This report is directly from Capt. DeBlasio

On our Sept 12-13 trip with the John Deno charter, we were scheduled to leave around 3pm, but the persistent east wind around 20kts had us rethink our plan. With the night bite being slow, a good forecast for the following day and a decent troll bite , we decided to do an extended day trip instead of cancelling.

The group was already at the boat, so we loaded their gear and they got rested up for a 2:30am leave. Our plan was to hit the bluefin grounds at first light, then the canyon for the rest of the day. At first light we started to set out our spread and by the time we had two baits in the water, we were tight on a fish. This one came fairly quickly and was a nice 40lb under. Shortly after resetting the spread we were tight again and put our over in the boat. This continued on for the next few hours, never going more then a few minutes without a bite. By 7:45 we were wrapping it up and heading offshore to look for some other species of tuna. I jokingly said to my crew as we headed off that I would like to wait until just after lunch to get the bigeye

We set out around 9:15 am and started the hunt .. working in the same area I had fished the day before I didnt see the same signs, so we worked our way into a slightly different area. Soon we saw a whale and huge red blobs of bait on the screen. During this time some of the group was on the bridge chatting and asked me about bigeye. I said we had caught some this season, but there hadnt been a big bite this year like the last few seasons.

With that, I was talking with a friend working in a different area. He had trolled some yellowfin that morning and then told me he was marking bigeyes. As I was responding to him (still watching the spread) I saw one of my favorite scenes offshore and what keeps me hungry when things are slow ... the wolfpack. Our short flat went first, the the center rigger bait that I had just reeled in to check and was hanging in the wash.. then explosions on most of our 11 rod spread .. when the smoke cleared 5 rods were getting dumped. One came off in the first minute and we settled in with the other four.

My anglers went to work and one by one we worked them closer. First one to hit the deck goes around 140lbs, second one around 150lbs, third one we have color on and 30 feet from the gaff and the hook pulls .. on to number four and dart him and pull him throught the door ..170lbs of pure muscle.

Lots of happy, tired anglers that are now thinking about tilefish. I am slightly bigeye obsessed, so we reset the spread and work to the tilefish grounds just getting one miss on the spreader bar.

With light winds, we had perfect condidtions for bottom fishng and started our first drift. Condidtions were awesome and we stayed on that drift for the next hour catching 12 tilefish up to 35lbs to finish up what turned out to be one of the best day trips I have ever done





This is from our Saturday-Sunday Open Boat Trip