whakatane Fishing Report 2025

22 yellowtail 2 dorado. Unable to find a lucky kelp or a school today.

"It was really good fishing wahoo at the bank," said Rothery at the sales. "We stayed there two days and then went in to the southern banks where the big fish were." All the big fish (there were 13 tuna over 200 pounds weighed on the certified scales at Fisherman's) came from the southern banks. There were just as many from 100 to 200 pounds as there were cows, and those were found in both spots. "The Baja tuna were real steady biters," said Rothery. "There were lots of ‚Дтem around, we could see ‚Дтem at the surface and on the meter most of the time." Research biologist Chugey Sepulveda got the big one, related his pal and fellow biologist Scott ("Scootch") Aalbers of San Diego. Chugey wasn't able to be at the weigh-in. The fish weighed 306.2 pounds. Chugey had two more cows, at 220 and 201 pounds. "Scootch" said Chugey got the big one and the others on one of the boat's heavy rigs and the kite. He used two sardines on 6/0 Mustad 7691 hooks, tied to 130-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izorline Spectra, on a Tiagra 50 W reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. "He got it on the next to the last day," said Scootch, "about four p.m. He fought it for an hour and 15 minutes, and it wrapped him around the anchor line about 15 times. The crew helped out a lot with the fork." Tom Bass of Newport Beach won second place for a 274.8-pound tuna. He also had a 232 and a 206-pound yellowfin. Tom said he got his fish on a sardine and an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook, pm 100-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon leader of 15 feet, tied to 130-pound Izor Spectra on a Tiagra 50 reel and a Calstar 6460 XXH rod. Hack Bernstein of Valencia bagged a 269.6-pounder. He fished a sardine on an 8/0 Eagle Claw hook tied to 130-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izor Spectra on a boat rig: Tiagra 50 reel and a Calstar 655 XXH rod. Pat Jaeger of Bishop posed with his daughter Maggie, three, and the 268-pound tuna he got with a double sardine rig on the kite. He said he used 100-pound P-Line and 130-pound Izor Spectra on a Penn 50 W reel and a Baja Boomer rod. Ryan Gillette of Orange was another who used a double trouble sardine rig on the boat's rod and reel to take a 246-pounder. Robert Kalatschan found a brace of cows, at 226 and 213 pounds. There were two more cows that appeared at the scales without tags, said Susan Rothery. One weighed 214 pounds and the other went 202.

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 08-22-2016 Good evening. Today was spent offshore all day. It didn't take log to start seeing sign right after day break. Everything certainly looked promising. Many many spots of both bluefin and yellowfin tuna just about everywhere we looked. These things just seemed to have a case of lock jaw. We threw everything except the kitchen sink at them, but just couldn't them to bite let alone stick with the boat. We have high hopes for a great closing day tomorrow. The fish is around, just a matter of finding the right one to shut down on. We'll check back in tomorrow for our final trip report. Tight lines, Team Supreme

Drew Henderson brought Polaris Supreme home to Fisherman's Landing August 31 following a five-day trip to Guadalupe and Benitos. Guadalupe yellowfin swept the jackpot. The Benitos yellows were good-sized, with one 46.6-pound whopper being the best of the species caught there, by Kub Ito of harbor City. Dan Tran of Hawthorne won first place, for a 98-pound yellowfin he bagged with a sardine on a 4/0 Super Mutu hook dangled under a balloon. He said he fished with 40-pound Big Game line, an Avet LX reel and a Shimano eight-foot rod. Phil Hidey of Arcadia was second, for a 75.4-pounder, and Joe Beck, a regular long ranger and retired LA motorcycle officer won third place, for a 63.6-pound Guadalupe yellowfin tuna.

As the temps drop, we are finding the bottom biters are biting at our local spots. Lingcod and Reds with a mix of other great tasting fish. We have been seeing Yellowtail on a daily basis as well. 

Polaris Supreme Trip Report 09-04-2016 Thanks for checking in, Our morning started off somewhat slow, however as the sun started to rise it got better with more and more fish coming under the boat. After hooking four fish and loosing them all! We knew we were in for a battle with some big mean Bluefin tuna! And when I say big and mean that's just what they were! The average fight time was about 45 minutes to an hour. Our hook to land ratio was 1 in 5 , But after a few adjustments it stated to improve very well. And just in time because right about lunch time the fish really started to turn on big time! At one point I counted at least five going at one time and they were all big fish. After the smoke cleared and most tended to their battle wounds we ended up having a nice day. The Polaris Supreme Crew!

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

Hi friends. Mother Nature is lovin' us right about now. She's given us an absolutely gorgeous ride as we make our final approach to home. It's not quite soft butter but it's a notch away from that. Word to your mama - Mama Nature. Anywho, we finished detailing out the engine room machinery and we can eat off of the floor of our heads (bathrooms); so what do we do now? Well, Drew fired up a cigar, took his shirt off and took a nap on the freezer, Jed, Gunny, Mark, Shawn and I started a poker tournament that Shawn ended up winning, and we basically just kicked it the rest of the day.

With that, it's time for another installment of "Polaris Supreme Movie Reviews!" "The Dark Knight Rises" was sick. "The Paperboy" was weird, but good. John Cusack is real creepy in that one. "Deadfall" was terrible. Not even Olivia Wilde could save that one, and last but not least, "That's My Boy" was quite possibly the best and worst movie I've ever seen. Probably the latter but there were some funny parts.

So that is all. Jeff unknowingly donated his Ipod for us to use as we keep on keepin' on up the line and we are just straight kickin' it. More good news, we've gained .5 knots! As of now, our ETA to Customs is sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 hours. If we weren't running so late and had some bait, I would've stopped on that breezer I just saw. Bluefin? Interesting (Not 15 minutes after typing this up, we saw another, up high and dry and we saw some big backs.) Anyhow, after arrival to Fisherman's Landing tomorrow, we'll be shutting the Supreme down for a month so the staff can celebrate Drew and Kristin's wedding reception and have plenty of time to recover. We're all pretty pumped for it, especially little Hard Hat Boy.

Mark has been working on his "dance" moves and I've given up all hope to try and help him. Picture this: I had Ke$ha's "Die Young" going and I'm pretty sure that he looked like a man riding an invisible mechanical bull--in slow-motion--with Tom's "Shark Shield" attached to it. That's right, he looked like a man riding a transparent bar bull in slow-motion while the said bull had electricity pulsating through it. Like I said, I had to quit helping to get him right and just sit back and watch Mark express himself through the art of "dance". It's going to be awesome!

We'll chat with you again in a month or so when we begin our annual maintenance period. If you're in the San Diego area, come on by and show us some love. Be sure to call the office for our most up-to-the-minute ETA for tomorrow. Adios from Team Supreme - Tommy & Susan, Drew, Jed, Mark, Gunny, Schooler, Shawn, and myself.

-Richie and The Supremes

The variety list gets LONGER! Today we had our sights set on big numbers of quality Yellowfin Tuna. However the plan did not unfold as we expected. We found tuna but not the numbers we were looking for. Instead we were able to catch a variety of other species. Including Broom tail and Leopard Grouper, Dorado, bigger grade Yellowtail, and Wahoo. The Hess Charter we are currently fishing with was recently a 5 day trip. They increased the trip to a 7 day in hopes of a larger variety of fish species, they defiantly are getting the mixed bag now! Our sights will be on Wahoo tomorrow. Wish us luck, Team Supreme