Tahiti Dry Season Fishing: Tuna, Trevally, and Perfect Light Windows

This is Artificial Lure with your Tahiti fishing report. Out here around Tahiti and Moorea, we’re sitting in the dry season: cooler nights, warm days, trade winds mostly from the east-southeast. Expect light to moderate trades, 10–15 knots, a bit fresher on the outer reef and channels. Skies are partly cloudy with the usual passing showers on the windward side, clearer on the leeward coasts. Sunrise was around twenty after five this morning, with sunset around ten to six this evening. That gives us long, useable light at both ends of the day. Tides today are running a typical mixed semidiurnal pattern: a higher high in the early morning, dropping through mid-morning, then building again through late afternoon. The best bite windows will line up with that pre-dawn high and the late-afternoon push, especially where the current squeezes through reef passes. Pelagic activity offshore has been good. Local charter skippers out of Papeete Marina and Marina Taina have been reporting steady yellowfin tuna and skipjack on the FADs west and northwest of Tahiti, plus the odd bigeye mixed in. A few decent mahi-mahi and wahoo are still showing around current lines and drop-offs, and there’s always a shot at blue marlin if you’re working the deeper edges. For lures offshore, keep it simple: - Medium to large skirted trolling lures in purple–black, blue–silver, and green–yellow are producing tuna and marlin. - Smaller feather jigs and Christmas-tree rigs in pink or blue are doing the work on skipjack and smaller yellowfin. - If you’re chunking or live-baiting, small bonito, frigate mackerel, or live opelu-style baits bridled behind the boat are deadly when you mark fish midwater. Inshore, along the outer reef and lagoon edges, reef species are active on the moving tide. Expect bluefin trevally, giant trevally, and jobfish around passes and points where the current runs hard over structure. Inside the lagoon, look for emperors, goatfish, and assorted snapper over sand patches and coral heads. Best artificial offerings inshore: - Topwater stickbaits and poppers in 40–80 g for GT and bluefin trevally; white, bone, or sardine patterns are reliable. Work them early and late when the light is low. - 20–40 g metal jigs and soft plastics in natural baitfish colors bounced along drop-offs for jobfish and smaller trevally. - For bait, fresh squid strips, small cut mackerel, or chunks of bonito on light wire or strong fluorocarbon leaders will keep you busy on reef species. A couple of local hot spots to focus on: - The reef passes off the west side of Tahiti and the northern passes of Moorea. Anywhere the ocean pushes through a narrow cut, you’ll find trevally stacking up on the pressure edges during the incoming tide, with dogtooth and jobfish deeper down. Cast poppers upcurrent and sweep them back across the whitewater, or jig vertically just inside the drop. - The FADs and deep drop-offs west of Moorea and northwest of Tahiti. Trollers are finding yellowfin and mahi along weed lines and temperature breaks, especially where birds are working. Run a spread of skirted lures staggered at different distances, and keep one rod ready with a pitch bait or big stickbait for fish that suddenly show behind the boat. Night fishing inside the lagoon can be surprisingly good right now, especially around wharves and lighted structures: small jigs and baited sabiki rigs will pull in scad, small jacks, and an occasional surprise. Good option when the trades kick up outside. That’s your Tahiti fishing rundown from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn