tauranga taupo Fishing Report 2025

Hello everyone, Today we started fishing around 11am. Lots of Yellowtail in the area, the majority of which are very small. However we did manage to pick off some nice 18-30 lbers with some quality Grouper mixed in as well. We are camping out tonight and will try it in the morning before we start looking around. Will report again tomorrow, Team Supreme

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

Hey everybody. More of the same today. Lots of sanding and grinding as we prepare for painting next week. The five of us have worked from 0700 hours until 1600 hours for the past two days and the weekend forecast calls for more of the same. No rest for the wicked, I guess. Anyhow, I'll update you all with some photos this weekend and you can see just a glimpse of what we've been up to.

Injury of the day: Boat-work always has a high level of danger involved, especially with being twenty feet in the air, scaffolding surrounding the boat, electrical chords running wild and very dangerous equipment in our hands. It's a very stressful situation and accidents do happen and today, one did. Jed got stung by a bee.

Chat with you tomorrow.

July 30
    We had a great day.  Of course the morning had us worried.  We started in the day befores hot spot and it was ice cold.  I felt disgusted but what we do in those situations as a group of boats is find them and that's what happened so in the afternoon we had a couple very good drifts on yellowfin tuna.  Our first drift was at 2:00 after lunch and it was a long plunker bite of 1-3 going at a time.  After that we already had a good day and a good trip.  We had the whipped cream and the nuts but I wanted the cherry so after an hour or so of hard looking we found our sun downer school.  It was a little more fast paced this time and it lasted almost until sunset on the yellowfin and well past dark for the 3 bluefin we hooked.  They were 50-80 pounds estimated.  We'll find out at the scale tomorrow.  They'll make jack pot go quickly because I'll only need to weigh 3 fish.
    
    The weather today was fantastic.  We're headed in and we'll be dockside tomorrow at 7:00 in the AM.  I'll be handing the keys over to Tommy and I'm finally going home for the first time this season.  I'm looking forward to getting to know my baby again who will be turning 4 months this Saturday.
                            

Capt Mike Prichard from the Tribute called in the final talley from their overnight with 148 Yellowfin Tuna from 8 - 45 lbs, some really goos fishing. We also had good Yellowtail of which we kept about 40 of the from 6 - 12 lbs with a couple in the lower 20 lb range, we also released a lot. We a also seeing al lot of Dorado around the kelps, we were not able to get any to bite today. Fishing across the board has been very good, although the Bluefin have not been around. For information about future trips give the landing a call at 619-224-3383 and get your spots.

One stop made our day on the Imperial Sprinkler Private charter. 45 yellowfin 14 yellowtail.

Captain Mike Pritchard checked in this afternoon at 1:52 PM with an audio update from the Tribute out of Seaforth Sportfishing in Mission Bay. We just finished up our two day trip and are headed back to the dock. We had very good fishing for. our rent rod charter. We had 20 anglers catch 184 Yellowtail and 8 Dorado.

We have one day trips departing tomorrow night through Thursday. We would love to take you fishing.

~~Aug. 28
 It was a busy morning for us today but a kick back afternoon. For the second time this year we are not fishing on our departure day. We did the usual turn around throwing in an oil and fuel filter change. We offloaded, then onloaded and then we took off before lunch. The bait was OK. It looked great but lost some scales putting it in our tanks. We'll see how it likes 80+ degree water in a couple of days. I decided to skip this 30 mile yellowfin zone today and get down below while we have a window of good hurricaneless weather. There will be some wind the next couple of days everywhere but should come down nicely for a week or so everywhere if the forecast holds true. I'm still not sure where we're starting yet this trip. We'll either head straight to the rocks or drag our feet for a day and wait for the weather to get pristine. For now there is some napping going on and just some old fashioned kicking back. Something we haven't seen a whole lot of this year as it has been straight to fishing out of the gates.
 

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-