With great anticipation we headed out from Cape May late Monday with the Southern Carteret, Lindy or Spencer in mind depending which one had the best water. We opted to look at the Carteret first but did not like what we saw so headed down to the NE corner of the Lindy where we heard reports of 68-69 degree water but could not find this water so in the dark we moved further SW to half way between the Lindy and Spencer where we did find 67-68 degree water and set up there about 7:30 pm Tuesday night. This turned out to be a mistake as we heard of a couple of big eyes and a few nice 80 lb yellowfins caught up around the Lindy and absolutely no tuna down where we fished except a couple of Longfins on jigs by a boat by us. One reason we decided to move south was there were reports of long liners gear tangled up in lobster pots in the Lindy and we did not want any part of this so we moved down to the Spencer. As it turned out there we three long liners laying gear down in the Spencer and one came very close to us in the middle of the night a few times and I talked to him on the radio to make sure we were okay where we fishing but decided at around 1:30 am to move few miles inshore to get away from his gear as we came very close to one of his high flyers and just wanted not to have to deal with this. We were fishing out in the deep close to 400-500 fathoms for the first half of the night trying for swords & a mako and had planned to move back to the 100 Fathom edge around 3:00 am to and start tuna fishing as we had heard most of the tuna caught lately was from about 3:30 am on. We opted to drift since for most of the night it was slick calm. This would turn out to be a (drifting) another mistake later in the night when the winds picked up to at least 25 knots from the NE when that nasty thunderstorm approached which was totally unexpectedly about 4:00 am or so. We missed the worst of part of the storm as it passed about 20 miles north of us but we did get some nasty NE winds up around 25 knots with honest 5-6 feet seas about 4-5 seconds apart. Fun, fun, fun night especially with nothing biting.

We had only one tuna bite all night and broke it off when the light leader parted. We think it was a tuna but it could have been anything. That was it for us and as well as most boats we talked to during the night. There was no early am tuna bite that we were all hoping and we only heard of two Yellowfins caught around 7:00 pm Monday evening and nothing after from any boats we talked to all night into the early morning. Very long night with some pretty nasty weather and seas starting around 4:00 am Tuesday morning.

I heard from another captain late Tuesday afternoon that the boats heading yesterday were going south to the warmer water down between the Wilmington and Baltimore and try there Tuesday night. I hope they find the tuna plus I have not heard from any boats that fished to the north in the Hudson Monday night. I will continue to run offshore trips as long as there are tuna around and I honestly feel it is not over yet and we should see some excellent tuna fishing over the next few weeks but it might be more south from the Baltimore, Poormans and Washington canyons. We have two or three regular charters still wanting to get out plus we will do some make-up trips for small parties if the weather is okay and the tuna are within range. We hope to fish offshore at least the first couple of weeks of November if possible.

PS: The absolute high point of the night of the trip was the food provided by DiAntonio’s Catering from Philadelphia and I personally never ate so good on any fishing trip in my entire 25 years’ of canyon fishing. Pastas, pork rolls , jumbo shrimp, veal-chicken cutlets ECT while watching the baseball playoffs areas on our Satellite TV. The charter were from the NY, NY area but die hard Mets fans so watching the Yankees lose while eating some of the best food short of taking a luxury cruise ship trip made for a fun evening but unfortunately the tuna and swords did not cooperate along with the weather gods when it turned somewhat nasty in the early am.