Slammed the big bluefin on jigs on Sat trip with report and pictures & not at Claw

[Caveman Sportfishing]

We found the big bluefins 15 miles inside Claw on Saturday with pictures & report

We struggled big time yesterday at the Claw with one bite all day. What a contrast from our last few trips there but is was a weekend day. I decided to stick it out and moved around the Claw a couple of times and eventually ended up outside the fleet hoping and praying to catch at least one tuna before starting back to Cape May and avoid the dreaded skunk. When we finally headed for home there were only a couple of boat still at the Claw and for those that were there early in the am yesterday what a contrast that was. It got to be around 12:30 pm and it was quickly approaching time to head home as this was a 12 hour trip and we had left Cape May at around 1:30 am with a 2 1/2 hour ride home from the Claw which is about 65 miles from my dock. One of the guys came up to the bridge and wanted my opinion why the bite did not happen for most of the boats today compared to what it had been. We discussed this in detail and told him I would like to try one at least more location inshore of the Claw that I had seen on my real time sea temperature charts earlier in the morning and just maybe we could find at least one tuna for the group. It had a 2 degree break and this was the same piece of water we had fished on Thursday's trip where we had about 15 bites trolling for wahoo, small yellowfins and mahi but no bluefins bites on that trip. It was about 10 miles out of our way back to Cape May but at that point I was desperate to at least get the guys a tuna fish no matter what we had to do. This piece of the water was full of life and I thought possibly some of the bigger Claw bluefins may fish may have moved inshore some to the lumps and hills that are around 135-150 feet deep and were covered with the the deep blue water that we did not see yesterday at Claw. We were not that far from the 28 square and Cigar and around 50 miles from Cape May north of the tip of the Elephant Trunk. This water is on all the current sea temperature charts and has been sitting there for at least 4 days now and it is a much deeper blue from the surrounding green water on surrounding it. When we arrived there was one scallop boat working the area and tried for a few minutes fishing behind him with scallop guts but did not get bite doing and was about to try another lump when we saw the only other boat in the area in waving frantically to us to come over to them when we did they and told us they had lost their engine and power and were in a semi distress mold as at this time. They could not hale the Coast Guard or Sea Tow so we helped them get all this in order and made sure Sea Tow was on there way to assist them. Mean while we decided to start jigging while standing by waiting for reponses from the Coast Guard and Sea Tow and as lady luck would have it we hit the mother load of big bluefins and we could not put one jig in for 30 seconds without a 100 lb plus bluefin slamming it. One fellow on the trip had something like 6 bluefins bites alone on jigs. Pink-White and pink-silver butterfly jigs ones were the ticket but the tuna ate all colors including gold ones in sizes from 8 to 11 oz. We even had one nice bluefin when we decided to try some scallop guts for fun and it hit while being hand fead out and we were no where near the scallop boat. I might mention we do not use any jigs with two assist hooks as we have found when in the catch and release mode the second hook get caught in the gills which is not a good thing for the tuna as most of the ones on our boat are released with the present regulations. We called in one of our freinds as he was on his way out to do a late afternoon overnight trip and he got two 40 lb yellowfins right away near us and was fighting tuna for the next two hours as were also before departing for Cape May around 3:30 pm. We stayed around a while to make sure the boat in distress was okay and jiggged the the whole time with almost non-stop action and for those on board the Hooked Up II yesterday. It turned out to be a trip for the memory banks even though we struggled big time for most of the day at the secret spot that has been so good to us the last few weeks. This piece of deep blue water with so much life in it including acres of tuna is app 15-20 miles inshore of the Claw and wish we had a trip today to go right back there but I am home today with the grandchildren who are spending the night with Nana and Papa. We plan to take my 3 year old grandson and 1 year old grand daughter down the boat today and try to catch spot and maybe the Cape May County Zoo so it is time well spent and only wish my grandson was older to take him out there and catch one of those nice size 40 lb yellowfins that the other boat got. We did not get any yellowfins on our boat yesterday but if we had time these fish could have been chunked, jigged or trolled and I am sure there are mahi and wahoo also swimming in this nice water along with slob bluefins. This small piece of water is on the quality sea temp charts and ranges in the 74-75 degrees with green 73 degree water around it. It still is out there and is just flat out full of life not that far offshore and we saw tuna all over a 5-6 mile area and not just on the lumps and hills


I know that all the quality charter boat captains do their absolute best to put their customers on fish but sometimes the fish gods just do not cooperate. We all have experienced this and on those days the collar just gets tighter and tighter when the bite never happens know matter how hard you try. We got lucky yesterday with a late afternoon bail out bite or else we would have suffered along many of our freinds both on private and top end charter boats. Fishing is almost always tougher on most weekend days and possibly is why the bite at the Claw was so bad yesterday. This piece of nice water should at least offer an option to those with smaller boats and cannot run far offshore to catch some nice quality fish plus any others that found if tough yesterday on the more well known locations.

Picture of some of the guys on the trip yesteday with one of the nice bluefin we caught and the jigging rod that it was caught on.




We are hoping to run some make-up 12 hour day trips for singles and small parties on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week if we can get enough anglers so if interested give us a call today. We are open for regular charters also if any groups are interested in a last minute trip for tuna.

[JUST RELEASED 34]

Capt. Kobey said thanks for the call.......

[jig42na]

Capt. Kobey said thanks for the call.......

LMAO!!!!

[Caveman Sportfishing]

If this is a smart ass response I do not appreciate your humor as we were involved helping a boater in distress for a long period of time as you know. I did call Kobey but was tied up with the Coast Guard and Sea Tow on channels 16, 22 and 07 as requested by Coast Guard but did try you on 73 but had no response. I tried to call Timmy and Billy G for what it is worth but never got a response. I tried again after we got everything settled with the boat in distress and did not get an answer on channel 71. I do not think you were within range by the time we got free of the Coast Guard and Sea Tow who could not hear us very well on 07 and I had to relay everything thru the Coast Guard to them. I would always call kobey to help him out whenever possible. Calling other boats to a bite was low on the list of important things as they had a very sick person on board with no power and ability to communicate with the Coast Guard.