whakatane Fishing Report 2025

Hello everyone, 

fishing down south is on fire right now. Lots of 20-40 lb tuna, Dorado, Wahoo, Yellowtail, and even big Grouper! 

Here is a monster 122 lb Gulf Grouper caught on the last 8 day! It ate a whole skipjack tuna for bait! 

There are only a few more spots open on the remaining 7 and 8 day trips. Jump on while they are biting!

Look forward to seeing you soon, 

Team Supreme

Drew Henderson docked Polaris Supreme at Fisherman's Landing August 12 after four days of fishing. His anglers had near-limits of yellowtail, mostly from Cedros Island, where he found mackerel to be superior bait, and fish biting at both ends. Drew said his anglers released some 200 fish. Henderson's posting for August 10 read: "We started our trip making the long haul down to Benitos Island due to the bad weather and bad offshore report. We got to the Island at about two thirty. We got held up with a giant school of 3 to 4 foot giant squid. I can't say it was bad there, I mean we caught a lot of fish we just had to go through lots of little ones to get the bigger ones. We gave the night bite a couple hours only getting ten fish and took off towards Cedros. "The morning was great. Everyone woke up to bent rods. After a couple hours the current slowed and the slime (barracuda) took over. We did a little scouting and found some large model yellows and had a couple of long plunking drifts. Then we took off to the northern head to gain some time for tomorrow and give it a check and found the honey hole. Mucho Fisho. All the beautiful grade, and they chewed until we all got our fill. We're traveling up tonight to do some offshore tomorrow until it's time to go home." Dave Betz of Huntington Beach won first place for a 27.6-pound yellowtail he bagged with a sardine on a 1/0 ringed Gorilla hook and 20-pound P-Line. He said he fished with his favorite Accurate 270 reel, and a Calstar six-foot rod. The fight ran to 35 minutes, he said. Forrest Broyles of Kelseyville got a 25.4-pounder. He was tied by Ken Wan of Oakland for second place.

We departed yesterday on the annual Jeff Hall 5-day trip yesterday and pointed it straight for Cedros. We arrived this afternoon and our first anchor job produced about an hour of yellowtail fishing before the bite sizzled away. Checked a couple other spots for not very much before it got dark. We're going to stay the night and spend a full day here tomorrow and take it from there.

Sept. 24

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We departed this evening on a 1.5 day trip. We had a space available so we threw the trip in there and here we are. If you book it they will come. I wish it was always that easy. Anyway, we got a good load of bait number wise. We'll have to see how it lives. It lost a lot of its precious scales while we loaded it but it was swimming around the tanks well right after we loaded it like healthy bait does so we'll just have to see tomorrow. It only needs to stay alive for one day. We have some good reports in the bluefin grounds and that's where we're headed. I'll let you know how we do tomorrow tomorrow.

131 Yellowfin Tuna 200 Skipjack Tuna.  Bring a 30-50 lb bait rod to fish big sardines and a 20-25 lb bait rod for small sardines.

Hello Everyone, We had another nice day today. Mainly catching good Yellowtail and Bluefin. It was a slow pick in the morning and slowed around lunch time. The second half of the day we focused on the larger tuna. We were able to get one bite, unfortunately the hook pulled. Slower action on the larger fish today. Tomorrow we will be switching gears to Kelp patty fishing. In hopes of Dorado and Yellowtail. Wish us luck, Team Supreme

George Davis made his eighth (his estimate) annual charter with Tommy Rothery aboard the Polaris Supreme, and met the boat when it returned to Fisherman's Landing January 13 after an 18-day excursion. It was Friday, but definitely not a bad luck day or trip, as chartermaster George bagged a 257-pound tuna for himself as the boat fished off southern Baja. He might have had a jackpot spot, but by consent the group of eight passengers had a single jackpot winner. Davis runs a construction company from Rancho Cucamonga. "Everybody got a cow," said Tommy, "and we released over 100 tuna. We ended up with 27 tuna over 200 pounds." The day's big winner was Tom Hilton of San Clemente who scored a 293-pound whopper yellowfin with a sardine on a 7/0 Super Mutu hook, 130-pound red line, 130-pound Spectra backing on a Penn 50T reel blueprinted by Cal Sheets, and a 760H Calstar rod tied by Sheridan Stanton (also on the trip). Hilton said he got the big tuna "‚Д¶in 25 minutes; my best fish ever. My biggest before was 178 pounds. "I knew he was heavy," remarked Tom, "but he bit on the last bait on the last day at the last stop of the day. The fat lady hadn't sung yet, but I could hear her warming up in the wings." Hilton also had tuna of 251, 237, 236 and 213 pounds. The water temperature in the tuna area remains at 69 to 715 degrees, anglers said. High score went to Scott Brown of Costa Mesa, with six over 200 pounds, at 279, 269, 246, 240, and a pair of 225-pounders. Scott said he fished with sardines on 6/0 ringed Super Mutu hooks, on 100-pound Ande line, 130-pound Spectra backing, a Tiagra 50W reel and a Calstar 655 TSS rod. Al Tokunaga had five, at 225, 222, 213, 208 and 201 pounds. The 27 cows was no boat record, but 27 for eight anglers may make for some kind of mark.

Mike Pritchard called in with this report for the Tribute. "So far we are off to a great start this morning. The kelp fishing is very good and we are getting some jig strikes to go with it. We have limits of Yellowtail for our morning, just over 20 Yellowfin tuna and about a half dozen Dorado. The Yellowfin are school sized with some larger fish being caught.

"We'll keep you posted as the day goes on. We do have room available on tomorrow nights 1.5 Day trip. If you are interested, call Seaforth Sportfishing at 619-224-3383."