western sierra Fishing Report 2024

Great times catching Bluefin, Yellowfin and Yellowtail over the last two days on our Okuma/ Soft Steel sponsored 2 day trip.

Capt. Mike Pritchard called from the Tribute with this update. "Just outstanding fishing on those Yellowtail. We are done, full boat limits for our 31 passengers. Very, very good kelp fishing here. Now we'll go looking for some Tuna, hopefully we'll find some.

"If you'd like to go fishing on the Tribute call Seaforth Sportfishing at 619-224-3383.

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Good evening. With all of the life around the boat last night, we never managed to hook a fish this morning so we made a move and relocated the good sign of fish from yesterday. All in all, it was a very slow day up until the afternoon time when we got on a big breezer of smaller fish and had a nice little flurry on that smaller grade of fish. They really responded well, boiling within ten feet of the transom but for whatever reason we only managed to hook and land a handful. That was pretty much our hot action of the day. We saw a couple good spots of fish today but the Bluefin were Bluefin and it was a struggle to get a bite. There's potential for some decent hits in this area but for now, it's only for a couple of lucky boats and today, we were not a lucky boat. Sometimes, that's just how the cards fall.

With a beautiful load of Yellowtail in the fish holds and an annoying load of kelp flies everywhere else, we put a bow on the 2011 Paul Hess five day trip. Our utmost gratitude goes out to Paul for once again putting together a stellar group of folks and continuing to bring them back year after year. No matter what type of economic situation or what type of fish we catch, this group has a great attitude and they come out here to have a good time. Also, thank you to Sandra and Dave Lafferty for bringing some delicious food, especially the Cherry cobbler. We'll see y'all next year. Go Giants...not.

So there you have it. We're enjoying a fine ride as we motor back to port and we're shooting for a 0730 ETA tomorrow morning. We'll be coming back out with the Costello gang for five days of fun with Captain Drew Henderson at the helm. We'll check back with you tomorrow and have a good weekend.

-Team Supreme-

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Hi friends. We finally made it to the hot Bluefin grounds in the afternoon and as soon as we arrived, the bite shut off. We saw good life and a few schools but we never saw the whites of their eyes. There is potential to scratch out a day here as the few boats that were in the area all day had a few fish to show for their efforts. Based on that, we rigged up and tossed out the sea anchor and will be drifting offshore all night. There is a ton of life around us right now with squid, sauries, and birds all around so hopefully with all of this life, we'll wake up and pick away at some shortfin's. Wish us luck.

-Richie and Team Supreme-

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

Good evening friends. Yellowtail fishing aboard the Polaris Supreme was outstanding today. From right after breakfast until the late afternoon, we were pulling on 'tails in the 14-20 lb. class. Massive breezers, meter marks, and color spots were repeatedly located and we enjoyed steady catching all day long in beautiful weather. We had a very entertaining day and the evening time found us on the hunt for "premiums" which we managed to boat one right around 35 lbs. Hot rigs today was 30 lb. test, fly-lining a sardine with a J-hook tied on. No fluorocarbon, no designer circle hooks. A Yellowtail's mouth is like sandpaper, so there is no reason to waste the money on more abrasion resistant/expensive line and a hook that is designed to be set in the corner of the mouth so you don't get chewed off by a fish with teeth. With the exception of cow tuna fishing, we see more fish lost on circle hooks than landed. Granted every type of tackle worked today but time after time, we see just a simple 30 lb. rig filled with mono and tied up with a J-hook catching more fish than a rig with fluorocarbon and designer circle hooks. For Yellowtail fishing, it's an unnecessary expense when a so called "cheap rig" will get the job done just as good. Hey, when you step foot on the Supreme, you can fish with whatever type of tackle you wish. But take it from the people who are out here everyday, when it comes to Yellowtail fishing, keep it simple. Outfit yourself with mono and a J-hook and save that money that you would've spent on the fluoro/designer hooks because you're going to need to put it towards your fish processing bill. Get what I'm saying?

So that is all. The gang has had their fill on Yellowtail so the decision was made to venture offshore to focus on tuna fishing for the remainder of the trip. A couple of our community boats had an OK day on the Bluefin grounds so we're looking forward to seeing if we can't track down a few schools and add to our beautiful catch of Yellowtail before trips end. Our weather is a little bumpy but everyone is too tired to notice, they're out and so are we. Wish us luck and we'll chat with you tomorrow.

Happy Hump Day,

-Team Supreme-

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Hello friends. We began the hunt for Bluefin tuna early this morning by shutting down in the gray light on a school of tuna and just as soon as everyone woke up to begin fishing, they vanished. So we followed suit and the hunt for greener pastures commenced. It took us a little while to get a school located but when we got it located, it was a good one. We immediately saw fish boiling up good all around the boat and we hooked a few right off the bat. We landed a handful and we lost a handful but what we did land were a beautiful grade of Bluefin in the 25-35 lb. range. With the massive surface show 360 degrees around the boat we decided to get the kite out. Multiple fish attacked the baits but missed the hooks and after that, all we could do was watch them boil within ten feet of the baits and turn their nose away from our double sardine rigs. We watched the show for a couple of hours before they bailed and it was a slow day from that point on. We did pull a couple of nice Yellowtail from a kelp paddy and we even trolled up a smaller grade Bluefin tuna later in the day. Not too shabby considering a lot of boats in the prior weeks have been calling in zero's for fish counts, so we're very happy with what we caught and we'll be back on the tuna grounds after we do some Yellowtail fishing. A couple of boats in our long range community had a pretty steady day on smaller grade Bluefin in another area so we'll keep our ears open to that developing situation. Like I said, we're going to go do some Yellowtail fishing as the bite has been hot and we're looking forward to finding out for ourselves just how hot the bite is.

So that's it. Our weather is fair and we're in excellent company with Paul Hess and his good friends. We'll be in the zone first thing tomorrow morning and we'll report back to you tomorrow. Take care now.

-Richie and Team Supreme-

P.S. Te amo, Anna. From: Mark.

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Hello friends. We're back in business as we departed on our annual Paul Hess five day trip this morning. Paul has been putting together a great group of anglers for the better part of a decade on the Supreme and we're happy to see all the familiar faces that he's brought aboard this year. Our bait loading went smoothly and we've been traveling in calm weather ever since leaving the harbor around lunch time. With boats spread out in different areas along the coast and offshore, we're taking our time in deciding what our game plan is. Part one of our journey will be on the hunt for Bluefin tuna tomorrow morning as one of our companions in the long range fleet saw good sign and had an OK day on the shortfins today. We'll begin looking around in the morning and we'll see if we can't boat a couple of tuna fish tomorrow before we worry about part two. Wish us luck and we'll report back to you tomorrow.

Happy Monday,

-Richie and Team Supreme-

Good morning everyone, We got a great early start on our Simpatico five day trip. Our intentions were to have an opportunity to catch some of these larger local Bluefin Tuna. However the action slowed and it did not pencil out as we hoped. There is some pretty bad weather rolling up today and is supposed to be here tomorrow. We are probably going to try some inshore fishing somewhere tomorrow to stay clear of the weather and pull on some fish at the same time. Wish us luck, Team Supreme

59 bluefin 37 yellowfin. Quite a few bites on the 30-40lb flylined baits today. Sinker rigs, colt snipers and flat falls still getting plenty of action.

~~Sep. 13
 And we're off again.  This time for 8 days.  We got a pretty good jump at things today.  We cleared the point at lunch time which keeps our options open on where we can fish tomorrow and the next day.  I'm still not sure where we'll be tomorrow.  I may not be sure until I wake up in the morning and look at the hurricane coming up from below the cape.  As it's forecasted now, it's definitely going to effect our decisions on where we'll fish this trip and when.  But don't worry at home, we'll keep a safe distance from the dangerous winds at all times.  Find out tomorrow where I decided to start fishing.
        
 

May Luna-Sea Bendo at the Ranch Afire with neon blue, the marlin shimmied and snaked its way into the wake and the spread, coming in dead off the starboard side. Everyone saw it at once and made noisy note. "He's gonna eat it!" hollered Ben, holding the rod with the drop back bait, a small jack. It was already 30 feet back. "He's eatin' it, he's eatin' it!" Ben swung on the fish, winding on the little silver reel, and the black rod bent hard. The marlin headed off right into the sun, back the way he'd come into the spread of trolled baits and lures. Things got interesting in a hurry, with three men trying to use cameras, two men trying to get the rest of the trolled rigging out of the way before the fish fouled itself, and Ben, who was braced with one leg up on the rail, alternately pulling and winding on the fish. It was a big cockpit, but at the moment there were traffic jams on both sides of the unused fighting chair. The marlin had disappeared off up past the deckhouse, but the skipper and John Ireland were shouting on the bridge that it had jumped. When we got the invitation from Jack Nilsen of Accurate to join him at John Ireland's Rancho Leonero to do a product shoot, Paul Sweeney and I packed our cameras and our bags. We traveled light, with little fishing equipment, since I knew Jack would have plenty of reels. I brought a couple of my new Super Seeker rods and a bag of jigs and Mustad hooks for light tackle fishing May 20 to 22. We taxied from Los Cabos airport, arriving at the beginning of a sweet tropical Sea of Cortez evening to enjoy three days of first-class style angling aboard Ireland's 50-foot Mikelson sportfisher Luna-Sea. Rejoicing in the warm, light sea breeze, we saw the Ranch was lovely as ever, with improvements since our last visit a year ago. Ireland has renovated much, notably the bar/dining room, which has been opened up to be even more spacious and airy. For the first time, a wide-screen TV hangs on the wall at the far end of the bar, showing off a high-def satellite picture for those who want to keep up with things like the NBA conference finals. Bartender Jorge and the rest of the staff were still there, so the place felt as homey as ever. A hurricane last year took out a couple of the wall-mounted fish hanging in the dining room, and I noticed the old lion skin was gone. But there was a new covering for part of the dining patio outside, and all the beds had been replaced with fancy new big pillow-top models, making for comfortable, healthy sleeping in the air-conditioned rooms and stone walled thatched bungalows. There are several resorts at East Cape, and each has its own flavor and style, but I keep coming back to the Ranch because the place is smaller and more relaxed than most (Ireland calls it intimate), and it's set away from the rest of the resorts, up on a small headland that gets sea breeze from two sides. If you've got shade, the breeze keeps you cool at the Ranch, and the view flat out cannot be beat. Food is good, and varied daily here. Wells tap plenty of cool, clean water, enough to keep the grounds so green the resort looks like a little paradise, where mountains and Baja desert meet miles of white beach and the deep blue waters of the Cortez. Fishing begins about ten yards from the beach, and you seldom have to ride more than a very few miles before you can find something biting, like marlin, tuna, sailfish, dorado, snapper, roosterfish or two dozen other sporting species. Jack Nilsen and Ben Secrest, Accurate vice president of sales and marketing, wanted Paul Sweeney and I to get video and stills of some new gear. They had three spinning reels: named 30, 20 and 12, and two-speed Boss conventional reels with them, from the tiny 197 up to the 665 series. They also had a new line of Accurate rods to match the reels, made from light, slender but strong high-modulus graphite. Accurate makes two-speed, (with and without the pre-set drag mechanism) twin-drag reels all the way up to the 130 International size, but for this event the gear was small, light and easy to handle. Small doesn't mean little in terms of line strength, however. Most of the reels were loaded with 50 to 80-pound Spectra, with a short topshot of mono or fluorocarbon, a leader that could be easily changed to match the targeted species. Our first morning of fishing was spent catching snapper and cabrilla, which were plentiful just a quarter mile from the portable loading pier where anglers board their pangas and cruisers each day around seven a.m. Several types of snappers are available here, and some get so large they can be a serious challenge on heavy tackle. Snapper are about the only game fish I've caught that are even better at getting into the rocks as yellowtail. On this morning I got a couple on my new 665 F Super Seeker with an 870 N two-speed Accurate and two with the light version of Jack's new spinning outfit. Fish were thick on this rockpile. We found plenty of Pargo Amarillo, or yellowtail snapper of two to six pounds. They bit best on 20 to 30-pound mono and a 1/0 hook. I like to use a ringed Mustad circle hook for this type of fishing, and with a larger bait, I'd size up the hook. The local guides make their own ringed hooks by tying a loop or perfection knot, which gives the bait a similar mobility. Pargo and their cabrilla buddies bit well on sardinas. These baitfish look very much like western herring or eastern pilchard, with a single dark spot aft center of the gill plate like the row of spots that run down the sides of sardines. The guides suggest stunning the bait, to make it easier for the snappers to run down. I tried baits both ways, stunned and not stunned, and found the guides knew what they were talking about, though I also caught a couple of snapper on speedy, unimpeded baits. After we were done with the snapper and cabrilla we moved southward, and Ben and Jack made some deep drops in 200 to 300 feet with knife jigs, which produced whitefish and a bright orange-red popeye catalufa. It could have been a glasseye, but I can't tell the difference. They had outfits set up for the purpose. We tried slow-trolling mullet for roosterfish next, off the lighthouse at Punta Area. We got one looker but no takers. Two anglers in a skiff showed us a 30-pound yellowfin they said they had caught right there, but we saw no tuna sign. This is a great place to find jack crevalle, but on our days here those fish didn't show. Many shore anglers love this place for its proximity to deep water. A determined beach fisherman might manage to hook a marlin or a tuna here because of the drop-off and the currents circulating up to the sandy spit. We spent the rest of our time fishing for marlin, so we could document the use of the new light Accurate gear on larger, more powerful fish. That first afternoon, we drew a blank. The next day, we could sense a change coming, as the breeze picked up a bit earlier, from the east-southeast. It died and then went to the south. We trolled live mullet, rigged dead ballyhoo, and skirted jigs. During the afternoon, we raised two marlin. Both came into the spread, but refused. Just shopping. On our last day there was a big change. The breeze came up shortly after dawn, and reached 15 or 20 knots, out of the south. The palms around the pool pointed their fronds downwind, and whitecaps danced over a sloshy chop. "It's going to lay down," predicted both owner John Ireland and foreman Gary Barnes-Webb. We boarded Ireland's Luna-Sea again. Not knowing what to expect, we moved off toward the waters a few miles out from the lighthouse, where we'd come close to billfish the day before. As predicted, the breeze lay down. But that didn't help the fishing. The water smoothed off, but we couldn't see a fish anywhere, not even the jumpers we'd been watching and chasing the past two days. Before lunch, the wind suddenly picked up again. Within an hour, the cobalt Cortez was capped with white as far as you could see. The chop got up to three or four feet in a jiffy. If we'd been in a panga it would have been dangerous to fish. In a small cruiser it would have been uncomfortable. On the 50-foot Luna-Sea we weren't much affected, although we sometimes lurched a bit in a head sea. I enjoyed my lunch of a dried beef burrito and a ham and cheese sandwich, with chips, an apple and a diet cola. The breezy, choppy, sloppy conditions made a marlin miracle. We started seeing tailers, jumpers, even feeders in the white-capped blue waves. It wasn't long before that first one took that dropped-back bait. Ben Secrest worked the fish over while our skipper Gaspar ran the boat to his best advantage. The new Accurate outfit Ben fished with worked just like it should, putting pressure on the striper, picking up any slack with its high-speed gear ratio, while Ben shifted to make the most of any situation. Paul kept the Sony HD camcorder winding, recording on tape while Ben was winding line, and three cameramen worked around each other on the deck as Jack shot his photos from the bridge. It was only 10 or 12 minutes before Secrest had the marlin whipped enough to get it boatside for a release. We all celebrated, and began to relax; our mission was at least partly accomplished. We kept seeing marlin tailing and we sidled up to many to show them the goods, but the wind slacked off and they seemed to lose interest accordingly. Then there was a long period, maybe an hour without a sighting. I napped in Ireland's leather-lined salon, on a long sofa-seat at the table. I awoke to shouting. Another fish had come in for a nibble, but we missed him. I went out on the after deck to see the wind had picked up again. We began to see more marlin, some jumping in the distance, a few feeding and slashing at the choppy surface, and more tailing downwind. We were about out of time, said Ireland, who needed to host at home that evening. Then we hung another fish. Secrest had it on a lighter outfit, and this one looked to be a bit bigger. It gave us little aerial show, and like the other fish, seemed to want to sidle off up toward the bow, across the wind and chop. Backing into the chop brought water splashes up over the transom, and soon Ben was soaked on his front side, but in control of the fish. A couple of turns by the skipper and Ben's hard pulling had the marlin up to the boat, where all the shooters tried to get a shot before it was released. It was over before I could get in there. Moments later we got one more bite, and LA County fireman-engineer Wayne Shimabukuro played the fish for a moment before it freed itself. We had what we needed, and it was late in the afternoon. We saw more than 40 marlin. We tried to present to at least eight of them. We had some good looks, a couple of whacks, and Ben got a brace of beaks to the boat. It was a satisfaction. The ice chest produced cold bottles of Pacifico beer and limes. We toasted our good fortune as skipper Gaspar pointed the big Mikelson downwind and north toward The Ranch. The ride flattened out and the wake wave rose nearly to the height of the transom. The shadow of the big bridge kept us in the shade as we kicked back to enjoy a smooth ride, thanks to Jack Nilsen and John Ireland, and the end of a good adventure.

July 1

We had a good day of tailing at the Cedros today. After a short look around this morning we had an anchor job where we saw a little sign of those premium cow yellows from last night. You know which ones. Those 35-40 pounders is what I'm talking about. We didn't catch a lot but you don't need too many of those to get the crowd on the boat (crew included) oohing and awing. After breakfast we made a move, got some bait and then it was game on. We had good fishing on mostly 18-22 pound yellowtail. We sure would like to see that fishing stay consistent. Those were beautiful fish.

After several hours of pulling and winding we looked for more of those cows and made some drifts for halibut. We got a handful of halibut and a couple more cow yellows before we took off from there and headed north. We're going to look for tuna tomorrow. We have a few hours of stopped fishing time and we're hoping we can do that catching tuna.

Everyones having a blast and eating like champs. Dinner tonight is seared Ahi. Lunch today was sea bass tacos. Last night we had a seafood Alfredo. That's right. Champs.