By: Ryan Christianson
With the fishing as good as it had been all summer, I was more than a little excited to get the opportunity to host our annual Let’s Talk Hook Up four day aboard Tommy Rothery’s beautiful Polaris Supreme. With the prospects of awesome yellow fin fishing and shots at some nice grade blue fin I geared up accordingly. I brought everything from 25 to 60lb test. As we are heading out our Captain Drew told us to get ready because we would be fishing that afternoon. As we pulled up to the bait receiver we were greeted with a beautiful load of sardines from Evringham Brothers. After loading bait we were off.
By 3:00 PM on departure day we were already pulling on a beautiful grade of yellow fin tuna. Needless to say we had a fantastic first day of fishing on 15-30lb yellow fin tuna and were about half way done with our trip limits. May I remind you that this was our departure day! I realized at this point that we were in for a special trip. They were biting live bait very well, as well as yoyo jigs, and even some on the skip jig. The visuals on the skip jig made the trip for me. We drifted that evening in beautiful weather on the yellow fin grounds and woke up to biting fish the next morning. We were finished with our yellow fin by about noon and spent the rest of the day traveling to the blue fin grounds.
After traveling that afternoon we got one shot at the nice grade of blue fin and hooked one. Unfortunately that fish came unbuttoned. After that Drew told us that we were going to travel to a different blue fin zone and be fishing in the morning. All morning we ran on spots of blue fin that would not come to the boat. Finally in the afternoon we got on a school that wanted to play. We plunked away at a beautiful grade of 30-60 pound blue fin for about 5 hours and put together a nice score of some beautiful grade blue fin. For these fish 40lb test was a necessity, and my Talica 10 2speed performed flawlessly. As that school waned it was just about dark and time to move up to the Cortez bank to make some bait an anchor up for the night. The final day of the trip was spent blue fin watching with a few biters in the mix. The blue fin pulled their typical blue fin shenanigans that day and put on a great show with very little go.
One thing that has stood out to me every time I have been out on the Polaris Supreme is the quality of the operation. Captain Drew Henderson and his crew exhibit a level of professionalism and friendliness that is second to none. Drew worked very hard to put us on fish while his crew did a fantastic job at minimizing tangles and helping everybody land fish. They were all very good at explaining the routine to everybody and were also very personable. They really made an effort to make everybody feel welcome no matter what their skill level was. They made sure that everybody had an opportunity to catch a beautiful blue fin and get their fill on yellow fin. All the while everybody was walking around in a bit of a food coma from all of the great food being pumped out of the galley all day. Half of the time I was so full that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help myself when things like Fillet Mignons covered in crab béarnaise sauce, prime rib, and seafood pasta were flowing out of the galley the whole trip. It amazes me the quality of food that the chefs are able to produce in such a small workspace. It really is impressive and if you went home hungry after this trip it was your own fault.
