Now’s the time! Plenty of action to be had. The inshore bluefin highway has been on fire. Many boats finding tuna up top gorging on sand eels and mackerel. Although the usual haunts have been producing from the Chicken Canyon down to the Hot Dog it pays to keep your eyes open while running and stop at any signs of life. Fish have varied in size from footballs to giants with some areas having Yellowfin mixing in with the Bluefin.
Chase at Montauk Marine Basin reported a great turnout for their 47th annual shark tournament with Joy-Sea landing a 384lb Mako and Sea Dreamer landing a 343lb fish. He added that there was a decent yellowfin bite at the Dip earlier in the week.
Despite some marginal weather, last weekend NJ’s Mako Mania and Mako Fever had a great response. Many nice fish being brought into the new scales at Capt. Bill’s Landing. “Thor” Captained by Doug Thorsen took top honors in both contests with a 276lb Mako, Congrats!
The BLUE RUNNER crew had the Mike Mangeney crew out for what they described as ” the best tuna fishing they have ever experienced”. We made a short stop on the midshore grounds and immediately connected with a very nice 110lb Bluefin that JR Hunsberger made quick work of. We decided to move offshore to look for Yellowfin and it paid off big time with doubles , triples and up to 5 on at a time. These were all very nice 50lb class fish with very few small fish mixed in .. after limiting out we released some more before heading back with the fish boxes full. Overnight we caught a nice Mako we released since we had plenty of meat. We have been releasing many of our legal Makos over the past 12 months and it has paid off with great karma for our crews (more on that in another report)
Each season we see a wave of fish move through and we have weeks of really good fishing .. this is the beginning of this wave and we should see the best fishing of the season over the next few weeks. Now is the time to go”. Check out Mark and crew at bluerunner.fishing
The Ledge Fever crew out of Manasquan found some fish outside the usual canyons and managed their time well to maximize their catch. They ended their trip with a Bigeye, Yellowfin, a limit of Bluefin a Mako and some Tilefish. According to the crew, most bites came on Sterling Tackle Wide Track bars.
Southern NJ Canyons By Craig Falicon
Fished Sunday aboard my buddy’s 27 Onslow Bay out of Barnegat Inlet. We debated between canyon fishing and staying midshore for bluefin but ultimately decided to push off to one of the southern NJ canyons.
Deployed a spread of ballyhoo behind Joe shutes and Sterling Tackle wide tracker bars and worked around in blue/green 67-68 degree water with lots of bait readings. Had a nice sized fish come up and miss a ballyhoo on the short rigger then pile on another in tight. Got that fish up to the boat to be pleasantly surprised to see a 175 class bigeye. Great way to start the day!
Fished around until noon filling the bonar box with some nice 50 lb class yellowfin, that were primarily hammering the sterling wide tracker bars we were running on the long riggers.
Did a daytime drop for swords before picking up and running home where we encountered acres of bluefin in the 30 fathom zone. Spent a good half hour throwing everything we had at them but they just wouldn’t eat, content to sun themselves on the surface instead.”
Offshore Fishing Forecast
With the 4th of July holiday expect heavy boat traffic from the Hydrographer down to the Baltimore canyons. It’s best to get away from the crowd and find your own bite. Too much boat traffic truly effects the bite! On the way out and in, make sure not to run over fish as yellowfin have been spilling over to the midshore grounds and the bluefin bite has been off the charts crazy with small/large medium class fish being caught and a few giants in the mix as well. Whatever you do, pack some Sterling tackle wide tracker bars, they are HOT right now with many boats reporting 80% of their bites on them.