We kept approximately 20 and released at least 15 or more on the trip. Throughout the trip we had large schools of Yellowfins busting on the surface and all around the boat so most tuna were caught hand feeding chunks of butterfish on our boat. We did have live spots, chub minnows, frozen squid and sardines but butterfish was the bait of choice on our boat yesterday. In the morning the tuna were on the small side but this all changed later in the morning when the bigger tuna showed up with a few close to 100 lbs. and nothing less than 60 lbs. all afternoon. We used 30, 40, 50, and 60 lb. leader but when we had them boiling on our chunks all around the boat we had no problem getting bites with heavy leader. There was very little happening by the boats around us on the day troll as this was a chunk and jig bite pretty much only. Overall one of the finest daytime chunk bites we have experienced in recent years and even better than our trips late last week daytime chunking. This was just flat out epic tuna fishing.
With the forecast calling for NE winds this coming weekend we would like to put a last minute open boat trip together for this coming Thursday and there is a post in open boat forum about this. We are also open until Sept 5th for any group that would like a regular 6 person charter for either a long day trip or 24-30 hour overnight canyon trip. If you can get out now is the time to get offshore and enjoy some great tuna fishing out of South Jersey.
