Bluefin Bloodbath on the Polaris Supreme – Part 2
Day 1 was a day we put the hammer to them pretty good and when the last few of us went to bed at dawn, our respite would be a brief one. Especially for Michael and I who shared a room that was located right off the galley and adjacent to the fishing deck. It was also perfectly placed next to the bathroom, whose door opens and closes loudly about 20 times an hour as well as the speaker for the captain’s announcements. In the case of this morning, those announcements would be frequent but at least for good reason.
The morning was filled with foamers, which if you are not familiar with tuna fishing, is when a school of tuna are feeding at the top on bait fish. It’s wild and hyper-aggressive and it really an unbelievable site to see. The captain announced he was pulling up to foamer after foamer and I simply couldn’t help myself so after about an hour and a half of sleep I slogged myself out of bed for the excitement that we were about to behold.
Catching tuna off a foamer is fucking amazing. Because they are feeding so aggressively you are casting a plug into the school and they often crush the lure you throw at them. It’s an adrenaline rush of epic proportions to fish for 30-100 lb fish this way and we did so for several hours until the foamer bite slowed. Using this approach, we were collectively able to land about a dozen topwater fish. A few more fish were mixed in there on other methods but by dinnertime we were at 78 fish for the trip in a little less than 24 hours fishing. A hell of a damn start for sure.
Dinner brought us another incredible meal with an unbelievable pork chop prepared by our chef. I really can’t tell you how much the quality of the food on the Polaris Supreme impresses you but I’m a guy that thinks a snickers bar and a coke is a completely reasonable “meal” on a fishing trip. After busting your ass catching tuna a great meal is definitely a welcomed thing and really enhances the whole experience.
With a full belly, I knocked off for a nap before the fishing bonanza that was about to unfold. When doing a multi-day fishing charter like this I definitely suggest sneaking in a few naps when you can. Got to keep those batteries charged.
When I awoke it was near dusk and we started to transition into the jig bite as the sun set. Shortly after we got into the jig bite we were able to land a few decent quality bluefin. We continued to pick up a one or a two here and there and then near midnight things took a mind-blowing and frenetic turn. One of the spots we hit let us pick up a dozen fish and included a few 100 lb fish in the batch. For a while it was hectic with lines crossing over a few times. Altogether it was a pretty great stop but what came next was a moment of a lifetime.
The very next spot we hit was complete and utter motherfucking pandemonium. From the moment we dropped on the spot, multiple guys at a time were hooking up with bluefin giants and it was pure beautiful chaos. For the next two hours, we fought monster after monster that were anywhere between 100-200 lbs with a majority of them going in the 150 territory. Dudes were running all over the boat chasing fish and getting their assess handed to them while the deck hands scrambled with incredible skill to take rods over, under, through, untie knots and take care of whatever the fuck happened to the lines as this completely out of control scenario was controlled with expert deck hands ultimately gaffing these giants over the side of the boat. While this chaos continued, massive tuna flopped and kicked blood everywhere and fisherman battled these monsters with everything they had in their bodies. After two hours of epic battling the entire back section of the boat was covered in fish blood and our boat’s fisherman stood in awe struck disbelief after getting absolutely physically ruined. The catch at the end of the spot was littered with behemoth bluefins with 15 of them in total and only one or two under 100 lbs. It was a moment that we’ll all take with us to the grave as one of the most adrenaline pumping and thrilling moments of our lives and is the moment that we all came for. But we weren’t done by a long stretch.
