west central florida Fishing Report 2025

June 26
Good evening everyone, we're back!!!!  After 2 months of grueling boat work we are back on the water and couldn't be happier.  What's new with the crew?  Not much with most of the guys.  Jed got his captains license.  That's big news.  And I had a beautiful baby daughter in April.  That's big news too.  Mark's the same enjoyable goofball, Gunny's the same fish hunting fellow.  Schoolers still dishing out tasty meals and Gringo is back helping him out.  We also have some new crew members joining the supreme team this year.

We departed this evening on a 1 1/2 day trip.  We are pleased with  the bait we got because we lucked out and got a tank of sardine to go with a couple tanks of usable anchovy if need be.  Hopefully it will be because we run out of sardine with all the fish we catch.  The reports are fishy.  There's yellowfin and bluefin and yellowtail to catch if you find the right schools that want to bite and those are the schools we'll be looking for all day long tomorrow.  Weather reports are calling for some wind tomorrow but they downsized there forecast from this morning so hopefully it won't be too bad.  Time will tell.

Right now we're wrapping up our prime rib dinner and will be going to bed soon so we're all rested up for our big day tomorrow.  Sweet dreams and goodnight.


 

We had a good day of fishing today on the yellowfin tuna most of the fish
were 40 to 55 pounds a few standouts in the 70 and 80 pound range! We again
had heavy losses due to tackle failure and of course the great white sharks!
Our weather was excellent all day. The guys are fishing 40 pound test to 50
pound test with very small hooks mostly size 1 or 1/0. Most of the fish lost
are probably in the 70 to hundred pound range. There just on so long that
the line wears through or they get munched! Everybody had a shot at two to
as many as seven fish throughout the day but our land ratio was down around
30%. We're going to do this again tomorrow hopefully we have better luck on
the landing end of it!, All in all it was great day.
*

July 21
  Well, we started off in the hot yellowtail zone this morning.  Us and 4 of the other long range boats.  I'm not at all going to call it a bust, it just wasn't what we were hoping/expecting.  Things were a little on the slow side.  It perked up for a little while but it was short lived.  It wasn't bad.  I mean we caught almost 50 yellows there before lunch.  And they were nice ones too, let me tell you.  26 pound average is my guess without weighing a single one.  Maybe 28, OK.  But by lunch it was done, done, done.  So we got mobile.  It wasn't for a few hours before we found something worthy to shut down on.  We found a kelp and caught another 25 beautiful tails.  I mean beauts.

  

 

So we can't complain.  75 gorgeous  yellowtail today to go with flat calm, sunny weather.  I can think of many, many days out here where I would have paid plenty for a day like we had today.  We're making that move while we still can.  We'll be getting our Island on tomorrow.  Hopefully we can put some more quality yellows on board and fish our last couple days up there in tuna land.

  Getting to know your crew:  Mark didn't inherit his eating habits from his dad.  Nope.  Mr. Clark himself is out here in the flesh and I've bussed his plate twice now and I haven't seen a finished plate by a long shot.  Mark would never.  Especially now with him being hungry all day and all with the diet.  Oh, and I guess I have tendonitis in my Supinator muscle which is awesome  Stoked.

  Matt Hess?  Shame on you buddy.  I'm supposed to give you a shout out here and I don't even no what to say to you I'm so disappointed. Oh well, see you next time I guess.  And Joe Miller.  My buddy Joey.  You were the first one Jed and I asked about.  Get yourself all fixed up and we'll see you next year.  We love you and we miss you buddy.
          

After an excruciating day looking for tuna and not finding any we decide to bail out and we were rewarded late in the day with some really large dorado. Had a lot of fun pulling them in. The weather started out crappy this morning but turned nice later in the day.

Very good sign of albacore/bluefin today. There were spots up puddling and boiling around everywhere. Not too many big schools though, so it was good scratching from daylight to dark. The tuna are from 12-40 lbs. Mostly 20-30 pounders. Some of the bluefin we've seen jumping are over 100 lbs., but we haven't gotten close enough to even try. Weather couldn't be better. It's like we're fishing in the bay. We'll be at the dock tomorrow morning and departing on another 3-day. It's prime rib night and just heard 1st call so see ya!

Oct. 6

My sea anchor trick didn't work today. I had dreams of drifting beautifully on the sea anchor catching wide open yellowfin, bluefin and dorado but those were just dreams this time. We caught a handful of yellowfin and then had to pull it. The rest of the day was very slow for most the fleet. There were a few fresh kelps found today, and I mean a few but all the rest of the fish caught today were on kelps being fished all week long. Boats were waiting in line to fish them and I just can't do that. Not that there is anything wrong with it. These local guys are very very good at what they do and some of that involves keeping track of kelps for weeks at a time and that takes a great talent. We didn't have a whole lot of fish on board at 4 O'Clock but then we found the kelp of the day for us. It started off straight trout size yellows, then the skip jack started mixing in, then the yellows backed off and it went straight skipjack, then the tuna started to mix in, then the tuna overtook the skipies and it was straight tuna for a while. Not wide open but a steady pick of 3 to 4 going for a while. The day maker. And that was our day.

 

Tune in tomorrow for another exciting day aboard the Polaris Supreme.

Oct. 9

Today was mostly spent traveling. We did roll by some wahoo country at lunch time and made a couple of passes with the wahoo jigs but we had no strikes. We were expecting that though as there was already a boat there trolling it up all morning. It was something to break up the ride anyways. The weather was good for traveling so we were stoked on that. Other then that it was normal travel day stuff going on. Little nick knack projects for the crew and relaxation for the rest of the guys. The plan for the next couple of days is to travel all day tomorrow and use the remainder of our bait catching bluefin tuna on our last day which is on Friday.

In other news, I haven't posted it on here yet because I guess your not supposed to till the time is right and now the time is right. Since July my wife and I have been pregnant. Well she's been pregnant. I've just been working. Anyways today was the day we found out the species. Or gender rather. That's right, captain Drew is now captain daddy Drew. We're having a beautiful baby girl. That's right, there's three stages in a mans life and I've reached stage three. You believe in Santa Clause, you don't believe in Santa Clause, and now I am Santa Clause and I couldn't be happier about it. Drink it in people, it always goes down smooth.

Spent most of our day in search mode after spending 2 days on the beach. Late in the day the group effort was rewarded. We ended with 55 yellowfin (15-35 lbs) and 75 small yellowtail for 36 anglers. Some nice schools of bluefin were also seen in the same area. A 20,30 and 40 lb rod will be perfect.