the 2nd. We stopped the boat first on some flying fish to try for some of them to put on the kite and during the drift we could see many sharks swimming around and chasing the flyers. We got the anchor down around 5 and it wasn't getting better. A big shark problem is what we had on our hands. They were making it unfishable. We had a 1 hour window that morning when the tuna were more aggressive then the sharks and managed a handful of big tunas with the Jer-Bear getting one over 200 pounds but it was short lived. The tuna backed off and the sharks took over again. We had enough and tried pulling the anchor but it got stuck and we lost everything. Damn. While we were putting one of our spair sets on we trolled it up for wahoo but we couldn't get past the 50-80 pound tunas to get to the wahoo. On most trips that would be good but on this trip we release those babies. After doing that for a while we got the anchor back down and things never really got rolling. We had a shark problem. Like I said we, were a little nervous after the first day.

Day number 2 didn't start off any better. We had a shark problem. Every bait we put out hooked a grinner. We didn't give it too long before we got to trolling again and this is what we found out. The cows were biting the marauders. We were trolling them up! ? That was a first for me. We were getting fish from small ones we would release to fish up to 215! You never know with fishing. It's a crazy game. So we had it all figured out. For the rest of the day this is what we did. We would troll around with our marauders and our yummy flyers on the kite and catch tuna and wahoo. The 4 remaining anglers not trolling were getting them fishing sardines on the slide. We stayed very busy. 15 fish over 100 that day with 2 of those over 200. The weather picked up that day and would stay windy for the remainder of our time here.

Day 3 was more of the same except the sharks disappeared and we were getting more tired. The fish were getting harder to pull over the rail. We also lost our Matt to an injured knee. We're not sure how it happened. To much of banging it on the rail scooping flyers and he may of hit it on a tuna some how but however it went down he was done. He could barely move about the boat let alone gaff a 200 pounder. Also our fearless leader, and I mean that, hurt his back prier to the trip and has had a hurt wrist for some time now was of little help gaffing 200 pounders as well so we were down to 3 of us and a "Gringo". That's our galley assistant. That's right Gringo fans, he's been back for some time now. Any hoo around 5:00 p.m. things started to really liven up with tuna flying out of the water everywhere so we threw the anchor over and had pretty much wide open fishing on the bigguns till about 7:30. We landed 12 over 100, most of those closer to 200 with 4 of them over that mark. Nice.

Day 4 was different. The tuna stopped biting on the troll and things got back to the way we're used to. Anchor fishing and we did well. The fish started biting at 1:00 p.m. for a little while then things slowed down until around 5:30 when things went ballistic similar to the night prior. 11 fish over 100 with 4 of those over 200 and George getting his personal best which went 297. We're hoping it goes over 3 at the dock. We'll see. When I'm giving these fish counts keep in mind we are releasing many fish if they aren't in the 200 pound range.

Day 5 was pretty much spent on anchor. We had a late night with Brian being stuck on a big one for hours. We didn't get to bed until 11:00 p.m. so when the crew woke up at 4:00 a.m. nobody was awake except Charlie. Here's why. He had a 186 pounder completely wreck him. I mean he got his but kicked like I've never seen him get his but kicked before. This happened the day before so he went to bed early that night and was up with us bright and early. Anyways he had a 207 landed before anyone else was even up besides the crew. He hooked another one shortly after that too but after a long battle the fish one and lived to fight another day. We had more action throughout the day but there were many lulls in between the action but it was a slower day for sure. Not a slow day though. We had 7 over 100 with 3 of those going over 200 pounds. Tommy had been keeping an eye on the storm that's been brewing the whole time we were down there and decided on this night to start heading north to keep us all safe. The storm became a tropical storm and was still getting stronger and closer so we had to take off leaving 1 day to fish somewhere north.

Here are some firsts for me and most others on this boat that happened while we were down there: I have never seen a shark problem that bad and then seeing them disappear like they did. One hour it was not fishable and that afternoon they were pretty much all gone,. I have never seen a 200 pounder let alone so many 200 pounders and just big tuna in general bite the trolled marauders like they did for a few days down here. I have never seen a 186 pounder jump completely out of the water right next to the boat after being on the line for 5 minutes or any amount of time for that matter. The fish must have thought it was a dorado. I have never seen Charlie not at the rail 100% percent of the time the fish were biting and it's because of A. he's reached the age of 60 but mostly B. I have never seen fish fight as hard as they fought on this trip. I mean they were brutal. Mean mean fish. I have seen 350+ pounders come in much easier then the 160+ pounders we were hooking. We lost a lot of big fish on this trip. We think about 50% of the big ones we hooked we lost. Not because of angler error but because these were just mean mean fish.

Here are some of the pricey things that happened during the trip. We lost one set of anchor gear, we lost 2 big giant 12 volt batteries, our refrigerator broke down , we lost and broke 3 gaffs, fuel prices are nasty, but the look on Matts face when I offered him a sponge bath because he couldn't stand up in the shower was priceless. Oh Mathew. He's doing a little better then before. The swelling went down a little and there is a little less pain then he had before but the poor guy has got to be just borred out of his mind and just bummed he missed out on some great big mean tuna fishing.

We will keep you filled on the ride home .

We didn't have to go too far to get some good action on the albacore. Everyone hooked and landed some. Weather is good. We will head into blue fin territory tomorrow. Thanks for checking in.

Sept. 25

Today we got nasty aboard the Polaris Supreme. And I mean nasty. When I use the term nasty I mean it in a good way. Unless I'm talking about the weather. If I say the weather is nasty I mean it was nasty. And by the way the weather was nasty today. It was windy windy windy and the swell was up and it was steep and we were rolling baby. It didn't bother us though because we were getting nasty on those bluefin tunas. Shortly after firing up after daylight Jed called down from above "tern birds pickin starboard bow". So I turned toward starboard bow and there was tern birds a pickin and when we rolled up on them, wouldn't you know it there was a big school of bluefin under them. I love those beautiful little white tern birds. They're the best of the fish finders. Find tern birds and you usually find game fish. For two hours it was game on. I mean they were snappin! 35-50 pound tunas? Yup. After the initial two hour whack things became civil and we scratched at them for another five hours. We could of kept picking at them but we had enough and the weather was getting worse so we headed east for the rest of the day and found nice weather in there. Night and day compared to what we had out west. We didn't catch much in there, a few small yellows and dorado but we didn't care. We had a heaven of a day already. We're on our way in. We have one night in and then we're back at it again. See you then.

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 08-01-2016 Good afternoon Polaris Supreme fans. Today we ended our Chaparro 5 day trip with a bang!!! We found plenty of kelps holding yellowtail and a few dorado which put smiles on all. It stared off early today with trolling team one setting out their rods and the mast-man up and looking. It didn't take long for our first kelp to come into view. As we pulled up to our first kelp and lines went into the water the yellowtail rushed the boat and and ate our baits. After repeating that several times we got what we needed for the trip. What a way to end the trip! Everyone is breaking down their gear and the crew is ready to clean the boat as we are now headed for San Diego. Gunny and the Supreme Team!

Where'd they go?? We got a few wahoo today, but nothing like yesterday. Our day consisted of scratching away at yellowfin, yellowtail, pargo, dorado, and wahoo on some different spots. Don't get me wrong. It was not a bad day fishing, just not like yesterday. Our weather is still good. Actually it's too hot, the water is 83 degrees. Not bad for the fish, but warm for us. Tomorrow we will be off shore kelping for wahoo, dorado and tuna until it's time to head home and wind up this fantastic trip. It's going to be a great fall season. Thanks for checking in. Tommy and crew