Reports
- 160 lb Bluefin and 7 Yellowfins on the Hooked Up II today
- Tuna Fishing Report for August 1st-5th
- Outfished by Center Consoles But Still a Great Day
- Blue Fin Tuna Fishing Report
- Updated report on the Hooked UP II
- Tuna report on the Hooked Up II
- 25 Yellowfin, TRIED for Bluefin, Marlin-Big Eye on 55 Hooked Up II
- A very detailed report on new world class jigging-popping tackle on the 55 Hooked Up II
- My thoughts on spinners versus conventionals for jigging those 80-175 lb. Bluefins
- August 24, 2008 Report for the past few days.
August 24, 2008 Report for the past few days.
2008-08-24
If you want the potential opportunity to hook and fight a Bluefin tuna stand-up, now is the time. The Bluefin are running up to true small giant size over 73 inches and 220 lbs. Most are running from 56-62 inches and dress out at around 110-125 lbs but the last two days we had one over 70 inches on each trip as did a few other boats around us. I call the 110-125 lb tuna cookie cutter size but trust me they will give most anglers more than they bargained for especially when they get in the 125 lbs or bigger range, which many, many are. Also we have not had one charter complain about the lack of meat that they can take home as these sized tuna provide plenty. What a inshore season we would have had if the regulations allowed two per day like last season. We still have available the one trophy giant over 73 inches we are allowed per year on the Hooked Up II for the lucky group that manages to land one this season.
We had a stellar week fishing as did many that fished by us this past week. Yes, I think most know exactly where the "NOT SO SECRET SPOT" is now and we are now finding some boats from North Jersey joining us to get in on this world class bluefin fishing that are all tackle busting size. The stories I have been told this week about busting up tackle reminds me somewhat of what I saw personally at times down in Morehead City, NC years ago when fishing for the giants. Short of catching Big Eyes I do not think too many tuna you will ever catch in our local waters will rival the size some are catching right now. Every tuna we are catching is over 100 lbs with many being lost or released over 125-175 lbs and few up close to 250 lbs. We had two big ones the last two trips with one around 69-70 inches on Friday’s trip and on Saturday we had one that might have been close to 75 inches. We lost both fish at the side of the boat when the 100 lb leader broke on one and the other tuna broke our 100 lb top shot of mono that was connected to 130 Jerry Brown Hollow Core. I am going to change some of my mono top shots to 130 line with 12-20 feet of 130-150 lb fluorocarbon wind-on leaders attached to bent butt 80’s with 130 lb Jerry Brown or my Tiagra 50's with the same line and leaders. I am hoping I can get the bites at sunrise with the heavier line and leader. I think I can since we are currently using 80-100 lb leaders at all times and having no problems at all getting bites before 9:00 am depending on the day and tide. Even on busy days with lots of boat traffic we have done very well by moving away from the fleet a ½ mile or more as the tuna are all over the lump and even up to 6 miles away we have found them. Yesterday a center console right in front of us had 3 on twice at the same time and at least on one of these occasions it looked like they were all on jigs. It was really fun watching the guys do their thing with three on at the same time. Only in a center console can you do this on these size fish and it reminded me of my younger days with I ran a 22 Mako center console and tried fishing for giant bluefin in the Butterfish Hole off Block Island in the middle 70’s.
The big news is that you do not have to go to the new secret spot 65 miles from our home port in Cape May as I personally saw and heard about some good sized Bluefin up over 125 lbs caught 20 miles closer to Cape May by other boats out of South Jersey ports yesterday. I believe these fish were almost all caught on the troll for those that prefer trolling over chunking so I know there is a good troll bite now on good sized bluefin with a few Wahoo, small Yellowfin and Mahi-Mahi mixed in. I will continue to run to the secret spot but will troll at a reduced charter rate if we stay closer to Cape May and I will leave that up to my charters on what they want to do. Overall it is some pretty decent fishing all within 65 miles of Cape May and we can reach any of these locations on the super fast 55 Hooked UP II in about 2 hours at our normal cruise. We are open for the next week or so as we rescheduled all our overnight trips to later in Sept this week and coming weekend until the night bite starts up in the local canyons.