sebastian fl Fishing Report 2024

Oct. 7

Hello out there in the internet world of the Polaris Supreme. It's been a while since I have been able to write to you all. This is because down there in the lower lower latitudes our satellite service isn't available therefor I am unable to send out any emails. So this will be a trip wrap up of our time spent down below...

First of all we had a great trip. Of our 5 1/2 days down here we landed 50+ tuna over 100 pounds. 15 of those went over 200 pounds and 1 of those will most likely go over 300 pounds. It taped off at 297. A real beaut. We also released at least 17 tuna over 100 pounds and threw in 50+ wahoo as hole fillers. That's not a bad fish count for 20 anglers. We had 8 anglers. Fantastic.

We got a little nervous when we first arrived down there at 4:00 a.m. of the 2nd. We stopped the boat first on some flying fish to try for some of them to put on the kite and during the drift we could see many sharks swimming around and chasing the flyers. We got the anchor down around 5 and it wasn't getting better. A big shark problem is what we had on our hands. They were making it unfishable. We had a 1 hour window that morning when the tuna were more aggressive then the sharks and managed a handful of big tunas with the Jer-Bear getting one over 200 pounds but it was short lived. The tuna backed off and the sharks took over again. We had enough and tried pulling the anchor but it got stuck and we lost everything. Damn. While we were putting one of our spair sets on we trolled it up for wahoo but we couldn't get past the 50-80 pound tunas to get to the wahoo. On most trips that would be good but on this trip we release those babies. After doing that for a while we got the anchor back down and things never really got rolling. We had a shark problem. Like I said we, were a little nervous after the first day.

Day number 2 didn't start off any better. We had a shark problem. Every bait we put out hooked a grinner. We didn't give it too long before we got to trolling again and this is what we found out. The cows were biting the marauders. We were trolling them up! ? That was a first for me. We were getting fish from small ones we would release to fish up to 215! You never know with fishing. It's a crazy game. So we had it all figured out. For the rest of the day this is what we did. We would troll around with our marauders and our yummy flyers on the kite and catch tuna and wahoo. The 4 remaining anglers not trolling were getting them fishing sardines on the slide. We stayed very busy. 15 fish over 100 that day with 2 of those over 200. The weather picked up that day and would stay windy for the remainder of our time here.

Day 3 was more of the same except the sharks disappeared and we were getting more tired. The fish were getting harder to pull over the rail. We also lost our Matt to an injured knee. We're not sure how it happened. To much of banging it on the rail scooping flyers and he may of hit it on a tuna some how but however it went down he was done. He could barely move about the boat let alone gaff a 200 pounder. Also our fearless leader, and I mean that, hurt his back prier to the trip and has had a hurt wrist for some time now was of little help gaffing 200 pounders as well so we were down to 3 of us and a "Gringo". That's our galley assistant. That's right Gringo fans, he's been back for some time now. Any hoo around 5:00 p.m. things started to really liven up with tuna flying out of the water everywhere so we threw the anchor over and had pretty much wide open fishing on the bigguns till about 7:30. We landed 12 over 100, most of those closer to 200 with 4 of them over that mark. Nice.

Day 4 was different. The tuna stopped biting on the troll and things got back to the way we're used to. Anchor fishing and we did well. The fish started biting at 1:00 p.m. for a little while then things slowed down until around 5:30 when things went ballistic similar to the night prior. 11 fish over 100 with 4 of those over 200 and George getting his personal best which went 297. We're hoping it goes over 3 at the dock. We'll see. When I'm giving these fish counts keep in mind we are releasing many fish if they aren't in the 200 pound range.

Day 5 was pretty much spent on anchor. We had a late night with Brian being stuck on a big one for hours. We didn't get to bed until 11:00 p.m. so when the crew woke up at 4:00 a.m. nobody was awake except Charlie. Here's why. He had a 186 pounder completely wreck him. I mean he got his but kicked like I've never seen him get his but kicked before. This happened the day before so he went to bed early that night and was up with us bright and early. Anyways he had a 207 landed before anyone else was even up besides the crew. He hooked another one shortly after that too but after a long battle the fish one and lived to fight another day. We had more action throughout the day but there were many lulls in between the action but it was a slower day for sure. Not a slow day though. We had 7 over 100 with 3 of those going over 200 pounds. Tommy had been keeping an eye on the storm that's been brewing the whole time we were down there and decided on this night to start heading north to keep us all safe. The storm became a tropical storm and was still getting stronger and closer so we had to take off leaving 1 day to fish somewhere north.

Here are some firsts for me and most others on this boat that happened while we were down there: I have never seen a shark problem that bad and then seeing them disappear like they did. One hour it was not fishable and that afternoon they were pretty much all gone,. I have never seen a 200 pounder let alone so many 200 pounders and just big tuna in general bite the trolled marauders like they did for a few days down here. I have never seen a 186 pounder jump completely out of the water right next to the boat after being on the line for 5 minutes or any amount of time for that matter. The fish must have thought it was a dorado. I have never seen Charlie not at the rail 100% percent of the time the fish were biting and it's because of A. he's reached the age of 60 but mostly B. I have never seen fish fight as hard as they fought on this trip. I mean they were brutal. Mean mean fish. I have seen 350+ pounders come in much easier then the 160+ pounders we were hooking. We lost a lot of big fish on this trip. We think about 50% of the big ones we hooked we lost. Not because of angler error but because these were just mean mean fish.

Here are some of the pricey things that happened during the trip. We lost one set of anchor gear, we lost 2 big giant 12 volt batteries, our refrigerator broke down , we lost and broke 3 gaffs, fuel prices are nasty, but the look on Matts face when I offered him a sponge bath because he couldn't stand up in the shower was priceless. Oh Mathew. He's doing a little better then before. The swelling went down a little and there is a little less pain then he had before but the poor guy has got to be just borred out of his mind and just bummed he missed out on some great big mean tuna fishing.

We will keep you filled on the ride home .

The San Diego out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego,CA checked in with us today:

2 yellowtail 18 lingcod 57 rockfish. 8 and half hours of banging our sonar off the rocks resulted in 1 school. Today’s results have zero influence on tomorrow’s.

82 yellowfin 2 bluefin 19 yellowtail. When we stop on a school of tuna every bait that hits the water gets looked at by the fish. If it isn’t presented perfectly they won’t touch it. We highly recommend changing your bait often, the more presentations you make the more likely you are to make a perfect one. 20lb flouro and size 2 hooks are what worked best.

We started off the morning with a few strikes on sonar schools of yellowfin tuna. We thought we were on the right track but things soon slowed down to virtually nothing. A few of the guys were seeing schools up above us, big schools but weren't producing much more then we where. We went and check those out and it looks like there schools of bluefin with a little bit of yellowfin mixed in it of course the bluefin don't bite. We spent part of our morning looking at eight giant kelp patties for two bites on yellowtail which we lost. Right now it's about 2:10 we have 20 yellowfin on board and were wondering where in the heck they're all at. We have good weather and six more hours to look wish us luck.

~~Sept. 2
 We hit the yellowtail grounds today. Not until 9:30. I started looking at 0400 but we weren't there until 9:30. "There" is where we had some good tailing. There's not a whole lot to write about it. We were there, and they were hitting. Most everyone was dropping jigs down and winding them back fast to achieve there tails. Before lunch I was considering fishing yellowtails tomorrow morning before traveling all day to put us in position for tuna the following day, but when I went in to eat lunch, there were 10 fish in the box. The crew dropped them, when I came back out there were 3 in the box and everyone was leaning against the rail not fishing except 3 passengers and 1 of those had 1 hanging. I got the hint. They caught enough yellowtail and they want tuna now. So we'll be traveling all day tomorrow to put ourselves in position to fish bluefin the following day weather pending.

 The weather today was windy, but the further north we get now the less wind there is. It's a nice ride now.

Not much to report today. We looked at a lot of water for not much. We found one jumbo school of tuna but it wouldn't bite. After sitting on it for over an hour watching them boil around the boat, everyone lost interest so we continued our hunt. A couple handfuls of dorado and one nice tuna later we decided to give it another chance. It's just to good to pass these beautiful grade fish up when they want to chew like yesterday.

Now this was the real deal today. Nothing short of epic cow fishing. Scott released a 110 lb., 170 lb. 180 lb., another 110 lb., 175 lb., and a 150 lb. tuna. He kept a 220 lb., and a 250 lb. tuna. Bob released a 180 lb., 130 lb., 190 lb., and kept a 220 pounder. Al released a 190 lb., 125 lb., 185 lb., and a 140 pounder. Craig released a 135 lb., 150 lb., 145 lb., 180 lb., 190 lb., another 180 lb., and kept a 190 lb., and a 193 pounder. Roger released a 110 lb., and kept a 204 pounder. Sheridan released a 125 lb., 170 lb., 150 lb., 160 lb., and 190 pounder. Tom released a 110 lb., 160 lb., 150 lb., 185 lb., and kept a 221 lb., and a 205 lb. tuna. George released a 120 lb., 130 lb., 100 lb., 185 lb., 180 lb., and another 100 lb., and kept a 205 pounder. Wow what a day. We're all just shaking our heads at how wild it was. Lunch was calamari with a red sauce and dinner was veal chops. We'll see you tomorrow.

We finished off our trip at the lupe and it was poor. No sign of big fish only small fish. Good weather on our way home. We'll be dock side for a few days and departing on Wednesday for 10 days.