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Finally..! Many fishing friends and colleagues have been telling me that I should get involved with sportfishermen.com, for some time. Now that I am back home in Shinnecock, LI, NY, I have registered. I look forward to sharing good information and helpful reports. Being that this is my first report, I welcome any comments to help better my posts.
After a great winter down south in Palm Beach, the Bahamas, and North Carolina with my new SeaTek 36, I am excited to be back in the north east fishing the canyon waters.
On Saturday, 6/23, with mates Billy and Jessie, I left Beaufort, NC to head up to LI. I decided to make the trip in to a three day fishing excursion, rather than the usual 2 day run. While we ran for most of the day on Saturday, we eventually reached the south western edge of a large eddie of good water that had stretched from the Baltimore Canyon to south of the Norfolk Canyon. With only two hours of day light left, we trolled only to miss 1 white marlin.
We drifted for the night with a combination of shark and sword baits, and a pillow and blanket. During the night we released a hammerhead shark and a porpoise that had gotten wrapped in our line. The porpoise did not eat the bait, nor get hook. We quickly untangled the porpoise and as it swam away unharmed, it surfaced to take a breath, and if my dolphin language us correct, I think it squeaked, “thank you." The night ended with us scooping up a 3 inch juvenile white marlin in a bucket, taking some pictures, then releasing it.
On the morning troll we released a full sized white, and missed another. Then we got in to the dolphin. There was lots of floating debris, and it seemed that under all of it lived good sized dolphin. After landing 10 nice gaffers between 14 and 20 pounds, we continued to troll north.
About 6 miles from the Norfolk Canyon, we found the yellowfin. They ate mostly ballyhoo and Stalker Outfitters spreader bars, and were all quality fish. They ranged from 60-90 pounds. We ended up putting 9 in the box.
At about this time I heard of boats in the Norfolk Canyon complaining of slow fishing. I put my location and catch over the radio to let the other boats know of the bite to the south, but I got no reply..!? I did here of one fellow by the name of John, I think, that had been fighting a nice tuna for a few hours in the Norfolk. He did land this fish and I wanted to congratulate him on his 99 inch catch.
The afternoon was slow for us with only a few skip jacks as we trolled about 30 more miles to the north. As we neared the Washington Canyon, schools of porpoise surrounded the boat. At about this time the center rigger comes tight and the line starts dumping off the reel. As we cleared the other lines, the screaming reel stops due to a pulled hook! I continued to work this area, and as the sun began to set we saw massive water disturbances behind 2 of my spreader bars. Multiple bigeye tunas were exploding on both spreader bars at the same time. They ate the wing baits off the bars and after some more misses, we hooked 2. With Billy on one rod and Jessie on the other, we fought them in to the dark. We landed both, and they weighed 250 and 220 pounds.
After pictures and packing the fish away, we decided to drift for the rest of the night. We released another hammerhead and had a few mystery bites on the sword and shark baits. Also, we had about a 100 pound sword swim by the boat twice, but couldn't get him to eat. At day break we started our run for home.
Here is a quick recap for all that don't want to read the entire report. 1 for 3 on whites, 9 yellowfin (60-90lbs.), 10 dolphin (14-20lbs.), 2 bigeyes (250 and 220lbs.), 2 hammerheads, a juvenile white marlin, and a porpoise.
SeaTek 36 is my charter boat and factory demo. I splashed her in late December 2006 and headed south from the plant in NJ. She continues to surprise me with her incredible ride and fish raising ability. First with bluefin tuna, blue and white marlin, sailfish, dolphin and wahoo, and now with yellowfin and bigeyes in the canyons.
I look forward to a another excellent season in the north east and for great fishing to continue for everyone.
I am still trying to figure out how to post my pictures. I will make another post with pictures in a few hours. Many pictures will soon be posted on my web site also.
SeaTek 36
www.seatekboatworks.com
SeaTek 36
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