Inshore Tuna
Chris Megan and Kevin Blinkoff from OTW as well as Craig Cantelmo from Van Staal were kind enough to keep me up to the minute on their tuna trip east of Chatham, Cape Cod yesterday while I was at the OTW office. The trio found breaking tuna off Chatham in 70-90 feet of water. They had a number of shots and connected with a 58-inch keeper on a Slug-Go worked across the surface. Other boats also did well further east of Chatham this week. Captain Eric Stewart from the Hook Up in Orleans came tight on four tuna on Tuesday trolling splash bars. Black and Chameleon were the colors that got bit.
Tuna were caught all along the backside to Peaked Hill Bar and up on Stellwagen. Around Peaked Hill and Stellwagen, live baits have been a reliable means of hooking up, but trollers and casters are connecting as well. If splash bars or spreader bars aren’t getting bit, some anglers are switching to soft-plastic stickbaits and trolling them across the surface. The stickbaits are a closer match to the available forage, which lately has been halfbeaks and tinker mackerel.
Down south, things have cooled down a little bit at the Princess and the Chicken Canyon, but the bite has hit the boiling point between the Bacardi and the tip of the Hudson. Big tuna, both bluefin and yellowfin are being hooked up on jigs and chunks.
Fishing the lumps and humps off Cape May with chunks and jigs is producing yellowfin and skipjack tuna as well as a few surprises including a barracuda taken at the Cigar!
Sharks
A lot of thresher sharks came to the scales during the Monster Shark Tournament on Martha’s Vineyard this weekend. Most boats headed south to fish areas like the Fingers, the Claw and the Dump. One thresher topped the 600-pound mark! A few nice makos and a massive porbeagle were landed as well.
Canyons
Today’s SST Pictures revealed a juicy temperature break nudging up to Lydonia Canyon. If you have a boat that can make the run, do it. This water should spin toward canyons a little closer to Cape Cod ports. This water may hold the white marlin that were conspicuously absent from last week’s canyon reports.
The Canyon Runner crew has been doing well in the canyons off New Jersey, connecting with good yellowfin in the 40- to 60-pound range in the Hudson Canyon. Boats are still reporting plenty of smaller yellowfin out there, and the odd blue marlin encounter is keeping things exciting at the edge.
hi jimmy, like reading your report.live in ct. hard to get good report from the cape.
thanks jim.