We had one of the least productive trips in the last few years and on this day it looks like our standard canyon trolling spread was not what the tuna wanted at least during the daylight hours. On yesterday’s trip I opted to fish away from the large fleet in the Baltimore and head south and start the day in the Poormans and work my way down towards the Washington. I had thought the good water that was holding fish earlier this week in the canyons to the North was pushing south and we would be able to take advantage of this and put together a great trip without the massive fleet of boats in the canyon north of us where almost everyone fished the last few days. Where we started there was just one other boat at daybreak and this was not far from the location we caught over 100 Yellowfins in the 45-80 lb. range in early to mid-June last year so I was very confident this would be a great location to start our 2015 offshore season. We had left Cape May at midnight in some pretty sloppy conditions but it got much better after about 2:00 am and we had a nice smooth ride out the rest of the way. I always try to avoid as much as possible fishing in a fleet and try to talk my charters in fishing on weekdays if they can.
At the end of the day we had one nice Yellowfin and a few short throwbacks tuna and that was it for us. The good news was one of my good friends that fished right next us most of the day did extremely well with 11 nice Yellowfins and at least 20 tuna bites and was done by around 1:00 pm. Almost all their bites came in bunches with 4-5 on at a time but unfortunately there were hours with no bites but at the end of the day they took home a really nice catch of Yellowfins. Basically you run them over and get your bites then long periods of nothing. My friend was the only boat we know of that caught well in the area of the Poormans as most reports came from the Baltimore with the large fleet. This time of year small artificial lures work well with the tuna feeding on small squid and heard of quite a few tuna caught on these along with spreader bars with small squids.
I did hear this morning a boat we know got on them really good with double digits late in the day and early evening after most of the fleet had went home from the Baltimore and just another example of how difficult it is too put a good catch together with excessive boat traffic. He had virtually no bites during the day but it turned on for him when the fleet went home which so often is the case and another reason why overnight trips can produce so much better than day troll trips especially if you want to target Big Eyes which come up later in the day and right at daybreak so many times. We did hear of a few Big Eyes caught yesterday so that is also very encouraging as targeting them is something we love to do. The tuna definitely are out there in our local canyons and I am sure we will slam them on our next trip. Every indication is June is shaping up to offer some excellent tuna fishing with the great early season bite that has been going on over the last few recent weeks plus I heard of lots of Makos being caught recently also.
Contact us if you would like to join us on and open boat trip or book a regular charter. Looking to get back out as soon as the weather is decent.
