Not a good report from Wilmington yesterday as the water warmed up to 77 degrees

That great yellowfin bite may be coming to a quick end now as we fished the Wilmington yesterday from about 5:30 am until around 4:00 pm on a very long day troll trip. We had lots little skippies and some rat yellowfins early in the morning in 72.7 water up right up by the tip of the Wilmington in 60-90 fathoms with tons of bait everywhere. The boat right by us got couple of nice 60 lb fish around 7:00 am but after that is was all short rat yellowfins with none over 30 inches for them as well as us.

We worked our way down the east wall to the notch and out into 500 fathoms and where there
had been 72-73 degree water earlier in the morning with a pretty good bite for some boats in the cooler water but when the these piece of warm water moved in (up to 77 degrees) in just a few hours and that pretty much was it for every boat I talked to yesterday. Some boats went over the west wall and found a little cooler water around 75 degrees but did not hear of any type of tune bite over there either. We tried for a little while looking for a marlin bite in the 77 degree water out to about 400 fathoms and this piece of water looked pretty decent for a marlin fishing and seems to be pushing
towards the NW from I determined yesterday but it really shut down the tuna fishing for many of us yesterday afternoon. (Wed June 25).

With this warm water moving the Mahi-Mahi bite should be getting real good and we had one trolling plus we found one pot that had some on it and bailed a few with spinners before leaving to go back to Cape May. Lots of lobster pots out there on east wall so I expect with this warm water it will be attracting many of these over the next few days. Overall in my opinion it looked like some pretty decent white marlin water but with no hard edge I am not too encouraged the great tuna bite will continue out in the Wilmington and hope I am wrong about this. Almost all the boats that I know of that had great trips the last week or so fished the cooler water around 71 degrees but that water is now 75 degrees or more and not one boat we talked to yesterday could find water anywhere near that by early afternoon as the warm water that pushed in pretty well covered up the whole east side of the Wilmington including the east side flats.

I know of one boat overnighting last night and we will see how they do this morning on the troll. It might be time to save on the fuel and start inshore bluefin fishing but I would prefer to fish the canyons for a while before starting for bluefins as we have all summer to do this.

PS: I might add we tried every known spread known to mankind looking for the bigger tuna in over 40 lbs which included at least 10 or so different colors and types of spreader bars, tuna clone lures, small chuggers, Sea witches, Ilanders with all sizes of ballyhoo from small to large mediums both naked and with lures in front of them and nothing worked for us when it came to raising any yellowfin over 25 lbs. I trolled from 5-7 knots and changed colors all day long plus every other trick I know to find of but it did not work for us as all we could raise were the rats

Capt. John Sowerby

Caveman Sportfishing Charters

Cell 609 425-1970

www.cavemansportfishing.com