Tuna Finally Showing !Hi Folks, From what I have seen on social media postings, there were three giant tuna landed in the Hyannis Tuna Tournament this last weekend. One was caught in the canyons and the other two were landed just east of Chatham. Yesterday, several other nice sized fish were broken off after prolonged battles at the locations of where we fish to the east. That tells me they are big fish of over 250-300 pounds.
The last several trips I have made for Bluefin, there has been incredible bait balls of sand eels and mackerel. The whales (humpbacks, finbacks, minke and pilot) are abundant and feeding heavily during the morning hours. The “life” has been there for the last 3 weeks, all we needed was the tuna to show. Last year, my first landing of a giant was June 25. My next scheduled tuna charter is July 1 and I will be prepared. When I say “prepared”, I mean with a rigged harpoon or two, gaffs and tail ropes, gloves and new leaders, headers, and stiff enough rods to handle a battle with a 300 pound plus sized fish. One of the photos I saw recently on Facebook was of a broken rod. Yes things happen, but this rod looked a bit light for fish of this size. Perhaps the drag was sticky or too tight, who knows. Be ready, then if “things’ happen, you know you did the best you could. Another words don't take a knife to a gunfight.
The stripers are showing in the rips, but there are some days when the fingers of cold water comes through and puts a damper on things. One day we get them really good, and the next it seems we have to work much harder for a limit of stripers. Today is the opening day of the commercial bass fishing season. Its open Mondays and Thursday until the quota of 885,000 pounds is filled. The daily bag limit is 15 fish per boat, and they must be 34” in length.
My bookings are filling up, but there is usually room to fit in a half day bass trip somewhere in the week. A couple of the season’s weeks are still pretty open and there are still some really excellent tuna days unbooked. If you are looking to try your angling skills on a bluefin tuna, send me an email to lock in one of these few small tide days that are left unbooked. Currently the weeks of July 10-15, August 21-26, September 11-16 are all pretty open for stripers, but the rest are close to 60% booked. The better days for tuna that are still open are July 4, 12, 13, 30, August 5, 22, 23, 29, 30, September 6, 10, 11-15, 20, 24, After this, I start commercial tuna fishing and only take charters on short notice as weather permits.
Thank you and Good Fishing,
Cant Bruce & Marilyn S
