Bluefin Madness on the Polaris Supreme – Part 1
This is one that had been in the works for a while now and let me say that if taking a 5 day deep sea fishing trip out of San Diego to hammer giant bluefin tuna doesn’t get your blood pumping, I don’t know what will. This has all the makings of an epic lifetime experience.
Despite our Uber driver’s recommendation to hit the Red Lobster and nearby strip club we paid our obligatory visit to In and Out Burger and our tour of Mexico (aka tequila shots) on the night of arrival. We were fired up to start our journey on the Polaris Supreme and fortunately Michael and RJ had taken trips on the Polaris before and knew what kind of experience it offered.
The area around the dock has a really cool feel of a fishing village which is a nice contrast to the eclectic and grungy area of San Diego that we stayed in just around the airport complete with insane traffic and hallucinating homeless people. When we got to Seaforth Landing, we checked in with Lindsay with the Polaris Supreme and got our 8,000 lbs of equipment ready to go. The Polaris is a 95 foot vessel that can house up to 24 fisherman plus crew and the accommodations are comfortable and the boat is well maintained and clean.
We received our briefing on the toilet (which was more detailed than I expected) and then the Captain came and spoke to us about what we’d be doing and spoke about some specifics on the riggings and baits we’d use. There were essentially four setups we’d use: 1) for big bluefin a big game rod that we’d fish 300-500g knife jogs on at night with ~200 lb leader, 2) for yellowfin 4-10 oz sinker rigs with 80 lb leader and 2/0 circle hooks, 3) for foamers 60-80 lb fluorocarbon leaders with a popper or sniper bait, 4) for flatlining 30/40 lb fluorocarbon. He seemed like a no bullshit kind of guy and was pretty direct with us when we told us about how we’d be fishing in the middle of the night some and it wasn’t going to be some kind of casual recreational experience. Basically it was time to get ready for war.
We spent the next few hours travelling towards our fishing spot for the evening and prepping our gear. While we travelled, we were served an incredible lunch that was a chicken dish that was fine dining restaurant quality. Michael had told me the food was excellent but it definitely exceeded my expectations.
Our fishing would start near San Clemente Island in the evening. Specifically, northwest of the island where reports from the night before of schools of tuna had been caught. Shortly after dinner and while still in daylight we arrived at our first spot. Most of us started with either free-lining or using a sinker and live bait. Within a few minutes of us arriving Michael hooked up with a bluefin on his free-line which ended up being a 80 lb fish. Great way to kick off the trip and was a precursor for the success that was ahead of us.
A few more fish were boated before dusk but with limited frequency but as the sun went down, everyone on the boat per the captain’s instructions switched to jigs in the 300-500g range and that’s where things really caught fire. At most spots we hit we’d catch a few but there were some spots we caught 10+ fish with the biggest for the night weighing in at around 100 lbs. The report from the night before had said they had really started to catch them at around 3am so we were prepared for the long haul of the night. While most of the people on the boat fished until the early hours of the morning, only a dedicated few stuck with it and fished until dawn. By morning’s light we had boated 63 excellent quality bluefin and were whooped in about every inch of our bodies.
