whangamata Fishing Report 2025

Fishing was absolutely phenomenal! If the last two day were great, today was even better. We had a good morning bite and then topped off the trip with an afternoon bite that went well into the dark. The tuna were biting the kite and anything else we put in the water. All fish ranged between 175 and 260 pounds. All anglers had a shot at them and a couple landed two. We did however stop to replenish our energy with some of Pedro's great food. For lunch we had tuna with a red sauce and ravioli on a bed of spinach with a cream sauce. Sounds like a weird combo, but boy did it taste good together. And dinner was a great roasted Cornish game hen with all the veggies and potato on the side. In addition to Pedro, I have to say our crew has done a fantastic job. They really work well together. And of course Lon and his group were a delight to have on board. And by the conversation in the galley, they are all planning on returning to this trip next year. Lon is going to open it up so if you are interested call Susan in the office. There will be a couple of spots. And on that note we are heading for home in excellent weather. We will be at the dock Sunday morning. Come down and see this great catch. Meet Lon from OTR. And see Susan about booking a trip.

Aug 14

Not much action in the morning for us. We were seeing very little and not catching much and had little time to do it so we searched in new grounds. We saw a couple of real good schools that wouldn't cooperate only managing to hook and land 1. We had a kelp for some 18-25 pound yellows so maybe we'll see more of that in the near future. It was a tasty looking zone. I wish we would've had more time to look in it but we were too far from home so we had to head it for the barn. Great weather today and we're forecasting more of the same in the foreseeable future. We'll be a little later to the dock with an eta of about 9:00 am and Tommy will be handling the next trip of 5 days.

Polaris Supreme update 08-15-2012

              Our day started off today in flat calm weather and high hopes that we were going to score big.  We worked our water break way out to the north west away from where we have been catching most of our fish.  About 20 miles away I thought "What the heck am I doing?  What if they start getting them?"  We made a sweeping turn out to the west and immediately found our first small paddy of the day.  We were immediately rewarded with a frenzied bite of mixed yellowfin, bluefin, dorado and small yellowtail which were released.  When the dust had cleared we had about 35 mixed fish.  And back up to the wheelhouse and mast we all went to find another one.  After about a half hour of searching and lunch time approaching , we hadn't found another one.  And then of course, my worst nightmare occurred.  Signs of the fish starting to bite 20 miles back where I left from.  This is one of those times you wish you had a button you could push just once a trip to put you somewhere instantly.  
Of course you'd probably want to push it again and go back where you
just were once you got there.   That's probably why they don't make such
a devise.  That and the lack of technology to do so.  Anyway, off we went two hours south.  Back to where we started our morning.  As we arrived it turns out that only one boat had really caught much of anything and he was definitely one of those lucky guys.  He had had a phenomenal day on that small grade yellowfin and bluefin.  As the passengers began to break down their gear and we headed north, our day went from slow to the insane.  We spent the rest of the hours until heading for home late, in a wide open bite for small yellowfin and bluefin.  With the odd big yellowtail, 18 pounds or more and dorado, 15 pounds thrown in.  Talk about carrying around a horseshoe and waiting until the last minute to use it.  It was a fantastic topper to Eric Rogger's 28th ? or 30th long range charter with me.  And also a befitting ending to Alex Crandall's last hurrah before he heads off to Afghanistan.  Alex it was awesome to have you and your dad on board to spend time together. Thanks for sharing that time with us on board the
Polaris Supreme.  Thanks Paula for letting them go.    We will be
heading up the line and into San Diego a couple hours late tomorrow.  
Somewhere around 8:00 am or so.  We will report tomorrow on the jackpot fish and give you a trip wrap up.
Thanks for tuning in,
Tommy and the awesome crew of the Polaris Supreme

Today we came across some Killer Whales today! Pretty cool!

A rare and incredible sight in these parts! 

"The X-Raps were working real good on the slide," said Polaris Supreme skipper Tom Rothery July 21 at Fisherman's Landing. "It seemed like the best colors were silver or bonito color. The zucchini colored skirted jigs were working real good on the troll. Fishing was good; we got enough fish, with good yellowtail at the islands and good albacore fishing offshore." David "Sammy" Samuelson of San Diego won first place on the trip, for his 37.4-pound albacore. He said he got it with a sardine on a 2/0 hook tied to 30-pound P-Line, a Saiwa reel and a Calstar six-foot rod. Bob Pollack of San Diego won second place for a 33.4-pounder, and Dick Emerson of Rowland Heights won third place for a 32.8-pound albacore. Jonathan Kendrick of Oakley stood in with the winners to show his 37-pound dorado, caught on a Zucker's jig in Mexican Flag colors.

Aug. 15
    We started our morning off in the local bluefin zone.  We caught 12 of them, 2 of them being the 50+ pounders while the rest were that beautiful manageable 30-40 pound fish and we caught a few yellowfin.  On drift number 2 we hooked and lost one.  Do to the amount of boats thinking the same thing we were and the lack of fish I was seeing being brought over the rail, I decided to leave early and look for yellowfin for a while.  It wasn't long before we found some, and then some more, and then some more.  It pretty much was like that for as long as we fished it which was until after 5 when we went back to the zone where we started.  We had good fishing pretty much all day long.  The only negative thing about it was the grade of fish was a bit on the smaller side.  They weren't runts but they weren't great either.  12 pounds is the short version.  They averaged out to be 12 pounders.  We looked all around for a bigger grade but it pretty much was what it was.  I did think that the area we finished up in yellowfin wise had quite a few more 20 pounders mixed in than what we'd been fishing so it may be something to look at tomorrow.  We finished up right where we started and we had a long 2 1/2 hour drift.  We caught a yellowfin every once in a while, we landed 4 of the 30-40 pound bf's and caught 1 70ish pounder and lost at least 4 of those.  We are going to drift tonight and do it again tomorrow.
                                

 

Andrew Viola called in with an update from the 1-day trip from the Pacifica out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego, CA.

We have Yellowtail limits (5 per person) on the boat already this afternoon with most of them between 8-12 pounds.  We are still looking for more and we’ll see if we can get some Dorado or some Tuna on the boat next.

We have an Overnight trip leaving on Sunday at 10pm and a 1.5 day trip leaving on Tuesday at 9pm with open spots.

Wow, absolutely phenomenal fishing on the wahoo today. We fished daybreak to dark in two main spots. Wahoo everywhere we went. Lures, bombs, bait and trolling all worked. The anglers had a fantastic time in nice calm weather. We will be checking out a couple spots tomorrow and have another full day to fish the wahoo. Today Jeff prepared wahoo enchiladas for lunch and he absolutely nailed it. They were sooo good. Wish us luck for tomorrow. Thanks, Tommy and crew