NY bight and NJ inshore tuna reports and sightings

[bababooey]

This came from somewhere else. Heard of a tuna beaching itself last week, the guy who reported it ran after it in the wash. This is the latest in the year I can remember hearing of tuna, particularly so close to shore. Any other confirms of inshore tuna sightings?


"All were caught jigging with 8 different types of jigs. They fished from BH Inlet to Surf City. One of the boats fishing nearby reported by radio they landed a bluefin tuna of about 60 pounds on a Stretch 30 Plug. This was the second tuna reported this week. "

[clamchucker]

A friend of mine was at the Shrewsbury rocks 2 days ago. They had tuna breaking on rainfish within 1000 feet of them. There is still a lot of bait around.

[voyager35]

I heard some guy on the radio today saying he saw tuna the other day. We didn't see any, but he swore he did.

[voyager35]

We tried for tuna today and failed. There were tuna boiling at times within 100 feet of the boat, but they wouldn't touch anything we threw at them. Jigs, poppers, ronZ, a few "almosts" with the poppers, but no hookups. It was frustrating as heck. They seem to be keyed in on the sandeels. The tuna we were working today were within 1 mile of the beach off the Seaside area.
Thought I would put this up and see if others out there have success until the end of the season. Last year a few nice ones were caught inshore. The guys who got them put in a lot of effort. Good luck out there, to all who are trying.

[baitstealer]

Al Ristori put this in his column yesterday. It must be wild to chase after tuna so close to shore.


"Dave Riback ran the Queen Mary from Point Pleasant down there where his fares jiigged 53 bass -- of which 31 were keepers. De Stefano also noted that school tuna were breaking off Mantoloking."

[surferman]

Pez sportfishing got one today. Awesome!



"Captain Stew Hitchner of Pez Machine Sportfishing had a great day fishing off of IBSP in 50-60’ of water! Jigging they had all bass and trolling umbrella rigs produced bass, blues and a little surprise. While trolling an umbrella rig they got locked up with a line screamer! It turned out to be a bluefin tuna estimate to weigh around sixty pounds."

[bababooey]

Fantastic report, mucho congrats to Stu Hitchner.

[voyager35]

Report from the boat that got it:


53" BFT on a white tailed AVA 47. 62 feet @ seaside pier. Took @ 50 minutes. Shimano Calcutta 400 / Teramar x70H, power pro 50.

@10:00 AM most boats were clearing out of the fleet. We were still picking away on bass and bluefish. Drifted over a nice pile of sandeels with bluefish marks. Dad came tight and knew instantly we were in trouble. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. We managed to chase it down - it was a close call just a few wraps left. Fish did some crazy direction changes, then settled into the standard tuna fight. Dad did a great job keeping the line off the boat and keeping up far more pressure than I though that setup could handle. Ended up gaffing it couple miles east from where we started - just before the westerly started honking. High fives and photos!

[vpass]

I went yesterday on a friends boat. We went Bluefin Tuna fishing. I haven't been on a boat like 6 years. Well I got Sea Sick and didn't fish much. We were Jigging, and Trolling the Chicken Canyon, and The atlantic Princes Wreck. We left the dock around 3am got back around 3pm. We all got There were some fish around on the fish finder, and heard a small one caught near us on the radio.

Can't wait to try again.

[J Barbosa]

Getting behind in my reports...hmm does that sounds familiar to anyone?

Woke up, took a shower, and took the hour long drive to the boat that was leaving at 1AM.

Four of us took the 90 mile ride out to the first canyon before setting up a nine rod trolling spread. It was very slow at first trolling the ledges with only a few small mahi around the lobster pots interested in the spread. A total of four canyons including 1000 fathoms line (over 6,000 feet deep) past the hudson before finally finding more life and some fish in amazing blue water. The amount of life out there is incredible between all the dolphins and whales. I think the total trips mileage easily went over 300 miles.

Sorry for the strange picture...I think my brother changed some camera setting on our digital POS (point and shoot; and sometimes piece of shat).


It did make for a cool yellowfin shot somehow even though it looks edited....I should have just used my cell phone.

I have more pics on a friends camera and will post some when he sends them to me.

Sliced open an avocado and it was spoiled so these rolls were made plain.

[J Barbosa]

Fin, were you out there today? Beautiful 1-2ft seas made for a quick and comfortable ride out.


We couldn't keep the Albies out of our trolling spread for longer than a few minutes as they would just slam the spreader bars two/three at a time. Some were so big they were peeling line from 50W setups. If these fish move inshore (I don't think they will - water quality inshore sucks right now as Fin said on page 1) we would be seeing a lot of surf guys getting spooled.

The water quality 40 miles out is really good right now. Lots of life out there too.


We gave up on trolling after a while not being able to get past the falsies and started jigging the readings. We had the fish finder lit up from the sea bottom to the surface all sand eels and Albies. Drop to bottom, crank, crank, jig, Albie on!

Amazing what can change in a few hours...just the day before they only had a few falsies and a bunch of 80-100lb tuna. We only heard of a few YFT caught today out of a huge fleet of boats.


We had to give our arms a break stopped on a pot and had absolutely insane Mahi Mahi action. We could have caught our limit of 40 quickly if we wanted to. One of my favorite fish to eat, fresh sashimi tonight!


Went looking in different areas seeing if we could pull up an edible tuna but no luck.


My arms are absolutely shot.


I'm going to shoot the next person who says Albie or Falsie. Got it?

[bababooey]

Great report John. Some buds were out this week and they said the mahi were the only thing that saved the trip. Unless you want to go to the southern canyons tuna fishing has been hit and miss this season.

[captnemo]

We heard radio chatter about bluefin tuna sightings off Belmar today while down at the dock getting ready to go out. This report posted confirms it and that they were spotted near the shrewsbury rocks as well:

"....His story got better when he and another yaker were surprised by large splashes and the distinct fins and backs of big bluefin tuna. Another report from a different person confirmed inshore tuna about 2 miles off Belmar. "

[fishinmission78]

Last week I was scanning offshore with my binocs. there were a lot of boats far out but halfway out maybe around the mile mark. In closer I would periodically see birds and ginormous splashes in the water much bigger than any striper. I almost thought they could have been small bluefins. Can any Captains that were out there confirm seeing or catching them? This is around the time of year that they show up.