Hydrographer Canyon Report – July 11-12, 2015

This Saturday at 3:15 am our crew of six pushed off the dock and headed out of Edgartown harbor. Our 36’ Yellowfin RAPTOR was loaded with fuel and ice, packed with rods and equipment. Everything prepped for another run to the Northeast canyons. The target was a temperature break at the tip of Hydrographer Canyon some hundred and twenty miles south-east of Martha’s Vineyard. Forecast was near perfect and we had gotten some exciting reports on the sat phone the day and night before. Energy levels were high for 3:00 am, lots of excitement.

Seas were 2 to 3 feet and wind was about 7 mph as we rounded Cape Pogue and set course for the edge. Ran into a fleet of draggers working south of Nantucket in about 120 ft of water, never seen so many stacked so close. Flat conditions made for a fast and uneventful run out.

We stopped just short of Hydrographer Canyon around 6:15 am near a pod of feeding dolphins. Outriggers out, lines in. Artificial lures hit the water first, big fan of Sterling Tackle for these, merciless on the tuna. We also tried trolling one of those new Squid-nation flippy floppy bars from Oceans East. Then ballyhoos that were thawing on the run out get rigged up and sent out.

We hit the tip of Hydrographer and began working the area with about ten other boats. Didn’t take long before a small mahi attacked and we had our first fish on the deck. Put out the full spread and were still stowing gear when two outriggers clips snap, then two in close rods bend over and the sound of four drags start screaming at once. Awesome! Two decent yellowfin tuna were pulled boat side to the gaff and two smaller fish got sent back to fight another day. The biggest of these was a female crew member’s first yellowfin! After a few more passes the tuna found our lures again. Six rods hooked up, four people fighting, one at the helm and one leadering and gaffing or keeping the remaining rods tight to fish. Then we re-set lines, prep fish and clean the boat; ready for the next round. Things went from good to great when two Joe Shute ballyhoos down the center went down hard. One shook free but the other was a nice seventy pound yellowfin.

It quieted down a bit so we trolled east for a bit towards no name canyon. A couple big splashes started crashing behind the spreader bars. One took the new flippy floppy bar but other tuna attacked the hook-less main squids and tore the thing to pieces. It’s rare but this will happen with other spreader bars too. Still, did not expect that.

When we got back to Hydrographer sometime later things were heating up. The spread started getting attacked by a mix of thirty to seventy pound yellowfin. The big ones were not super fat but nice long fish. The events somewhat cloud together but everyone managed well and we kept things sorted. We stayed on fish until about when the sun went down. Used the harpoon for one fish, always exciting. Also a had an outrigger pole snap on a violent hookup, managed to boat all the fish and then re rigged the two pieces into a short outrigger and a center rigger. Pretty funny looking but still plenty effective. One big hit at sunset pulled the hook on the initial run, might have been a bigeye. One buddy boat, a 36’ Topaz WESTLINK landed a 204lb dressed bigeye during the same craziness. Congrats!

The overnight was slow except for a heartbreaking loss of a swordfish in the eighty pound range. Sword took the bait when we were reeling them up, boat side in less than 2 minutes so only had time to reel in other baits, no time to get in our positions for the end game. Missed the gill plate by less than an inch with the gaff, stuck him but in the flesh, went for the haul in and pulled the hook and the gaff. Heartbreaking. That long snowy winter must have made us rusty with our end game, thrown off my gaff aim. That’s swordfishing I guess, at least it wasn’t that three hundred pounder people talk about.

The next morning we got on the troll around 4:00 am. It was much slower than the day before so we stopped trolling and went for a few mahi at the hi flyer buoys. They were not as thick or as aggressive as they usually are but we managed a few. We had hoped to do some spearfishing but the current was ripping too fast and seemed unsafe, next time.

Heard some nice reports of Bluefin being caught in the shipping lanes so made the call to head home and try for a Bluefin on the way. We showed up just too late would be my guess. There were still schools of Bluefin feeding but they were sporadic, moving fast and would not take anything we offered them. Trolled for a while then switched to poppers and jigs, got a few poppers to them and had a strike but no tuna to show for it. Had some big surface splashes within cast range, cool sight for sure. Pulled the plug and headed for the dock after an hour or so of trying.

Back at the dock around 2:00 pm. Boat clean, fish filleted, everything washed, dried and put away safe. Much thanks to everyone who makes this possible: crew, family, friends, buddy boats, OTW.