Polaris Supreme owner-skipper Tom Rothery recently offered his clients a summation of the past summer season's fishing:

"Fishing this last season went as follows. June was definitely the month for Yellowtail with some good hits on Bluefin being taken if the weather permitted. We had good-looking conditions. The water structure was such that there were no hard two to three-degree water temp breaks from Benitos to San Diego to slow the fish down.

"By July all the species were piled up 60-90 miles outside San Diego and it really made it tough with all the seiners and day boats piled up through the zone. The lower islands produced very well all year, with very good quality fish being taken on various types of methods, the favorite of course being the surface iron. The albacore season unfortunately was short lived. They weren't around as long as we all would hope and often enough. When they were around, they pulled the all too famous show and no go.

"Guadalupe showed great signs of tuna early this year but it wasn't until August when it finally kicked off with some great trips. There were a few trips when tuna didn't cooperate, but the Yellowtail islands produced so well we were able to make good trips.

"The first two long trips in September showed great signs of tuna, though it showed great signs of sharks as well and most of the tuna we did hook, which was a lot, went to feeding the grinners. The Ridge was stacked up with Yellows, Dorado, Pargo, and Grouper. The Wahoo were scant. We only caught 20 or so per trip. Our 5 and 6 days late September were good for tuna at Guadalupe and plenty of yellow action inside.

"October was good, with the Wahoo finally showing up. Drew had close to 100 last trip, with the same good variety of Yellows, Dorado and 15 to 25 pound tuna on the Ridge. Alijos has been dead. We are on our October 28, 10 day trip as I am writing this and hear good reports of good Dorado, Wahoo, Yellowtail, and the smaller tuna on the Ridge. Now what we are waiting for is some kind of action on that big tuna we saw off Mag Bay last year."