aruba Fishing Report 2024

We left on a 1.5 trip yesterday and headed south, at daybreak the jigs went in and it didn’t take long to hear the sound of “HOOKUP” from there on we would stop on plenty schools of yellowfin tuna, yellowtail and Mahi Mahi . it was a fun day.

Today we started our Thorne family four day trip. Most of the fishing seems to be slightly out of our reach today. However we were able to pull on some fish. Mostly Skip Jack and small Yellowtail. Not necessarily the targeted species but great fun for the kids as well as a good starter for the adults.Nothing is better practice for following your lines than a school of wild Skipjack! Here we have Kingston and Justine with the perfect starter fish to get the skunk off and release back into the ocean. Now we are ready for tomorrow. Targeting Yellowfin Tuna and Dorado .

Aug. 8
    I  was told second hand today that my reports make it sound like fishing was less good than it actually was and I have to say that I totaly agree.  I have sat at home in the past and reminessed by reading some of my past reports and have thought to myself how much better that perticular day actually was than I was reading so I will try and be more accurate with my reports starting with today.  As I write this we have just departed from a 2+ hour drift on the bigguns so I'm still pumped.  Take a journey with me.

    We started off our morning drifting in flat calm conditions which it remained for the rest of the day.  We fired up after daylight and didn't find much to work with for a few hours but mid morning we started stringing some stops together on the yellowfin tunas for a couple of hours before they went down for pretty much the rest of the day minus a couple stops mid afternoon.  In between that after lunch we bumped into a couple big balls of dorado.  That's something we haven't seen yet this year.  They were a bit on the smaller size for the most part but they were still fun to watch and catch.  Most of them were the size that's to big to bounce over the rail without a gaff but small enough to make it very difficult to gaff so we lost our fair share.  Mostly guys grabbing the line trying to swing it over on there own.

    After around 4 oclock we were getting low on bait and decided to use the remainder of it trying to catch bluefin tuna.  Things were looking grim for us after a couple hours driving around in the zone without seeing much but around 6:30 things got nasty.  My sonar made that beautiful sound the says fish fish fish with every pulse and then it was drifting for a few hours and hooking for 2.  I'm not sure how many of the 60-90 pound maybe a few over 100 pound beasts we hooked but I can tell you we landed 13 of them and when you land that many you usually lose that many too. I watched one gentleman get spooled instantly on 50 pound test.  Instantly.  I watched that same angler later land one on 60 pound test. Everyone on board had their chance at a biggun this evening and half the boat did get one.  

    We're headed for the dock now and we'll be there tomorrow around the 0700 hour.  We'll have a busy little turn around but we'll get the job done.  We always do.  See you later from the wheel house of the Polaris Supreme.
                                

 

Oct. 7

Hello out there in the internet world of the Polaris Supreme. It's been a while since I have been able to write to you all. This is because down there in the lower lower latitudes our satellite service isn't available therefor I am unable to send out any emails. So this will be a trip wrap up of our time spent down below...

First of all we had a great trip. Of our 5 1/2 days down here we landed 50+ tuna over 100 pounds. 15 of those went over 200 pounds and 1 of those will most likely go over 300 pounds. It taped off at 297. A real beaut. We also released at least 17 tuna over 100 pounds and threw in 50+ wahoo as hole fillers. That's not a bad fish count for 20 anglers. We had 8 anglers. Fantastic.

We got a little nervous when we first arrived down there at 4:00 a.m. of the 2nd. We stopped the boat first on some flying fish to try for some of them to put on the kite and during the drift we could see many sharks swimming around and chasing the flyers. We got the anchor down around 5 and it wasn't getting better. A big shark problem is what we had on our hands. They were making it unfishable. We had a 1 hour window that morning when the tuna were more aggressive then the sharks and managed a handful of big tunas with the Jer-Bear getting one over 200 pounds but it was short lived. The tuna backed off and the sharks took over again. We had enough and tried pulling the anchor but it got stuck and we lost everything. Damn. While we were putting one of our spair sets on we trolled it up for wahoo but we couldn't get past the 50-80 pound tunas to get to the wahoo. On most trips that would be good but on this trip we release those babies. After doing that for a while we got the anchor back down and things never really got rolling. We had a shark problem. Like I said we, were a little nervous after the first day.

Day number 2 didn't start off any better. We had a shark problem. Every bait we put out hooked a grinner. We didn't give it too long before we got to trolling again and this is what we found out. The cows were biting the marauders. We were trolling them up! ? That was a first for me. We were getting fish from small ones we would release to fish up to 215! You never know with fishing. It's a crazy game. So we had it all figured out. For the rest of the day this is what we did. We would troll around with our marauders and our yummy flyers on the kite and catch tuna and wahoo. The 4 remaining anglers not trolling were getting them fishing sardines on the slide. We stayed very busy. 15 fish over 100 that day with 2 of those over 200. The weather picked up that day and would stay windy for the remainder of our time here.

Day 3 was more of the same except the sharks disappeared and we were getting more tired. The fish were getting harder to pull over the rail. We also lost our Matt to an injured knee. We're not sure how it happened. To much of banging it on the rail scooping flyers and he may of hit it on a tuna some how but however it went down he was done. He could barely move about the boat let alone gaff a 200 pounder. Also our fearless leader, and I mean that, hurt his back prier to the trip and has had a hurt wrist for some time now was of little help gaffing 200 pounders as well so we were down to 3 of us and a "Gringo". That's our galley assistant. That's right Gringo fans, he's been back for some time now. Any hoo around 5:00 p.m. things started to really liven up with tuna flying out of the water everywhere so we threw the anchor over and had pretty much wide open fishing on the bigguns till about 7:30. We landed 12 over 100, most of those closer to 200 with 4 of them over that mark. Nice.

Day 4 was different. The tuna stopped biting on the troll and things got back to the way we're used to. Anchor fishing and we did well. The fish started biting at 1:00 p.m. for a little while then things slowed down until around 5:30 when things went ballistic similar to the night prior. 11 fish over 100 with 4 of those over 200 and George getting his personal best which went 297. We're hoping it goes over 3 at the dock. We'll see. When I'm giving these fish counts keep in mind we are releasing many fish if they aren't in the 200 pound range.

Day 5 was pretty much spent on anchor. We had a late night with Brian being stuck on a big one for hours. We didn't get to bed until 11:00 p.m. so when the crew woke up at 4:00 a.m. nobody was awake except Charlie. Here's why. He had a 186 pounder completely wreck him. I mean he got his but kicked like I've never seen him get his but kicked before. This happened the day before so he went to bed early that night and was up with us bright and early. Anyways he had a 207 landed before anyone else was even up besides the crew. He hooked another one shortly after that too but after a long battle the fish one and lived to fight another day. We had more action throughout the day but there were many lulls in between the action but it was a slower day for sure. Not a slow day though. We had 7 over 100 with 3 of those going over 200 pounds. Tommy had been keeping an eye on the storm that's been brewing the whole time we were down there and decided on this night to start heading north to keep us all safe. The storm became a tropical storm and was still getting stronger and closer so we had to take off leaving 1 day to fish somewhere north.

Here are some firsts for me and most others on this boat that happened while we were down there: I have never seen a shark problem that bad and then seeing them disappear like they did. One hour it was not fishable and that afternoon they were pretty much all gone,. I have never seen a 200 pounder let alone so many 200 pounders and just big tuna in general bite the trolled marauders like they did for a few days down here. I have never seen a 186 pounder jump completely out of the water right next to the boat after being on the line for 5 minutes or any amount of time for that matter. The fish must have thought it was a dorado. I have never seen Charlie not at the rail 100% percent of the time the fish were biting and it's because of A. he's reached the age of 60 but mostly B. I have never seen fish fight as hard as they fought on this trip. I mean they were brutal. Mean mean fish. I have seen 350+ pounders come in much easier then the 160+ pounders we were hooking. We lost a lot of big fish on this trip. We think about 50% of the big ones we hooked we lost. Not because of angler error but because these were just mean mean fish.

Here are some of the pricey things that happened during the trip. We lost one set of anchor gear, we lost 2 big giant 12 volt batteries, our refrigerator broke down , we lost and broke 3 gaffs, fuel prices are nasty, but the look on Matts face when I offered him a sponge bath because he couldn't stand up in the shower was priceless. Oh Mathew. He's doing a little better then before. The swelling went down a little and there is a little less pain then he had before but the poor guy has got to be just borred out of his mind and just bummed he missed out on some great big mean tuna fishing.

We will keep you filled on the ride home .

Hello everyone, Today we are supremely sore from pulling on fish. The morning was spent catching a handful of Wahoo, some Grouper, and a bunch of Yellowfin Tuna. When the afternoon rolled around we went looking for Dorado, and found them. It was a excellent grade, and everyone caught as much as they wanted. Very good fishing. We will be targeting Wahoo and Grouper tomorrow. Wish us Luck, Team Supreme

Fishing report for the week of sept 16-22. This past week was all about looking thru the binoculars and praying that you find the lucky kelp. Scores for the 3/4 day boats this week have ranged anywhere from 0 to 150 fish. The highlight of our week was a kelp we found on Thursday which kicked out 44 nice size dorado and 100 yellowtail. On Friday we caught our first yellowfin tuna of the season. This season is showing no signs of slowing down so make those reservations and come on down.

38 Yellowfin, 117 Yellowtail, 4 Dorado and 18 Skipjack. A fine November day.

The Adrenalin rush of a “trip saving” stop in the final minutes is something that will never get old. 82 yellowfin tuna, 2 bluefin tuna, 11 skipjack. The Locals Summer is in full swing.