25 Yellowfin, TRIED for Bluefin, Marlin-Big Eye on 55 Hooked Up II

2009-06-25

It was about as close to blue fishing as it gets on tuna today. It was just flat out non-stop action but on smaller size Yellowfins. Most were in the 23-26 inch range and a few may have been barely 27 inches we released but our charter was fine with just keeping a few as they were checking out today from the Cape May lodging and just wanted a nice small family tuna dinner tonight. We had a family with young boys that had never caught a tuna before and these fish were the perfect size to practice on before taking on some larger ones in the future. I can honestly say this was one of the most fun charter trips I have run in long time even though the fish were small, the fast and furious action most of the morning made up for the lack of quality size tuna. The bite was not as good as Wednesday as no boats that I heard had 40-50 bites as on Wednesday but overall it was some of the best action I have ever experienced trolling for tuna. Some boats had 6 or more keepers and others had none or one so it depended on who you talk to. We actually moved out to almost 500 fathoms by where the long liners were floating in the warmer water to try for a Blue Marlin or Big Eye and left the Yellowfin bite along 100 fathom line but the only bite we had was on our long bent butt 80 with a horse Ballyhoo way back down the middle on our shot gun rod. The 80 was loaded with 130 lb spectra with a 130 lb mono top shot and 130 lb fluorocarbon leader with 18 lbs of drag at strike and 28 lbs on full drag. The leader came back parted so it was probably a Wahoo or shark but whatever it was, it was probably pretty decent size in that deeper water. There were a couple of Blue Marlin seen and hooked up in morning in the 250-300 lb range plus at least one Big Eye. On the way out around 45-50 fathoms there was so much life and it looked so good with whales, porpoises, birds and slicks, we decided to stop short and work the area for while. I was amazed we did not get any tuna bites in the location with so much life present and we never got our first tuna bite until we got very close to the 100 fathom line. You just will not believe how much bait is present in the South Poormans and we marked bait in 1500-2000 feet of water as well as from 90-140 fathom where we caught all our tuna. It is flat out some fantastic tuna fishing as far as action goes especially if you use light tackle like TLD 20-25's. We honestly probably could have caught 50 or more small ones on the trip but we spent time stopping inshore on the way out and going out to the deep looking for a Blue Marlin or Big Eye and we decided to call it quits on yellowfin and move into the 20-30 fathom lumps hoping to hook into a nice size Bluefin on a jig. We got fogged in pretty good at times in morning on the way out on the 100 line and we did see a fair amount of wind on the way to the inshore BFT grounds but it was gorgeous once we got closer to Cape May. We did not mark much of anything on the inshore BFT grounds but we did not take a look at the Hambone or Hot Dog as we went to some other less popular lumps and hills but overall is looked pretty dismal at least where we tried jigging . I have not heard on how the boats did in the more Northern Canyons but we ran 90-100 miles when you add on going out as far as almost 500 fathoms in the very Southern part of the Poormans on yesterday’s trip. From what I have read and heard there are small tuna up and down the 100 line in many different canyons except I have no good reports to date on anything in the Baltimore but that does not mean they are not there. I sure would like to find these fish closer to Cape May but also waiting on those 100 lb plus Bluefins to show up again real soon.