Caveman Sportfishing Detailed Tuna Report from the Weekend on HOOKED UP with Pictures

[Caveman Sportfishing]

Here is a detailed report from our charter trips this weekend on the HOOKED UP. One of these trips was awesome and was about as good as it gets with trolling. There is no one place to troll as no single location is holding all the fish. Tuna have been caught up and down the line from the 19 fathom line down past the Hambone and out to the Hotdog. On Saturday we spent a short time working the 30 fathom line inside the Notch where we hooked up a big bluefin tuna but lost it when it pulled the hook. I predict that the boats fishing today (Monday) with the lower volume of boat traffic should have a banner day. There are just lots of tuna around now and they are getting bigger every day.
Sunday, July 8th, was an awesome trip with the Gene Doebley charter group from Somers Point, NJ that included Gene, his son Dave Doebley, Joe McDermott, Ken Portnoy, Voytek Stanislowski and in addition Christian Berger from France. We had intended to start at the Hambone on Sunday but the fog was really thick with minimal visibility. We had some great reports of a early am bite on Saturday at the 19 Fathom Lump that lasted only a short time but for at least one boat we know it was great. (Thank you, Capt Scotty on the Desilu). It always helps when anglers work together and we try to do the same.) So, due to the fog and the report of a bite there on Saturday, we started at the 19 Fathom Lump which is a little closer to Cape May. I usually don’t fish the 19 Fathom Lump as I have found through the years that the bigger slob 125-175 pound bluefin tuna seem to set up to the south or out along the 30 line and most of the ones caught at the 19 FL are usually somewhat smaller but still quality tuna and for many of our charters the slightly smaller tuna are much more back and arm friendly. We always leave it up to the charter about what size fish they want a shot at and, personally, I have always loved fishing this location thru the years but recently we have mostly gone a little further targeting the bigger fish.
We started on the SE side of the 19 Fathom Lump and worked our way NE towards the deeper water rather than trolling with the rest of the fleet that was concentrating towards the tip of the hill in shallower water. I believe each lump has a more productive area and we keep track of all these numbers. This worked out great on Sunday as almost no boats were catching but we had them pretty much non-stop for a few hours in the am. In fact I think we were limited out on bluefin before most of the boats we talked to on the radio had their first fish. There are two sets of drop offs to the east away from the main hill and that is where we caught most of our fish yesterday. The water depth where we caught all our fish was 138-175 feet which is no more than a few miles to the east of the highest point of the 19 Fathom Lump. A well known retired charter captain from Lewes. DE fished for tiger shark in this area many years ago and told me about his favorite location east of the lump and we have always fished this spot no matter where the fleet is working. There is a very similar spot on the Hambone and we had a massive amount of tuna and bait stacked up there on Saturday and did manage some nice dolphin chunking plus we had a few very good sized tuna that we lost on jigs. A few boats had some awesome tuna fishing at this location on the Hambone yesterday early am trolling. The Hambone, Dog and Dump Site, Massey’s are fairly good sized lumps but some parts of these hills far out produce others many times. Of course, boat traffic on weekends has a negative impact so I always move away from the fleet. On Saturday to get away from the boats we trolled east towards the 30 fathom line but had poor results out in the deeper water. Many times this works but not Saturday.
On Sunday we fished one line off each long rigger about 200 yards back with two flat lines about 250 yards back and one shot gun down the middle about 300 yards back. All had ballyhoo-Ilander combos purchased from South Jersey Marina in Cape May on this trip. All colors of Ilanders worked for us plus we caught just as many on the long riggers as the flat lines and the shot gun wwwwwwwww back. We also changed our set up for Sunday’s trip and went to smaller ballyhoos (medium with smaller 6/0 & 7/0 hooks). We had been using mostly large and horse ones with 9/0 or bigger hooks since that was the only thing the tuna were biting earlier in the week but over the last few days we had numerous short bites. We used 150 and 175 lb mono leaders with short 6 foot wind-ons. Everything is crimped with a small 200 lb wind-on bearing swivel between the leader and main line. Just about every rod caught fish yesterday and this is how it often works when the tuna are feeding on those days we all remember. Trolling south into the wind up the hill from deep to shallower water is where we got 90% of our bites and our speed never went more than 5.2 knots when trolling into the wind. I hope this information helps and I am not concerned about giving out information as the fish move every day to different locations. For example, last week we had tremendous fishing along the fingers from inside Massey’s down to above the Jack Spot but when we went there the next day the bite wasn’t there. The water had warmed up 3 degrees in 24 hours and that changed everything.
We have July 12,13,15 open this week for regular 6 person charters or possibly as least one day for a make-up tuna trip for small parties or singles. We should see some of those slob 100 lb plus fish any day now and we will be targeting them.
Here is a quote from a posting from Gene Doebley about yesterday’s trip:

“My son Dave and I were part of the crew for today's (7/8) open boat trip with Capt. John. He put us on fish quickly at first light and the action was hot until the sun burned off the fog and climbed high into the late morning sky.

Although we've been fishing offshore for 12 years we still learned a bunch of new ideas from Capt. John and his great mate, Jeff. I can't wait to run our boat out to the tuna grounds and give them a try.

I'll let him give the details later but you couldn't fish on a better boat. Thanks Capt. for a great day.”

Here are pictures from the weekend trips. The first picture is of the Gene Doebley Charter of Somers Point, NJ. Gene Doebley, Dave Doebley, Joe McDermott, Ken Portnoy, Voytek Stanislowski and Christian Berger.

The second picture if Christian Berger from France who works at the French Embassy in Washington, DC. He joined the Doebley charter as a single.

The third and fourth pictures are of Sharon fighting and then holding up the first bluefin tuna she ever caught. 7/7/07 was a lucky day for her!

The last picture is of Rick Proot from northern NJ with a 14.25 dolphin--the biggest dolphin weighed in so far this year at South Jersey Marina.

[paul708]

great report capt john. thanks for taking the time to write that

[Whiskey Tango]

TY TY TY for the detailed reports. We used your report from last week, and some detective work of our own, to get on the fish at the 19 Fathom Lump Saturday morning. Obviously we're not geniuses since we counted no less than 17 boats in the exact same location!

[Wild Life Management]

Awesome fishing. It didn't take long for word of your catch to travel over to B dock. We stopped by shortly after, but were a little late as it seemed you had already left, probably getting sleep for the next day of amazing fishing.

[Squidnation]

that is a phenominal report - thanks for info.

[JD5652]

Capt John-

Thanks for the great detailed report.....glad someone is catching 'em...we're still waiting on decent water up this way....

[Goldman]

Capt, thanks for the report. That just about says it all. Thank you

[hunt4fish]

Great report and pics,congrats on the fish.

[LadyAngler]

Capt. John,

Congrats to you and the crew on another great trip!

[Caveman Sportfishing]

We will be turning over to chunking and jigging on our next trip. We know of a very good chunk bite yesterday plus some on jigs. We had them on jigs on Saturday's trip but lost the fish when we had too light of leader tied to the jigs. We are ready now with a 2 dozen jigs on board and special rod and reels that will make jigging the choice for many anglers once they try our equipment. It's all about light weight powerful gear that does not tire the angler out while jigging. We have only a couple open dates left in July and early August plus will be running at least one make-up trip shortly. Give us a call for regular 6 person charter dates or one of our make-up date trips for small parties. If you want to get beat up on some 80-125 lb plus tuna then now is the time.