October 26, 2010

TUNA FISHING on our last trip was like 'the good old days'. We anchored up around midnight and immediately started to catch some squid. We hooked a Swordfish in the first ten minutes of fishing, but lost the fish pretty quickly. We had our first TUNA on at about 3:45 AM, but it was lost just outside of gaffing range due to a rig malfunction. At about 4:45 AM, the Tuna started coming under the boat in large schools. One on, two on, three on! For the next two hours, we constantly had fish on with the majority being 60 to 70 pound YELLOWFIN. By about 7:30 AM the fish backed off a bit, but we still hooked a couple every 15-20 minutes.

During the day, there were a few LONGFIN mixed in with the YELLOWFIN. Most of the Tuna were caught down deep with squid or sardine baits and only a couple of Tuna were caught on jigs. Jeff Musoff of Manahawkin, NJ and my dad, Larry Gutman of Manhattan tied for high hook honors; each wound up with three YELLOWFIN and two LONGFIN apiece. Many other anglers had two or three fish apiece. And a special congratulation goes out to young Timmy Valente of Malvern, PA who landed his first Tuna, a beautiful 60 pound YELLOWFIN.

This has certainly been some of the best fishing we have seen in recent years. The VOYAGER will be sailing for Tuna for the remainder of October and into November. If the good fishing continues, we will be adding more Tuna trips to our November schedule. We may even add a short notice/nice weather trip during the week so keep an eye on your emails. For a complete listing of upcoming trips you can check out our Trip Calendar.

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our last TILEFISH trip due to bad weather. Although we would like to reschedule the trip, the fall weather is becoming a problem and the good weather windows are becoming very slim. We will likely wait and do a 'short notice' TILEFISH TRIP when we see some nice weather coming a couple of days in advance. As mentioned above, keep an eye on your emails.

We start mixing some SEA BASS Trips into the schedule starting next week. On Monday November 1, we have a 10-hour SEA BASS MARATHON leaving at 7:00 AM. This trip is open boat and the fare is $75.

On the weekends, we will be sailing from 7:30 AM to 3:00 PM for SEA BASS. The wrecks should have a good amount of fish built up on them after the three week season closure.

Just a reminder, we are currently booking OFFSHORE JUMBO SEA BASS TRIPS which start Thursday night November 18 at 11:00 PM. As it stands now, the offshore SEA BASS season will only be open through December 31.

If you are interested in any upcoming TUNA or OFFSHORE JUMBO SEA BASS trips, please e-mail us.

Captain Jeff Gutman
VOYAGER
P.O. Box 1329
Point Pleasant Beach, NJ 08742
http://www.voyagerfishing.com
Call us at 732-295-3019