upper james river Fishing Report 2024

The Apollo had great fishing today. Limits of Red and Chucks including 24 Lingcod. Plus a nice bonus 24 pound Halibut. The weather is great, finally!

Nov. 12

Today was spent fishing our way north. We started in the dark where passenger Matty hooked the mystery fish that spooled him. We then headed north and found ourselves on the bottom end of the ridge where we got the last passenger who didn't have a wahoo a nice one. Now everyone on board has at least one skin. There was a nice school of nice yellowfin there but we couldn't get one of them to bite. Conditions were good, they just wouldn't hit. We then headed north. The next spot produced another nice wahoo but lacked anything else to go with it so we headed north. Right when the sun was going down and after it was down we hit a school of yellowfin that bit until dinner. We tried a couple more spots after dinner for nothing and are now headed north in good weather. All that northerly travel today left us some time to fish tomorrow and it will be spent trying for more wahoo and some yellowtail fishing. Yellowtail is the one species we don't have a lot of this trip so hopefully we'll use a few tags on those tomorrow.

Drew

24 yellowtail 1 bluefin. Still fish around but the changing conditions have them acting up.

Today we scoured the zone we had been seeing our tuna and today they were nowhere to be found. Hoping they show themselves again tomorrow. 16 yellowtail 3 dorado 59 bonito 1 skipjack.

Tom Rothery brought his Polaris Supreme home to Fisherman's Landing January 11 after a 16-day trip to the Hurricane Bank and the Southern Banks of Baja. There were seven anglers on the annual George Davis expedition, and they produced ten more cows for the record.

In his report from the boat on Friday January 2, Tom reported a good day of fishing.

"Yes, now this is what I'm talking about," he wrote. "We finally got a break in the weather. It is beautiful and we have left Hurricane Bank. We are now heading to the upper banks. We will be there tomorrow night. Yesterday was an ok day of fishing. George kept a 219 and released a 185. Jeremy released a 140.

"Craig kept a 205 and by the way that was a mistake yesterday. Craig kept a 210 pounder. Al kept a 100 for his buddies that are going to Ennis hunting. They are going to open pit barbeque it on a spit like a pig. Now, that sounds interesting. ‚Д®

"Charlie released a 125 and Scott released a 140. Each day we also had five to 12 fish that we caught that were under 100 pounds and were not mentioned. These all were released.

"Yesterday we also had good wahoo fishing. Jeremy and Craig both caught 4 and Gunnar and Al got 3. Everybody else had a couple a piece. Overall the trip to Hurricane Bank has been very good with eight tuna over 200 pounds, and excellent wahoo fishing."

Chartermaster George Davis of San Dimas won the jackpot while catching four cows. His tuna weighed 241.8, 219.8, 213.6 and 208 pounds. The big one came on squid on the kite, he said.

George fished with 7/0 Mustad 7691 hooks, 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Line One Spectra on a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. He said the big one came to gaff in just 20 minutes.

Allen Tokunaga of North Hollywood won second place for a 224.6-pounder.

"These Hurricane Bank fish seemed a little tougher than the ones on the inside," he remarked. "This one took me 40 minutes. He went around the boat a couple of times, and then came up on the port side of the stern."

Al fished a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook, on 130-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon leader, 100-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra. He used a Penn 50 reel modified by Cal Sheets and a Calstar 6465 XXH rod.

Scott Brown of Costa mesa won third place for his 213.2-pounder. He also got a 202.6-pounder. He fished a small jack under the kite on a 9/0 Mustad 7691 hook. He used 130-pound Momoi line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra on a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod.

"The big one was a 20-minute fish," he remarked. "He came to the boat pretty good."

One big tuna was eaten by the passengers and crew while the boat was still fishing. It was a 215-pounder caught by Craig Johnston of Costa Mesa, who also got a 204-pounder. Craig said he got them on the kite, on double sardine baits pinned to 7/0 Mustad 7691 hooks. He fished with a 130-pound Momoi topshot on 130-pound Izorline Spectra, with a Penn 70 VSW reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod.

"It took about 30 minutes," he said. "We had rough seas then; it was a fun fight."

Jeremy Chandler of San Dimas got a 203.6-pounder on a jack under the kite on a 7/0 Mustad 7691 hook and the boat's kite rig.

~~Aug 18
 So we did it again.  We had a nice day.  Arrive/depart day.  Once again, we got out here at a good time and connected on a couple of schools.  We ended our day with 81 tuna.  And they're still that good grade.  25 pound average.  So nice.  Free ones.  Departure fish.  I told everyone to bring there horse shoes and rabbits feet.  I think they did.

 The bait thing went better than expected.  It wasn't Armageddon like I thought it may be.  We used 1/2 the bait I thought would croak and the rest hasn't had any die off yet.  Now we just need our main slammer of bait to hang in there.  The only thing is we didn't get a full load of bait so we may need to catch some down the line.  At least I hope that's the only thing.  Time will tell Joe.  Time will tell.

 We're going to drift here tonight.  It literally feels like we're anchored in the bay right now.  It's so nice.  We'll start here in the morning and try to do it again.  Let's keep the ball rolling.
       

The fishing at 140 miles completely flopped this weekend sending boats in every direction. We did experience some good kelp patty fishing Saturday with 13 Dorado, 11 Bluefin, 28 Yellowtail and a lot of BIG BAD BONITO.

Sunday was spent sliding on school after school of quality Yellowfin Tuna for 20 Yellowfin, 1 Bluefin and 1 Yellowtail.

We did find a area of Big Bluefin just before dark, but they were lip locked.
Great to see this grade of Yellowfin in 1 day range and then there’s that “June Dorado”
We will be running 1 day trips all week, fishing for Tuna, Yellowtail and Dorado.

Today we went out with 13 anglers and caught 33 yellowtail and 12 rockfish. The best way to catch a yellowtail today was on a yo-yo lure. These fish are very big and mean so make sure you have fresh 40 or 50 lb. monofilament. We did manage to catch a couple of yellowtail on the surface iron but the yo-yo was by far the most consistent. The yellowtail were in the 18-30 lb. class.