I wanted to spice of this trip a bit for the dedicated jig fisherman led by Paul from JPR Custom Rods and his friends plus Mike and Paul that joined us yesterday. We were pleased to have Capt Gene Quigley form Shore Catch Charters join us to see how we target and catch the bigger bluefin off the Southern NJ, MD and VA shores each summer. Capt Gene is writing an article for a national salt water fishing magazine about the summer bluefin fishing and hope we offered him what he was looking for on this trip. I might add that many of you reading this post know Capt Gene from his inshore charter operations up in North Jersey and this was the first time we actually met in person and I cannot say what a quality and nice person Gene is. We talked for hours up on the bridge about fishing along with many other things from our boyhood years and I thoroughly enjoyed our time together.
We both were laughing quietly while up on the bridge to ourselves as our jigs guys took turns on the bit slob bluefin we fought trolling that had to be over 200 lbs as it was one was a very nice fish. I believe it ripped at least a few hundred yards of line with 42 lbs of drag on a bent butt 130 and was much stronger than the 70 inch 204 lb bluefin we caught last August. It really came close to pulling almost as hard as some of 73-78 inch bluefin we have caught down in Morehead City, NC in the winter. It was a good fish. We lost if right at the boat when it chewed through the 130 lb fluorocarbon leader minutes before we were going to stick it with the harpoon. I have seen this happen before on bigger tuna when using leaders under 200 lbs and have even seen 220 lb leaders chewed through on occasion as the leader does not break but tuna have teeth that can chew through leaders when the fight drags out even with up to 50 lbs of drag. Last year we used 130 lb leader all season and caught a decent number of bluefins over 150 lbs trolling and behind scallop boats and never lost a fish do to leader failure but this one yesterday was one of the biggest and most powerful one I have personally encountered in our local waters to date. My best guess is was in the 210-225 lb range. If anyone should catch a slob bluefin with an Ilander in its mouth and an Owner 8/0 JOBO Big Game hook well it might just be the fish we lost yesterday.
We did hook up another one right away which ate and a planer line on the surface 150 feet behind the boat before we had a chance to attach it to the number 32 Old Salty Planner rigged with 200 lb Jerry Brown Spectra put out 100 feet behind the boat. This was nice fish in the 100 lb range or a little bigger but nowhere near the first one we lost and we released it as we thought for sure we would have another chance at a much bigger fish the way the troll bite started out yesterday. We thought we had it the mother lode of bigger bluefin from what I saw on the fishfinder but at around 9:00 am they seemed to suddenly disappear and we were never able to find the tuna again the rest of the day IN ANY VAST NUMBERS LIKE WE DID AT DAYBREAK. This again brought back thoughts of winter GBT fishing down in Morehead City as if you do not get them early you probably will not get them at all. Do not know that this is absolutely true up off the Mid-Atlantic Coast but it seemed that way yesterday.
At this point in retrospect is where I made a mistake as the captain yesterday and should have taken the trolling gear in and started jigging right away instead of continuing trolling while the fish and bait were thick where we fished but I had mixed feeling about dropping jigs down with the equipment most of the guys had onboard on this trip as the tuna I were marking were big and my fishfinder looked a lot like what we see when giant fishing down in MHC. I do honestly believe there are some real nice size ones out there right now and special jigging gear is needed to fight tuna over 200 lbs standup and was not sure if we had this strong a gear on board today. That should not of mattered as the only way is to try and so what if we lost a fish or two and a couple of jigs and I regret now not putting the trolling gear away sooner. My game plan was to try and catch one in the 200 lbs range using our heavy duty trolling gear and then immediately move inshore and let the guys do catch and release on the 70-100 lb tuna which are perfect jig and chunk fish. I thought the chances of catching one legal less than 47 inches were much better than inshore than where we hooked up the big slob trolling.
The exact location where we found the tuna bunched up in the water column with tons of sand eels was in the deeper water where we used to Mako fish years ago outside the 30 fathom line so but is safe to say the general area is south of the Tea Cup to down quite a few miles to the south. This whole general area has been holding bigger tuna lately caught mostly trolling and this was our first trip down there this season but I we will be going back there as early as this coming Friday as I know my charter wants a chance of catching a bigger bluefin. I will mention there still seems to be some nice size fish inshore but it seemed on yesterday's trip the tuna are not as concentrated as a few weeks ago but I could be wrong on this and may be thinning out some lately. I think after reflecting on the trip that I made a mistake and continued to troll longer than I should have but the way the bite started out I was thought we would definitely get another couple of shots at a few big ones trolling. I should have been more charter customer friendly as this group was very jig orientated and should started jigging right after we lost the big one when I was marking them thick under the boat instead of putting the trolling gear back out even though we did catch and release one around 100 lbs trolling right away. I think it would have been a much greater thrill to see the guys battle one of these slobs on a jig and who knows what the outcome would have been. They were the ones paying for the charter and it is my responsibility to accommodate them and have been thinking about this ever since and would have done things differently it we ran a similar trip again but I was sure we could move inshore and do well on jigs the rest of the day but this never happened.
We did boat a 90 lb tuna but it was hooked by my mate on sardine fishing on the bow away from the jiggers fishing at the stern of the boat. It seemed for us at least the sardines may have been the bait of choice today inshore and we worked the Hambone and Massey's hard with only one bite on jigs. Has I mentioned earlier I think the bluefin inshore tuna bite may have thinned out a bit compared to the last few weeks when we got up to 10-15 bites on jigs and sardines and could not find a tuna under 47 inches on almost all our trips. I might note it is pathetic what the present economy has done to the fishing industry as we hardly see any other charter boats out this season compared to past years and almost everywhere we went we had the hills almost all to ourselves which is a good thing for fishing but not for the many fine charter boats sitting at the dock. It is no big secret where these bigger bluefin over 175 lbs are now but you will have to run further and deeper to find them and you are not going to boat many of these fish on 40-50 light leaders as most of the chunking fleet is currently using unless you chase the fish by going on the ball and then you will have to be extremely lucky and good to get one over 65 inches.
On our next trip when the weather allows us to get out to where the bigger tuna are I am going to have jigs ready to drop as soon as I see the big ones on the color machine and have the jigs on either a Shimano Tiagra 16 loaded with 80 lb JB Spectra or maybe even a Tiagra 50 on a custom stand-up rod. (Probably a cardinal sin in the mind of true jig fisherman) I just got my first Shimano Saragosa F 1800 spinning reels from John at Tackle Direct and Paul from JPR Custom Rods supplied me with multiple spools of the 60 lb OTI colored coded spectra plus three OTI jigging rods and will be shipping me the 80 lb line shortly. I really look forward to trying out this new equipment on our next trips and later this season in the canyons on the night bite on yellowfins. I love the idea of tuna on a spinning reel with super light powerful rods and continue to learn more about jigging and the great equipment that is now available.
PS: I know that very big tuna are caught over 200 lbs on jigging gear by the most experienced jig fisherman and it can be done and I plan to my best to at least hook up a few of these larger tuna on jigs even if we find that the gear we have on board is not up to jigging these size tuna. The largest bluefin every caught on a jig on the old HOOKED UP was 5 years ago using a bent butt custom short rod with a 80 reel and it took the angler almost 2 hours to get the tuna which went 156 lbs. Almost everyone that fishes with us is fairly new to jigging and have just recently purchased their new jigs, rods and reels but everyone talks about upgrading their equipment and adding new jigs to their arsenal as their finances allow and I know I have already requested that a Shimano Stella Spinning reel be a top priority of my Christmas gift list this year.
Capt. John Sowerby
Caveman Sportfishing Charters
Cell 609 425-1970
www.cavemansportfishing.com
