I met Mark at the diner at 6am, and while we enjoyed some pancakes and French toast, we discussed the plan for that days fishing. You see, Mark has just down-sized, and instead of making a canyon trip on his Vikings, like we used to do in the past, we were planning our first trip on his new 33’ center console with triple 250hp Yamahas. After briefly discussing some inshore fishing options, Mark expressed his interest in making the first blood on the new deck to be that of a pelagic species…namely that of a tuna. With the help of temperature charts and weather reports, and Mark’s itch for canyon fishing, we made the decision to head to the Hudson Canyon.

After loading the boat and icing down, we broke Shinnecock inlet at a leisurely 8:15am on Tuesday morning (7/3). As we cruised offshore at 33 knots, we discussed how this fishing platform would troll, and how we were going to set up the days spread. We opted for a nine rod spread of all 30 pound tackle, tuna clones, green machines, spreader bars and a few jets.

It didn’t take long before we found signs of life. We saw slicks, birds, then found ourselves trolling amongst many huge finback whales. One of these whales surfaced and spouted not more than a boats length away from us, which on a 33’ center console makes you feel really up close and personal..! We even trolled past a school of basking sharks lazily “basking” on the surface.

The water was now 69 degrees and slick calm, and as we watched the spread, we saw boils erupting from behind our lures. “There they are,” we yelled. “Two on, no 3...4. Four on!” As I cleared the remaining lines, Mark went to work on the first fish. After a great battle on 30 pound test, we boated the first fish on Mark’s new boat, a 49” bluefin tuna. Mark immediately went to work on the next screaming 30, and soon had the next tuna boat side. With only two of us on board, and only one angler, the other 2 fished eventually pulled off. Two for 4 on bluefin tuna. These bites came at around 11:30am, and we continued to have another 6 bites until around 2 o’clock. We ended up 6 for 10 on bluefin tuna all between 45 and 50 inches, releasing 3 boat side. Our practice run turned into a great short day trip to the canyon. Although it was a perfect day for pictures, Mark nor I remembered to bring a camera..! I do apologies for the lack of pictures.

If you plan on fishing offshore, it is essential that you stay up to date on the current regulations for all tunas, especially bluefin, as these regulations change frequently. I suggest also, that if you are fishing for bluefin tuna, you make a measuring device that will enable you to determine the length of the fish while it is still in the water. It is also a good idea to get or make a de-hooking tool, and learn how to use it.

The measuring device I find to work well for me, is a length of monofilament attached to the head of your gaff with a small soft head chugger on the end. In this case I made the length 47 inches, and when the fish is on leader, you can easily hold the head of the gaff at the tip of the tunas mouth, and see where the chugger lays in relation to the fork of the tunas tail. If the fish is within the legal size, the gaff is already in the right spot. On this day we kept our limit, which was two that were longer than 47 inches, and one that was under 47 inches, and released the others without removing them from the water.

Here is a copy of the current tuna regulations taken today from the NMFS web-site at www.nmfspermits.com

Recreational Atlantic Tunas Retention Limits
The recreational daily bluefin tuna (BFT) retention for limit for HMS Angling and HMS Charter/Headboat vessels (while fishing recreationally) is 1 school BFT (measuring 27 inches to less than 47 inches) Curved Fork Length (CFL) and 2 large school/small medium BFT (measuring 47 inches to less than 73 inches CFL) per vessel per day/trip. , effective in all areas, for the entire fishing year. HMS Angling and HMS Charter/Heaboats are also eligible to retain 1 BFT (73 inches or greater) per vessel per year as a “trophy” fish for the boat. These BFT retention limits are effective for all areas, except for the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico is designated as a spawning grounds for BFT and therefore NMFS does not allow vessels, commercial or recreational, to target BFT while fishing in this area. The recreational yellowfin tuna daily retention limit is 3 yellowfin/person. The minimum size for yellowfin and bigeye tuna is 27" curved fork length.