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Limited Load Long Range Sportfishing
Limited Load Long Range Sportfishing
~~Oct. 9
Good evening to everyone at home or wherever you may read this. After one night dockside we were back to the boat this afternoon. We headed to the fuel dock and changed oil and fuel filters, filled her all the way up on fuel, grabbed some brine making salt and loaded 2 weeks worth of food. Shortly after getting back to Fishermans Landing, all our dogs got here. I'm talking about George, Craig, Charlie, the Jer-bear, the Bry man, Bernie, Scott and the infamous J.C. Infamous. That's like really famous.
We took our time at the bait receivers to ensure we had the best that bait could offer us. We're pretty happy with it at the moment. For the next 4 days we'll be traveling to our destination of the Shamada seamount. AKA Hurricane Bank. And speaking of hurricanes, there isn't one at the moment. Lately they've just been rolling in one after another but for now, none. It's our destiny to get down below and catch very large yellowfin and wahoo. Tommy spent a bunch of money and rented a system that allows us to get on the web where ever we are which allows us too look at all our weather web sites to keep track of storms that may be an issue to us. So worry not. We won't be anywhere near a low pressure system this trip. Safe and sound out here as always.
Anyways, it sure looked to me like everyone had a good afternoon hanging out, getting there cigar on and doing what they do. We didn't even make it through dinner before the Bry-man and the Jer-bear got on what they call Team Bernard. It's there thing to talk some smack and make fun of Scott and Bernie and it's hilarious on all sides. Here we go.
So for the next few days we'll be getting ready for a week of some hardcore fishing. Rigging tackle, tuna and wahoo seminars, naps, movies, food, cocktails... I think the next few reports will read like this paragraph we're on now.
Drew and crew
~~Oct. 10
So here's what went down today aboard the Polaris Supreme. We slept in this morning. Breakfast wasn't until 9ish. As far as the crew goes Tommy made us a whole long sheet of a work list that kept us busy most of the day. After breakfast we did our wahoo seminar which we were all delighted to have deckhand Mark present it to us. Fantastic. After that JC had a gift for us all. A brand new pair of electric sunglasses which for me could not have come at a better time. I was in dire straights for shades so THANK YOU JC!!! After was the movie of the day which was Wolf Street and in between was lunch and then some rigging of tackle by some of the passengers. Nap time was next and then cocktail hour and now we're doing dinner. Cornish game hens tonight. Last night was prime rib. And after is bed time because we have another tough day to look forward to tomorrow.
Drew and crew
~~Oct. 11
And here's what we did today. The crew rigged up mucho tackle. I'm talking the grande stuff for the grande fish. After that and after breakfast we did our tuna seminar and I talked Tommy into doing a couple parts of the seminar. All I know for the past 10 years is my tuna seminar. It's nice to get a different perspective. Anyways, after that we were finishing up tackle rigging when poof, all three trollers went off. So we caught a couple meals. 3 nice dorado. So then it was lunch time of street tacos. And then some napping went down and the afternoon movie was Caddy Shack. When 5:00 rolls around it's cocktail hour and it looks glorious. Drinks, cigars, and friends. Then we had baby back ribs for dinner. Once again like the first 2 nights we tried for some giant squid to use as bait, but we were unsuccessful.
Still no storms brewing up down below and we're getting more and more confident we won't be getting pushed out of the fishing grounds until we say so. 2 more days of travel before we arrive. Everyone is enjoying themselves now because in a couple days, it's going to be war. We'll be battling it out with 200+ pound tuna and wahoo.
Drew and crew
~~Oct. 12
Here's what went down today. Breakfast, then American Hustle(movie), then a whole lot of tuna leader making, then the Charger game. Listen to this. Our goofball crew member Mark Clark, well he claims to be a Raider fan but the only time he seems to care what they do is when they play the Chargers. Myself and the rest of the crew usually bet 20 dollars on each game. Well today couldn't have played out better. Prior to the start of the game he assumed we were betting and to rub it in that the Raiders are no good, I claimed I didn't want to bet because I'd feel I was taking money out of his sons pocket. He insisted we bet so we did. I still had it planned out to give him his money back if the Chargers blew them out as the ultimate rub in. So if you didn't know, it was a nail biter. Mark missed the last couple minutes of the game and everyone on board made him think that the Raiders won. He immediately came down to the galley and just absolutely let me have it. I don't know
how but I managed to keep a straight enough face to still have him think the Raiders won. Ever since then he's been on cloud 9. I don't know how and when I'll break the news and bring his reality crashing down to a major low. I'm sure looking forward to it though. He thinks he's up 120 bucks but more importantly to him he gets to talk all that smack.
Anyways, moving on. It's cocktail hour now and soon we will be feasting on a veal chop. One more day. The weather is fantastic right now. A beautiful sunset too.
Drew and Crew
~~Oct. 13-14
Nothing to report on Oct. 13. More of the same. Though it was our last day so the cocktail hour was to a minimum. We arrived to our destination around 1:30 in the am Tuesday morning. We did a tour for flying fish (to use as bait) but we only caught a few. We kicked the anchor over and most of us got a couple more hours of sleep. Everyone got up at 0400 hours and got to work. Some faster than others. When I woke up George was the only one in the water so I thought I'd give him a hand. I threw a sinker on a rig and dropped down a sardine and 5 minutes later we had our first tuna aboard. About an 80 pounder. It was our sashimi fish. After that there was a whole lot of good shark and small tuna fishing going down so again during a time when no one was in the water (due to having to retie because of shark teeth), I dropped another bait down, this time on the rod Mark likes to call the OJ (no one knows why), and about 20-30 minutes later we had a 196 pounder aboard. While that was going on George got hooked up and brought a 218 pounder over the rail. It wasn't even light out yet. After that the sharks fully took over. It was pretty much unfishable so we didn't give it much time, we pulled anchor and got to trolling and for the next 8 hours or so it was steady striking on the wahoos. Damn. We caught about 5 per angler so I'd call that good for sure. For the last few hours we got steady strikes on one of this groups favorite fishing methods, trolling the yummy fliers. We caught a lot of tuna today on those and on the marauders and some on bait. They were all mostly in the 120 pound range.
The weather today sure was interesting. The wind never had much strength but it couldn't pick a direction. One minute it was coming out of the northeast, and the next it was coming out of the west. It did that all day so for that and the sharkies giving us grief we never tried another anchor job today and we're spending the night adrift. It also rained a whole lot this evening. I'd say it was raining cats and dogs when I went to bed but it's cleared up now at 0100 hour as I write this on my watch. One more hour and I'm going back to bed until 5 when we'll all be going back into battle. Hopefully tomorrow these dang sharks leave us alone.
~~Oct. 15
I forgot to mention yesterday how steamy it is down here. Steamy, like we're boiling a giant pot of water or something, I can't explain it. Anyways when you walk out of an air and conditioned part of the boat it's like POW! Holy Toledo! But after a little bit you get used to it and it's not that bad until you find some AC again and then come back out and it's like, POW again. Anyways, we had a little more wind this morning which helped with the kite fishing and it stayed one direction which helped with the anchor fishing. We had another decent morning. George caught another over 200 and his bud Craig joined him with a 207. The sharks weren't as ferocious this morning and this afternoon I'd have to say they weren't much of a problem at all. We really did a number on the wahoo yesterday because today we only caught a few but thankfully we had a great day on the anchor starting mid morning or after lunch, I already can't remember.
The boxed and vacuum sealed flying fish from Florida the gang brought down really paid off today. That's mostly what I did this afternoon was rig flying fish for the kite and help gaff tuna when they needed me. For a couple hours they were hitting the baits on the kite as fast as we could put them out. Most of what we're catching is in the 100-130 pound class. The big story was Charlie this afternoon. He caught 3 bigguns. A 194, 213, and a 204. A nice afternoon for Charlie. About half the gang are already releasing anything under 200 pounds.
For dinner we had a lovely corned beef and cabbage and potato meal. Afterwards I was waiting for the shower and i noticed all the tuna that was under the boat and I pointed it out to the chef. So he went down there and sinker rigged a sardine right on top of one of the tunas heads and he got himself a 177 pounder shattering his previous personal best of 35 pounds. Way to go Mike. Most people at the time were tying on new top shots on there reels. They all new what was going on and that they could most likely do the same but nobody did a thing. Everyone was fished out so that shows we had a good day. You just can't fish 24 hours a day.
Drew and crew
~~Nov 9
Good evening all and welcome back once again to the Polaris Supreme. Well we're in November now and with that comes a true fall 10 day trip. We took some time off if you didn't notice. We spent 2 weeks dockside with just a little bit of boat work to do so we had some time to ourselves. I didn't follow what the other crew did too much. I was to busy with a 7 month old which by the way is getting better and better and I didn't think it could. She's hard to leave but fishing calls.
So we're off and running. We got a full load of should be good bait and we're headed to destinations undecided at the moment. One thing we know is we'll be in full travel mode tomorrow so we'll have a relaxing day of tackle rigging and seminars. The fishing sounds pretty fair at the moment. Plenty of action on smaller grade of 10-30 pound fish in areas. There is also some wahoo to catch if your timing is good. There hasn't been sign of any big tuna in about a week now but we may be able to blame windy conditions and a very bright moon on that. Right now things are changing and for us, we hope that's a good thing.
One last thing. It's Movember and I am sporting a very creepy stache right now. It's a 2 week stache and it's just not long enough to look cool yet. But I guess it's a good cause. My hero's on the LA Clippers think so anyways. I'll check back tomorrow but I dought(spell check tells me that dought is spelled wrong. Facebook the right way please} I'll have much to report it being a travel day and all.
Drew and crew
~~Nov.10
OK. It took until 4:00 this evening but I finally made up my mind of where we're going to go. All day long it's been running through my head. "rocks or ridge, rocks or ridge. They both had there advantages and disadvantages but I believe I made the choice with the more advantages for this stage of the trip. It's like a chess game out here sometimes with the rest of the fleet.
So as you know we traveled all day. We did a fishing seminar shortly after breakfast and I feel I got everyone on board super pumped on catching cow tuna so now we're going to have to do it. No pressure though. Tackle rigging, naps, relaxation, antsy. Basically all the feelings. Right now most of the boat is watching a batman movie loudly. Some are lounging on the upper deck but dinner should be soon and off goes the movie. It smells terrific too. Baby back ribs tonight.
So we have about 1/2 a day of traveling left to do and then we'll be in full fish mode for about a week straight. Here we go.
Drew and crew
~~Nov.11
The fishing was very slow for us this morning. We caught nothing. Of course that was due to us not fishing at all. We were in full travel mode trying to make our destination shortly after lunch which we did and from here on out for the foreseeable future we're fishing baby. So we were hoping to have a hit on wahoo. The last boat that was in here caught 20 or 30 in a couple days and we thought they were moving in. Maybe they were. When we got here there were two boats already trolling it up. Bad sign for wahooing. We ended up getting one on the marauder and another 4 drifting. Nice ones too. 5 lucky anglers.
The tuna fishing was good. Not wide open. It looked really good on the machines but we could only scratch at them. It was still plenty good to start off our trip and get us going. We tagged about 4 per rod this afternoon so definitely good fishing. No yellowtail though unfortunately. We were hoping for some of that but we never saw one. So we're making a move to look for more yellowtail to go along with the tuna we're catching. We're going to do at least one more day here if not two before moseying on down to look for cows.
The weather has been great so far. Rolly this morning with offshore wind but that straightened out. We had an action packed afternoon which is just what we needed. See you tomorrow.
Drew and crew
~~Nov. 12
I'm not sure how to write about today because I'm not sure how I feel about today. I'm definitely proud of us. We fished hard today. A lot of the boat was up before 4 trying to get a bite going and didn't let up till dark. Now that's some hardcore fishing right there.
We started in the last weeks hot spot. Us and 2 other boats. It didn't take long for the 2 other boats to leave the zone. They were both on the latter parts of there trips and needed to head north. We stuck it out as long as we could picking one here and one there along with a bounty of skipjack but most of the passengers stuck it out and stayed at the rail. Like I said, I'm proud of them. 3 hours and 30 fish later we gave up and headed to different grounds in a direction for a boat more fresh out on there trip. After lunch we arrived and again, I'm proud of these guys. Once again we were picking one tuna here and one tuna there along with more skipjack and small dorado but once again these guys kept at it and fished hard. Well the ratio got better and better until at the end it was pretty good fishing. The grade could've been one more notch up but it is what it is and we understand that.
We're on our way to try and make some mackerel and we'll be headed to cow town the following day. We're going to give it at least a day and give everyone on board an opportunity to catch a major cow tuna. Wish us luck.
Drew and crew
~~Nov. 13
All I can say is we tried. The baiting went well last night and we arrived to cow town before sunrise. Until 3:30 in the afternoon we didn't see much. We fished hard though once again. Most stayed at the rail. We tried 4 anchor jobs, and a bunch of drifts but like I said, until 3:50 we didn't see much. At 3:50 though things woke up but unfortunately it was short lived and we have nothing to show for it. It gets dark so early now. We saw 3 good spots of 200-300 pound tuna blowing out of the water and 1 really good sonar school of 50 pounders but we could get no reaction from them. At least we got to see them. It's better than never seeing them at all.
I felt the vibe on board and I know the passengers want some action so we're going to try and deliver. We'll be running up tonight and we're going to give "The Ridge" another try tomorrow. We'll go for action and then we still have wahoo to catch.
Drew and crew
~~Nov. 14
"Just what the doctor ordered". We had a great afternoon out here on the Polaris Supreme today. It was a slow morning but a strong afternoon. We started where we had to. For one we were there at sunrise and for two we had to keep it honest due to the previous good fishing there several days ago. It wasn't happening so we took off and arrived to the promise land after lunch. It started off with a wahoo strike that turned into a wide open tuna bite with wahoo mixed in too. We ended that drift with 14 skin and 60+ tuna. Action baby. Just what we needed after yesterday. After that we were in full wahoo mode but they were hanging with the tuna so while we would catch wahoo we"d catch tuna too. The perfect scenario until you have limits of tuna. We're not quite there yet but we're close. We opted to stay another day to finish off our tuna quota and see if we can get some more wahoo. That also gives the Rocks another days rest as well.
The wind finally backed off today. For the past few days we had windy/choppy weather with a current going against it which adds to the choppiness and makes anchor fishing uncomfty. We handled it those days but today it was just nice. We're all stoked. Like I said, "just what the doctor ordered".
Drew and crew
~~Nov.15
Well today went as expected. We woke up on the anchor after a lovely nights sleep and shortly after daylight we started scratching tuna. It didn't take long to meet our quota. Some already had it and were dropper looping for yellows and getting a few. Anyways a little after 7 we pulled anchor and trolled around for wahoo. One more than half the boat caught a wahoo by lunch time and we took off for Alijos Rocks. We traveled the rest of the day while we looked for something floating with dorado under it but we never found anything as expected.
So like I said, we'll be at the stones in the morning. We're going to try for some more wahoo before starting north to finish off our trip. You never really can have enough wahoo. There is 2 or 3 passengers left on board who have not caught a wahoo so we're going to make sure they get one before anyone else tomorrow. We call it the troll of shame and Glenn, if you're reading at home, I always think of you when we do this.
Drew and crew
~~Nov. 16
I told myself yesterday that if we caught 30 wahoo today it would be worth the move. We caught 31. Scoooore!
It was good in the morning. By 10:00 we were moving right along on pace to have one heck of a day. Then things went slow. We were able to scratch just enough, and with the expectancy of an evening hit, we still were feeling good. That hit never happened. One here and two there was the rest of our day. But like I said, I'm very pleased with what we caught. It was definitely worth the ride. It helps that every wahoo we caught this trip is a toad. 40-50+ pounds baby.
We're headed up now. We'll have to be making headway toward home for the rest of the trip. We only have a couple of days left. We're going to give it a shot and finding a dorado kelp in the morning. The 3 boats that tried it prior to us struck out so we'll have a back up plan. Our plan B is to fish yellows at an island tomorrow afternoon. See you tomorrow.
Drew and crew
~~Nov. 18
Well, we just finished up our last day of our last trip of 2014. We fished the coast for yellowtail and junk this morning. And remember by junk I mean the small good eaters. It was a successful morning. The sun wasn't even up yet and we were getting yellows and others. It was good fishing. The grade was small, 10-12 pounders but we didn't have more then 8 yellowtail on board prior to today so we were tagging them. For a little while anyways. We let everyone get a few along with there junk before looking for something else. We made a few drifts after that for another couple handfulls of yellows and some whitefish and stuff and then it was mid morning and we had to call it and head for home. So that's what we're doing now.
Another successfully trip I'd call it. We had some action the first couple days fishing, then we got to see the 2-300 pounders boiling around(unfortunately none would bite but they were there), and then we had some great action on wahoo and tuna, and then we finished her off up above getting action on the yellers. We'll be unloading at 6:30 tomorrow morning, and like I said, we'll be tied up for a while. So it's that time.
It's time to write this. I write this at the end of every season. I should just copy and paste it every year because it's the same, as it should be. I'd just like to thank everyone who fished with us this year and in previous years on behalf of myself, the crew, and all the way to Tommy and Susan from the bottom of our hearts. You're what keep us going year after year. You're the reason we can take care of ourselves and our families. You're why we can enjoy life off of the boat and on the boat. You make our world go round. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's been a fantastic year. We'll see you all at upcoming fishing shows and on future trips. See you around.
Drew and crew
