NY bight and NJ inshore tuna reports and sightings

[J Barbosa]

I'm headed 60 miles out in a few hours. Weather looks great so far but that may bring too many other boaters out which can affect the bite.

[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.

[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]

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.

[seamonkey]

Man you guys are seeing tuna off the beach up there? We would never see that off of our beaches. Way too flat and shallow. if it wasn't for the high real estate taxes in central jersey I would move up and live right behind Island Beach State Park for sure.

[bababooey]

Guy in my marina says he spotted some around 2 to 3 weeks ago. he always brings a tuna stick with him just in case. He still hasn't caught any inshore so far this fall. There are still lots of big bunker and herring around so maybe there is still time, who knows?

[captnemo]

Guess the chatter is coming from different areas. Capt Al Ristori wrote this yesterday for the evening report-

Though there's been rumors of large school to medium bluefin tuna at Little Italy and other areas not too far from shore, I haven't been able to confirm that.