LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We tried trolling with Vic who made custom tackle designed for Mako and Threshers when he lived and fished out in Southern California. Myself and those on board absolutely loved these rigs and have no doubt they would be highly effective fishing off the Mid-Atlantic Coast for sharks and the only problem today was where we fished it was a absolute desert with no life or bait anywhere. We also tried for a Bluefin but that was a total waste of time with the colder green water everywhere. If they were around we had the spread out to catch them (shark to tuna) but there just was no life anywhere.
We fished the southwest and to the east of the Cigar on just about every hill or drop-off I could find and nothing. Trolling gave us the advantage of covering a lot of turf today and it was nothing short of horrible fishing. I must have talked to at 10-12 boats covering at least 30 total miles to the north and south of us and nobody I talked to had a bite period. That should tell you something as I would run deep way deep to the east on my next shark trip. The boats inside of me along the 20 line did nothing at all today and we were east of them but not nearly east enough. The one Mako I know about today was lost at the boat but it was nowhere around us and I only know of one caught by anyone the last few days fishing in our region. The water was green and the surface water has dropped from last weekend considerably with the strong NW winds and we had between around 64-65 almost all day except as we were trolling in towards the 20 fathom line it rose to over 67 degrees but again it had no life. I probably saw no more than 15 seconds of sand eels on the bottom the whole day and scattered Bluefish (about 5 minute total on my machine) all right above the thermocline which was around 35-40 feet all day. We had our baits placed right above the thermocline but it did not make any difference at all.
There was numerous boats trolling for Bluefins today as well and I do not thing anyone had a touch and the guys I talked to are very good tuna fisherman that know how to troll for Bluefins. We slow trolled horse ballyhoo and our plan was to catch a few bluefish and use them for sharks but that did not happen. We tried trolling at 2.8 knots and up to over 4.4 knots and nothing worked plus we had a wwwwback (350-400 yards) shotgun large ballyhoo with a B/W weighted Ilander lure in front of the ballyhoo and it produced one Bluefish bite all day.
For us the late spring sharking as seen a drastic decline over the last few years. We used to run as many as 18 sharks charters in past years and I always looked forward to getting offshore and shark fish and leave the Delaware Bay until the fall and the striper run. It looks like this could be our only shark trip this season and I sincerely hope others have better luck than we did today.
PS: It was really my pleasure meeting and fishing with Vic today as he is a wealth of knowledge about sharks and we spent quite a bit of time up on the bridge talking about the years he spent trolling in Southern California for Makos and Threshers. He knows his stuff when it comes to sharks. I only wish I could have found some hungry ones today so we could given his tackle an honest evaluation fishing in our local waters.
Reply With Quote
Fishing is in trouble. Best wishes to one of the nicest Cape May charter captains. alex
