townsville Fishing Report 2025

123 yellowfin tuna 3 bluefin tuna. Words can’t describe how lucky we are to call the 32 block home. Mother Nature continues to impress.

Many of you know Captain Ray Montera who has been involved in sportfishing most of his life. In March, his 32 year old Chris son was severely injured in a C4 blast in Afghanistan. We are holding a fundraiser on October 8th at the Bali Hai on Shelter Island. He is one of our own and we are rallying to support him.

As an Army soldier, Chris Montera was often taken aback when people would thank him for doing the job he loved. On a fateful day in March, he came to face the sacrifice. He was on a dismounted mission and was hit with explosion of C4, which literally blasted and propelled him into a grape field. He suffered major issues with blast lung and severe burns over much of his body. For 9 days he was on ECMO (lung bypass) until he was stable enough to be transported to BAMC in San Antonio for the treatment of his shrapnel wounds and third degree burns. On April 2 a fungal infection set into the wounds on his lower extremities and Chris underwent bilateral AK amputation of his legs. He was further diagnosed with an incomplete spinal cord injury in the thoracic area of the spine at VA Polytrauma Center in Palo Alto.

Through all of this, Chris remains focused and committed to rehabilitation. It is estimated that he will remain in Palo Alto for 3-6 months while he works to regain his upper body strength, which will be necessary for the next stages of rehab in the C5 program at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego where he will be fitted with prosthetic legs and with determination will learn to walk again. There is no doubt in our minds that Chris will recover to live an independent life. The goal of this fundraiser is to be able to assist Chris with expenses he will no doubt encounter on his journey to independence.

The event will be held at the Bali Hai Restaurant on Shelter Island On October 8th from 6:00-10:00 pm. There will be food stations serving food from many San Diego restaurants along with a no host bar. A raffle, live, and silent auction will take place during the event along with live entertainment by Mango Bay and World Famous Jim Gibson. The outpouring of support of raffle and auction donations from the sportfishing community, tackle, fishing supply manufacturers, and local businesses has been phenomenal. The evening will be great fun for all and will serve to help a young man who put it all on the line.

There are several ways you can help:
First and most important is attend the event.

Tickets are $50 in advance or $450 for a block of 10

Advance ticket purchases will include 3 raffle tickets and assorted swag

Cannot attend but would like to help, make a cash donation in any amount.

Donate an item for the raffle or auction. Anything from fishing items, art, gift certificates, clothing...anything is greatly appreciated.


We look forward to having you at the event. The sport fishing community has come together to take care of a wounded warrior of their own, and it promises to be a fun filled evening for all.

To purchase tickets for Island Nights at the Bali Hai, please visit our website at http://christophermonterasupport.com/island-nights-at-the-bali-hai

To donate items for our raffle/auction please visit our website and complete the donor form http://christophermonterasupport.com/sponsors-anddonors-supporters/donor-form

Monday, September 10th, 2012

Hi friends. Just a real dandy of a day for us today. We started it out in the morning with the yellowtail snap and then we followed it up in the afternoon with Monday night footballs. The footballs were all you wanted and we also added a small handful of dorado to our days count. We did all of this in flat calm conditions and the boys are all wore out from the excellent fishing that we had today. Everybody's pumped and I screamed myself hoarse today.

For tomorrow, we're looking for tuna with a little more size as one of our code boats had a nice afternoon on those premium grade offshore yellowfin tuna so we'll be in the area looking around for a few ourselves. The boys enjoyed a twenty-two year old Cabernet sauvigon tonight and I think Robin and Wayne might have shed a tear together while talking about it. I still haven't had any but the dudes looked pretty glossy-eyed so I imagine it was pretty darn good.

Anyhow, the Blue/White gang is having a super duper fantastic time catching fish, drinking cocktails/wine, and eating Chef Shawn's culinary creations. Our weather forecast is looking good for tomorrow so hopefully we can get on a big ole' school of big yellowfin. Wish us luck.

The Apollo scored limits of nice grade Rockfish today at San Miguel Island. The Apollo will be running OPEN PARTY Overnight trips every Saturday night. Give them a call and fish the Outter Channel Islands fishing for White Seabass in the morning and Rockfish in the afternoon.

The season's fourth 300-pound tuna arrived November 29 aboard Polaris Supreme with owner-skipper Tom Rothery at the helm as the 90-footer docked at Fisherman's Landing. The trip was 13 days for the boat and ten for the anglers who flew home from Cabo, and was sponsored by Rothery's partner Tom Pfleger, who heads PIER (Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research). A small group of 14 anglers including Pfleger was aboard.

Captain Matt and the boys burning the midnight oil for twenty 35-50 lb bluefin and 1 yellowfin. Put the J hooks away and exchange them for circles when Mr. Bluefin is around.

Tony “Big Delicious” LaDell with 4 of the 50 yellowfin we landed today. We also had 101 skipjack. Still plenty of fish around, all it takes is one stop.

~~Nov. 16
 I told myself yesterday that if we caught 30 wahoo today it would be worth the move.  We caught 31.  Scoooore!
 
 It was good in the morning.  By 10:00 we were moving right along on pace to have one heck of a day.  Then things went slow.  We were able to scratch just enough, and with the expectancy of an evening hit, we still were feeling good.  That hit never happened.  One here and two there was the rest of our day.  But like I said, I'm very pleased with what we caught.  It was definitely worth the ride.  It helps that every wahoo we caught this trip is a toad.  40-50+ pounds baby.

 We're headed up now.  We'll have to be making headway toward home for the rest of the trip.  We only have a couple of days left.  We're going to give it a shot and finding a dorado kelp in the morning.  The 3 boats that tried it prior to us struck out so we'll have a back up plan.  Our plan B is to fish yellows at an island tomorrow afternoon.  See you tomorrow.