Bluefin Tuna
The bluefin bite is looking good east of Chatham, MA. Captain Eric Stewart is connecting on most outings. He hooked a major tuna the other day, and lost it boatside. The in-the-water estimate placed the fish north of the 1000-pound mark. There have been several giants taken lately, but also some fish in the 60-inch range, which is much more manageable for the recreational crowd. Not much word on running and gunning for the tuna – it’s been mainly a trolling and live bait game.
Dave from the Reel Seat in Brielle, NJ reported that the bluefin tuna bite off NJ has been red hot with the biggest brought into the shop being 62 inches and 135 pounds. Looks like it’s been mostly a troll bite off New Jersey with rainbow spreader and splash bars doing the trick.
Tuna are also not too far off Block Island. Dave at River and Riptide in Coventry, RI changed it up from his usual bass trips and went trolling in the vicinity of Fairway Buoy. Twenty minutes into the troll, a 35-inch bluefin smacked their offering one mile northeast of the buoy. They were using a spreader bar with black squids and a chartreuse trailer. The lone fish had big squid and butterfish in its belly.
Sharks
Mike from Reel Life Bait & Tackle in Point Pleasant was dialed into the news from this year’s Mako Mania that ran this past weekend. There were 22 makos weighed in on Saturday with the winner a 286 pound beast. On the “calmer” front the ocean fluking has been picking up in about 30’ of water off of Asbury and there are still plenty of bunker and blues to play with.
Sharking off New Jersey is as good as it has been in maybe 30 years. Recent outings have fishermen tagging as many as five big makos, and the threshers are also starting to show their tails as well. One of the Reel Seats regulars even fought it out with a huge tiger shark.
Monster makos have even made their way to New England, evidenced by the 996-pound behemouth brought into Block Island last week. Everyone going to the sharkin grounds is at least catching enough blue sharks to make it fun.
Canyons
Yellowfin tuna at the Wilmington has been on fire with most trips coming back with nice 40- to 50-weight fish. The occasional white marlin is in the mix as well as some small mahi. A little early for both of them according to Dave but still that’s a very good sign.
The buzz on the docks in the southern NJ region this past week was all about the almost epic yellowfin bite that has been going on out on the flats between the Spencer and Wilmington Canyons. Mixed in with a very manageable 30- to 60-poundclass of fish are roving schools of bigeye that can dump a reel in about as much time as it has taken you to read this far. These fish are real bruisers with reports ranging from about 150 up to 350 pounds. Battles going three hours and longer and big offshore reels down to the very last of their backing are all part of landing these torpedos. No question they are fish of a lifetime, and they are there now.
I had one of those “why didn’t I bring the camera” days this past Sunday with these monsters rolling on the surface for almost a half of an hour and categorically refusing everything we threw at, or trolled through them. Frustrating does not begin to describe it. Simply using the word “exciting” does not approach the thrill of seeing it either.
Aptly referred to as “wolf packs”, these bigeye will emerge from the depths in schools and attach a trolling spread with such total violence and sheer power that all of the gear rarely survives. We have seen them literally crush every single lure and spreader bar part that is in the water and then even blast the retracted teasers that are barely touching the water from the outriggers. We took a 150-pound eyeball this past week, a moderately sized one by comparison, that cost us 3 spreader bars and three bally rigs. Seven fish of varying sizes on, only one to the boat. Not what you call a great average for above average anglers, but still not a surprise when you are dealing with bigeye.
Where is the fairway buoy I have been looking for it for weeks