Canyon Runner Reports - 7/16-17 - 15 Tuna at Massey's

[Canyon Runner]

Captain Phil Dulanie and Captain Mark DeCabia with mate Mike Zajac took the Gavin Coman charter down to Massey's Canyon on the Canyon Runner Monday night to Tuesday night. They looked over 19 Fathom Lump first and moved on when they did not read much bait. They arrived at Massey's at 6am and did a couple drifts before finding the fish. Up on the top of the lump in 95 feet of water they found them and started a nice bite bringing 15 bluefin to the boat with 1 over 47 inches and almost every other at 45” or 46”. All the tuna were caught on butterfish worked back in the slicked with 40 pound flouro and circle hooks without any weight. Despite catching a bunch of bluefin on jigs so far this year none were caught on jigs yesterday. They also released a brown shark.

A great point that someone mentioned to me yesterday and needs to be stressed regarding the jigs is while we first deploy hammered diamond jigs with treble hooks, once we have our limit, we take the treble hooks out of the water and deploy only circle hook hammered diamond jigs. This makes releasing them through the door much easier and less stress and damage on the tuna plus avoids snagging any.

[Bert Rodgers]

Tell me about bringing them aboard for a release with 40# leaders.

Bert

[Canyon Runner]

Bert - we don't bring them aboard when we get them on the chunk. The way we release them on the chunk is even better for the fish as it is never touched by human hands and its body is never taken out of the water.

We bring them alongside of the boat and cut the leader off right at the hook. It is not a stainless hook so if it does not fall out (which it usually does once the pressure is off it) it will rust out quickly. Most importantly, since we only use circle hooks when chunking, 95% of the time the hook is right in corner of the mouth.

As I am sure you know, all the research done with respect to White Marlin shows that any fish caught on a circle hook has minimal if any damage and a substantial chance of survival.