Barracuda aren’t supposed to be here. But when a warm-water eddy breaks off the Gulf Stream and pushes into the Northeast Canyons, anything from wahoo to marlin to, apparently, barracuda can show up in the spread. That’s exactly what happened this past weekend aboard the Silent Witness, a 39’ Yellowfin, on a Saturday-to-Sunday run through the canyons.
Silent Witness Charters runs out of Oak Bluffs Harbor on Martha’s Vineyard, and 2025 marks the operation’s fifth season putting anglers on offshore fish. The crew has fished these waters their whole lives, running trips from canyon tuna trolling to mahi on the edge to sunset cruises for anyone just looking to be out on the water. This trip, though, was strictly business — a run through the Northeast Canyons chasing bluefin.
According to mate Julian Carter, after a slow start and two hours of trolling, they finally got a knockdown on the left long — a blue and white Ilander running behind an Offshore Innovations Side Snatcher bird. They saw color and figured wahoo. Gaff went in, fish came over the rail, and it turned out to be a barracuda instead — not the species they expected, but a welcome surprise all the same.
It weighed in at 14.4 lbs, and while it’s being looked at as a possible first recorded barracuda landed in Massachusetts, the fish came from far offshore, in a warm-water eddy pushing off the Gulf Stream into the canyons. It’s similar to other Northeast barracuda catches in recent years — a 37-pound barracuda pulled from the water off Sea Isle City, NJ in 2014, and a 19-pound barracuda that became a Connecticut state record 25 miles south of Montauk in 2023, also caught by anglers trolling for tuna in a warm-water push. Barracuda are a tropical species, but when the Gulf Stream sends warm eddies up the shelf, they occasionally ride along.
