tauranga Fishing Report 2024

Polaris Supreme Trip Up Date 11-17-2013

Another productive day of scratch fishing here aboard the Polaris Supreme, off of the Baja Mexico coast. A bit more variety than days past, even to the point of stumping the marine biologist passengers aboard in identifying a bottom dwelling creature or two that were incidental catches. Anything that comes aboard that stumps the boat is typically referred to generically as a "snarf" of some type. Seems as though there's always something new to discover on these trips.

Our weather continues to behave, and we're loving that. I don't believe that we've had 10 knots of wind at any point over the past eight days. We couldn't ask for better weather. The sea temperature is dropping slightly as we head into the more northerly latitudes, though. We were up bright and early this morning, before daybreak, and watched as the moon set in the distance, glimmering off of the calm ocean. It looked like a French impressionist painting, except that we were experiencing it, and it was all around us, rather than someone else's rendition hanging on a museum's wall.

Crewmember Mark modeled his hardhat briefly this afternoon. I think it's in anticipation of his getting ready to do something really stupid, and being sentenced by the rest of the crew to wearing it for an extended period of time. Think of it as the Polaris Supreme's version of a dunce cap. Kristin, I apologize for spelling your name incorrectly yesterday. Happy anniversary AGAIN to both you and Captain Drew.

Dinner tonight is fresh wahoo, with some rice and green beans, I believe. I only eat the dinners to get my hands on the incredible desserts that they've been serving. Not really ... I only eat the desserts to make Captain Tommy feel less guilty for his indulgences.

With the weather forecast looking good and a favorable moon phase. We have decided to switch back to offshore fishing. These trips will be limited to 44 pass and do not require passports. Come prepared with a 25 lb bait rod, a 40 or 50 lb bait rod and a 60 or 80 lb rod to fish a flat fall.

TIP FROM THE CREW : Flatfalls get bit better on smaller spools, use the smallest reel you feel comfortable with. A Talica 10 or 12 2 speed or something similar is perfect. We will fish offshore until we feel there is a better option.

Aug 12
    Today was awesome.  We woke up drifting catching fish and that's about what we did until dark.  I'm not kidding you.  We moved the boat just a handful of times but never for more then 10 minutes.  It was drifting with always at least one on the hook.  In the morning until after lunch it was mostly bluefin in the 30-45 pound range with the occasional 60-80 pounder.  I have to tell you that that's a much more manageable grade.  It's a much better fish to start off on than those 60-80 pounders.  Don't get me wrong, you know I love catching those beauts but they make a much better cherry than ice cream if you know what I mean.  We had that kind of day where if we catch them tomorrow it will be the cherry on top.  The rest of the day we got into yellowfin tuna mode and it was game on for those fish.  Tommy decided to save our sardine on board it being they were feeding on the anchovy that went over the side so that's what we used.  Chovy baby.  I can't ever remember fishing anchovy for tuna on this boat.  I have to go back to my mission bay days to remember that but I didn't forget how to do it.  I wrote this in the beginning of the season and I'll write about it again.  If you're coming on a future trip, please remember to bring the lost art of anchovy fishing skills.  A big part of that is an anchovy rod and reel.  Something light that's meant for 20-25 pound test with a nice free spool to help you toss those anchovies away from the boat.  I hate to say it but if that means you need to bring your coffee grinder so be it.  
    The weather is still good!  Man I hope this can hold up for at least my buds on the upcoming Heil 5 day trip leaving the day after tomorrow.  We're staying put right here for our last day fishing tomorrow.  We're hoping we can get more of the 60-80 pounders tomorrow but we will be stoked with the 30-45's as well.
                                    

~~Oct. 12
 Here's what went down today.  Breakfast, then American Hustle(movie), then a whole lot of tuna leader making, then the Charger game.  Listen to this.  Our goofball crew member Mark Clark, well he claims to be a Raider fan but the only time he seems to care what they do is when they play the Chargers.  Myself and the rest of the crew usually bet 20 dollars on each game. Well today couldn't have played out better.  Prior to the start of the game he assumed we were betting and to rub it in that the Raiders are no good, I claimed I didn't want to bet because I'd feel I was taking money out of his sons pocket.  He insisted  we bet so we did.  I still had it planned out to give him his money back if the Chargers blew them out as the ultimate rub in.  So if you didn't know, it was a nail biter.  Mark missed the last couple minutes of the game and everyone on board made him think that the Raiders won.  He immediately came down to the galley and just absolutely let me have it.  I don't know
 how but I managed to keep a straight enough face to still have him think the Raiders won.  Ever since then he's been on cloud 9.  I don't know how and when I'll break the news and bring his reality crashing down to a major low.  I'm sure looking forward to it though.  He thinks he's up 120 bucks but more importantly to him he gets to talk all that smack. 

 Anyways, moving on.  It's cocktail hour now and soon we will be feasting on a veal chop.  One more day.  The weather is fantastic right now.  A beautiful sunset too.

Team Supreme just got some new gear for the upcoming season. Brand new Talica 20s! Perfect for those local 100+ lb Bluefin and Guadalupe Yellowfin Tuna! 

Big thanks to our friends at Shimano reels for the great reels!

~~Aug. 26
 Whenever you end well it makes you feel like you had a good day. When you start well and end slow you get that "it wasn't a good day" feel to it. Today we started slow and finished strong. We had a good day. We looked at a lot of fish this morning but only one would bite. We had one fish well after lunch. We then found an area that for some reason the fish we found wanted to bite. We found one school that produced 18 of those 30-45 pounders and one school that bit through the sunset for 13 bluefin with one of those going 65 pounds more or less. So we ended our day with 32 beautiful bluefin tuna and we're going to do this again tomorrow for our last day.

 We developed quite the south swell today from that category 5 hurricane down below. It's amazing what some wind thousands of miles away can do to the ocean right here. It's ground swell with no wind on it so we barely feel it come under the boat but it's impressive to watch. Surf"s up.

Another slow day at the islands coupled with a great catch from our code boat Liberty has resulted in us switching our run back to offshore fishing. November is the new September, Viva El Niño