8/10-11 -- Hudson Overnighter

[norter79]

After slow fishing in the Toms on Monday we decided to try our luck in the Hudson on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We arrived at the west elbow and had more bait than I've seen in a while. We saw a tailing blue marlin that wouldn't take a bait. Whales, dolphins, birds and fresh slicks occupied the area as if confined by underwater fences. But we couldn't get a tuna to bite.

Headed down to the southwest corner and saw little bait but we did run some fish over. Marked a pile of fish down 80 feet and quickly had 4 fish on. They were all small but all were big enough for the box. As quickly as the excitement started, it ended.

Worked back up to where we put lines in and spent the night drifting the west wall in 1000 feet. The current had us following the edge perfectly.

We boated a 50" swordfish after a short fight. The fish hit a squid on a balloon bait and we knew it was there when the light tipped over.

Around 1:30am we had a massive run-off. Fought it thinking it was a sword for about 45 minutes and then the hook pulled. When the bait and leader came back untouched and unscathed we figured it was probably a manta ray as they'd been swimming through the lights all night.

The morning troll didn't happen. We trolled in to thousands of birds, dolphins and dozens of whales. Again, no tuna took our baits. Frustrating to say the least.

Ended up tilefishing then fishing the pots for dolphins and had a couple of really nice ones.

[Big Jay]

Wow man. That's not good. Thanks for the report though.

Were you guys running anything deep? Any downrigger baits or trolling plugs?