valentine refuge lakes Fishing Report 2025

July 10

Slow day in the long range tuna grounds today. It didn't take long after day light to find what we were looking for as far as bird life and dolphin life goes and it was in the area that we fished on the way down and did well and where other boats had done well too in the past few days but this action had been in the afternoon and we were there first light. Things hadn't gotten with it yet. The fish weren't there. We couldn't wait for the afternoon due to us needing to be in San Diego tomorrow so we had to keep her rolling. We saw nothing else for 30 miles other then a few jig strikes for a bakers dozen. We bumped into some common dolphin around lunch time and we caught some tuna with them but it was short lived. The dolphin were being mean and not cooperating. We did nothing after that and called the trip at 3:00 in the afternoon.

The weather was choppy first thing, then smoothed out until around 2:00 and got choppy again. We're having your average rough ride home. It will be a good test for all the bolt holes from antennas that we took off and replaced. No water dripping in the wheel house yet. I think we're good.

We'll be getting in tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning and we'll be turning around for 5. See ya later.

Tommy Rothery docked Polaris Supreme at Fisherman's Landing October 5 following a five-day trip. "We had full speed fishing today offshore on kelp patties," read the report from the boat for October 4. "However for the most part, the yellowtail and dorado we were catching were small. So we released all but a few. We did however get some nice grade yellowfin. No big hits, but good action as we picked away at 30 lb. yellowfin. Jeff prepared a great Cajun chicken with avocado, mozzarella and fresh salsa for lunch. And as we head in tonight he is serving us steak and lobster. We will hit the dock tomorrow morning at 8:00 am. "If you are thinking of coming out fishing we still have some open spots with Larry Brown on his 10-day departing October 25th. Highly sponsored with lots of raffles and giveaways. Give Susan a call at 619-390-7890." Jackpot winner Kenny Pole of Lakeside had a dandy 45-pound tuna for first place. He said it came on a sardine, a 2/0 ringed Super Mutu hook, 50-pound Yo-Zuri line on a TLD 30 reel and a six-foot rod of unknown make. Pole said the fish fought for 45 minutes.

Not much to report today. We looked at a lot of water for not much. We found one jumbo school of tuna but it wouldn't bite. After sitting on it for over an hour watching them boil around the boat, everyone lost interest so we continued our hunt. A couple handfuls of dorado and one nice tuna later we decided to give it another chance. It's just to good to pass these beautiful grade fish up when they want to chew like yesterday.

July 2

It turned out it was a travel day today. There wasn't any fish in the water we looked at today. On the way down we went through an area in the dark loaded with fin bait so we thought we'd look at it on the way back to see if any game fish found the area but they hadn't. The weather was fantastic today and we got a lot done. All and all we had a great time this trip. Most the passengers on board had never been on a deep sea fishing trip before and they all had a blast pulling on those beautiful yellows at Cedros. Thank you Mr. Tom Pfleger for making this trip possible. We all appreciate you and all our charter heads and all our passengers for that matter.

We're leaving on a 2 day trip tomorrow morning. That trip is designed to fish a full day at 200 miles if need be. If that's where the best fishing was we could get there on a 2 day where on a 1 1/2 trip you'd be limited to within about 110 miles for a full day of fishing. The best fishing is within 100 miles of San Diego so the cool thing about tomorrows trip is we'll have time to fish a handful of hours before dark tomorrow. There is still 2 spots available so let's go fishing!

Aug 14
    As I write this, it's the morning of the 14th.  When I was awakened for my watch and day at 3:05 this morning I couldn't tell if we were running or if we were anchored up in the bay.  You can't really hear the engines from where I sleep but I couldn't tell from the ride because it was so nice going up last night.  I seriously asked Tommy as he was still up reading.
    
    The fishing slowed down for us today as fishing does from time to time.  The bluefin didn't bite as well this morning nor did the yellowfin.  There was still yellowfin to catch this morning and there were some good scores had in the afternoon away from the bluefin zone but we caught enough yellowfin yesterday and hung out in the bluefin zone for a chance at some more of those trophies in the afternoon/evening.  We still had a decent morning.  I mean we still caught 14 nice bluefin and some yellowfin, but the bf's never made it back around for the afternoon snack fest.  We had a great trip and will be off loading a nice catch tomorrow morning at 6:00 and turning right back around shortly after that for 5 days.
 
     One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the amount of these toad bluefin being caught on jigs.  More then I have ever seen ratio wise but that could also be because more people were doing it but that could be because it was working well.  The shimano butterfly jig is the jig that caught most of our jig fish. But that could be because that's what most people were using but that could be because it was working so well.  And 90+ percent of those were caught on the sink.  No retrieve necessary except to bring it up to sink back down.  They loved it.  So if I were coming out this year I would throw a couple of those in my box.
                                
    
    PS- Shimano gave me nothing to write that last paragraph.  It just worked.

 

Wednesday, April 24th, 2012

Hi friends. Starting off the day, we were expecting rain if not when we woke up but for sure around the mid-morning time. Captain Drew told me to expect work at 0700 hours this morning and that he would call me if he was going to call off the day. At about 0615 hours, my phone rang and when I saw that my phone read "Incoming call: Drew Henderson", I nearly trampled my girlfriend to reach for the phone and hear those beautiful words of "don't come to work today". Well, Drew being the awesome boss that he is just wanted to remind me that work was still on. Disappointed is an understatement. He specifically said that he would only call to let me know that we were NOT to come into work. I reluctantly suited up for work, still a little peeved that my vision of sleeping in and an all-day couch marathon was switched back to 7-11 coffee, 5-hour energies, and arthritic hands by days end.

Now some of you might be asking "Richie. Why so grumpy about going to work?" Well, after Tuesday's primer coat application, the primer creates what is called "orange peel".The entire hull looks like a giant, white orange peel and to rid ourselves of this orange peel, what must one do to smooth it out and get prepped for the final gloss coat? If you guessed "more sanding" then yes, you are correct. From 0700 until 1630 hours on Wednesday, we had to re-sand the entire boat with 220-grit sand paper to smooth everything out. Oh, how could I forget? We did all of this under beautiful, sunny skies. That weatherman is not our friend at the moment. He was wrong about the Wednesday morning/afternoon rain but he was correct about the rainfall on Wednesday evening in San Diego.

So here it is, Thursday morning and work was called off not only because of the rain but also to relieve sore, aching muscles as the constant use of both vibrating and orbital sanders took it's toll on Drew, Jed, Mark, Tommie, Jamie and myself from yesterday and we were given the day off. Thanks, Drew.

In all seriousness, there is a silver lining to all of my complaining of long days and sore bodies. All of the hard work that we put into the boat doesn't go un-noticed when we take a look at the boat right before the first trip of the season. The boat will look stunning and it will be a pleasure to keep her maintained throughout the years. When we have to put on our sunglasses to even stare at the hull and when you see your reflection perfectly in the boat, it's sweet justice to put so much time and effort into a project and to have it come out looking so beautiful. We can't wait to see how everyone will react when they first lay eyes on the new and improved Polaris Supreme.

Anyhow, I had some time to type out a nice, long report on our day off today. Weather permitting, we'll be back at it tomorrow to finish some touch-up sanding as we get ready for the final application of the gloss coat which probably will be scheduled for either Friday or Monday. We'll chat with you tomorrow and let you know how our day went.

-Richie & Team Supreme-

P.S. Sorry about no pictures lately. There really hasn't been anything picture-worthy in the past couple of days and the pictures I would've shot, you've seen before: all of us with sanders in our hands, gloves on, respirator masks, safety glasses and looking like giant powdered donuts. I'll send some shots with the completion of the gloss coat.

We got a little bit of something throughout the whole day. Everywhere we went we got yellowtail, but no real bug hits. Our morning bite had great quality but not as many as yesterday. Our weather is still good because of the island. Tomorrow we will be in open water on patties looking for dorado, tuna and yellowtail. Great fresh yellowtail and shrimp scampi for dinner. Check in tomorrow for our report. Thanks, Tommy and crew

Capt Mike Pritchard from the Tribute gave us an on the water update for this morning, they are off to a great start. So far they have 12 Yellowtail from 12 to 18 pounds and 2 Bluefin Tuna around the 40 pound each and this before 7am. We ended yesterday in this area with some good fishing, hopefully today will be more of the same we have high hopes. We will check back in later.