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On the way out yesterday morning I was thinking that it would be next to impossible to duplicate or best Sunday's trip but we did yesterday. (Monday) We did not hear or talk to anyone all the way out in the dark yesterday morning as we departed Cape May at around 3:00 am and what a contrast to Saturday when we had dozens of boats all around us on the way out to the inshore bluefin grounds. We were thankful the nasty fog was not present as it was on the Sunday's trip but we did have a very large line of storms inland from us and I thought for sure at some time in the morning we were going to get hammered while we were tuna fishing on yesterday. I might add we have the feature of live storm tracking and sea temperatures on our new Raymarine electronic equipment and it helped us run around some nasty cells last week and have found the information I can get while offshore to be invaluable. We actually kept others that fished by us the progress of the line of storms yesterday morning which more or less broke up when they crossed the Delaware Bay and colder inshore waters or moved north of us. Very nice features and highly recommend this to anyone when if they are considering upgrading their electronics. When we arrived on our hill that we have been fishing since Saturday there was only one boat on it so we anchored about a 1/4 mile away and for the rest of the morning we had it all to ourselves. We fished a feet shallower today in about 122 feet with 76-77 degree water temps and only used butterfish, sardines and jigs. The jigs out caught the bait 5-1 today and we only had our lines in a minute or two and we had fish on over 100 lbs. It continued that way all morning with a few slow periods mixed in and then the tuna would show up all of a sudden and we had multiple hook ups. On one of the larger tuna it took our charter one hour and 20 minutes with up to 28 lbs of drag and we never even saw color for over an hour on this fish. Trust me there are some really big tuna swimming around right now up and down the 20 fathom lumps but leave the wimpy rods home at home as some of these fish will generally overpower or burn out all by the finest offshore tackle or worst if there should be crowds like on weekend you will end up under someone’s boat or anchor line which we have experienced in the past on tuna over 150 lbs. With only two of us boats anchored on the lump yesterday a very large fish was cut off by a boat running to canyons that came way to close and probably did not even realize what they did but a little curiosity would have been in order as there was not any boats around us for over 3 miles yesterday. On Saturday trip we arrived and saw the number of boats all anchored on top of each other and I thought I want no part of this and preceded to run to another lump which had no one around us for over mile and within minutes we had a 3 tuna on and it was that way a good part of the morning but these were all smaller fish in the 45-50 inch range but there were lots of them. I put the call to my charter buddies as we had at least 6-8 fish right away and told them about the hot bite and they figured out where we were and came to us and immediately they got into the fish as we were. Well within a hour or two so we had boat anchored all around us and we could have thrown a football into their cockpits they were so close and we even had one boat hook our anchor line when they tried to anchor in front of us know more than a 100 feet of our bow. I have seen this happen so many times before and am kind of used to it by now and as long as we get our fish for our charters I just live with it and it probably will never change. All of our fish on Saturday were in the 43-51 inch range so we were able to handle them without much problem but this is not case on the fish we had on Sunday and yesterday's trip. These fish are much larger in the middle 60 inch range with at least a few over 70 inches and 200 lbs plus. They will stretch you out with up to 30 lbs of drag a couple hundred yards on the initial run so it is to your benefit not to anchor real close another boat and you will lose your fish almost certainly if you do. We marked tuna over a 2 mile area yesterday morning and have fished on different numbers on all our last 3 trips and had tremendous fishing on all these trips. As been said many times go find your own little lump with sand eels like we did Saturday morning and you will catch bluefin and you do not have to anchor or drift in the fleet to catch fish. Matter of fact we are going early am on Wednesday morning and I am already planning on looking at some other lumps that are 5-6 miles away from this location as we need are always looking as the tuna do move as the bait moves. I will be getting my new jigging rods from Paul (JPR Custom Rods) next week which will provide me with the type of rods needed to jig as we are now using custom rods and jigging rods that are not really up to the task of handling these size fish without beating the our anglers up. If you do get the chance to get on some of these size tuna you will experience firsthand that quality jigging rods make fighting these fish caught on jigs a much easier task. The rods made for jigging only allow the jigs to depart the action that attract the tuna and our rods on board now do work as the fish are so thick now but I cannot imagine how many we would be catching if we could work our jigs like custom jigging rods allow us to do. We are now on a fast track learning curve and are able to try out many different techniques and equipment to make us better at jigging and with the bite so good right now this has really helped us and our charters gain new knowledge of jigging. If you can get out with a private boat or any of the fine charters in our area I think almost everyone will really enjoy themselves jigging these tuna and you will have sore back and arms and you can take that to the bank.
We were very pleased to have on board yesterday from the USAF Sgt. David Morrow, Sgt. Andrew Benedictus and from the US Army Sgt Nate Liebtag who are headed to the middle East shortly. We honor those men and women who serve our country and happy to be able to give them a few hours of fun and enjoyment fishing before they are deployed plus on yesterday's trip a few hours of shear pain while they took turns fighting this fish for well over an hour
Picture of the guys with thier dads and a freind with the a bluefin we kept early in the trip but others were released or lost that were this size or bigger. The best part was everyone including the crew had a great day fishing and we all kind of forgot at least for a few hours about all of life's issues and that in my mind is the best part of charter fishing and not too many professions can offer that while doing their jobs. I might add we busted off a bunch of really big tuna on sardines as we could not get a bite on any leader over 50 lbs and it is a task getting these size fish to the boat on light leaders. We have not been able to find any fish even close to under 47 inches where we have been fishing the last few days as they are all big and in most cases nasty and if they eat a jig it is one awesome experience and hope all that read this post will have the oppurtunity to try this in the near future but be ready for some sore backs and arms no matter how good a tuna fisherman you are.
PS: We have a few open dates late next week but are booked up for the every day in late July and early August and will try to do a least a couple of small party make-up trips if we do not get booked for regular charters so check with us if you would like to fish on the 55 Hooked UP II next week to get in on this excellent tuna bite. We will be really tied up from Wednesday thru Saturday fishing the Mid-Atlantic Tuna Tournament and Capt Diana will try to answer any questions via e-mail for me over the next few days.
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Originally Posted by swell rider
