Hi Folks,
I have been running pretty hard with both Striped Bass and Bluefin Tuna trips these last couple of weeks. The striper fishing is consistently good if you can find the cooler water. Friday we had a combo tuna and bass trip and caught 7 nice 75 pound tuna in the morning and then had a couple hours of decent rip fishing with a around 10 stripers, including a nice 40 inch bass taken. Yesterdays afternoon trip produced a double hookup of stipers on the first drift and we had 4 fish hooked up on the second drift. The biggest was a brace of 38 inch bass, not huge, but very respectable when you can get them 3 and 4 at a time. I think we ended up with a dozen or so, before the dogfish kept us from getting to the bass. Todays afternoon trip, I will have longtime customer, Joe Stumer's family from PA, and we will have a full tide and a couple pounds of fresh sand eels to work on these nice bass. We will see how that works out !!! There are still some pods of bass outside of the Chatham cut on the bottom and on the way down to Monomoy point, but the catching is sporadic. You may get them on one tide, and then they have "lockjaw" on the next. there are bluefish everywhere it seems, and the key to avoiding them is finding the cooler water eddies. I heard a report of false albacore in the Nantucket Sound yesterday as well, so the water temps there must be approaching 70 degrees.
As for the Bluefin Tuna fishing, there are not as many numbers of fish being taken daily per boat as last year, but this years fish are of a much better quality as they are much, much bigger. On Thursday, fellow charter Capt. James Shannon hired me and the "Marilyn S" to reward his mate Milty for a good season's work and Milty hooked into and landed a real nice 60 inch Bluefin weighing over 125 pounds. We had another on that morning of the same size class but pulled the hook. Monday, Wednesday and Friday all had great tuna trips with all of the crew catching at least one nice, 60 to 75 pound tuna fish during the charter.
Location ??? I hear lots of weekend warriors on the radio when I am fishing in the fleet, offshore, telling their buddy that they are on the "Crab Ledge". The Crab Ledge is a fairly large spot, but it isn't everything east of Chatham. It is basically 8-10 miles east of the inlet on a heading of around 125 degrees. This year, we have been fishing a couple areas, east of there about 4-6 miles, and southeast of there about 6- 8 miles. That is basically the "northern" spots. The "southern" spots are in a 5 mile radius around a wreck called the Regal Sword, which is quite far, about 30 miles southeast of the Chatham inlet.
Colors ??? For me, black has been good. Other rigs that are producing for me are: pink with blue dots, shrimp pink with foil, and hot pink color. Other Captains are saying rainbow has been working for them. Not for me though, perhaps I need to retie that one to get it fishing a little better.
Good fishing and catching to you,
Capt. Bruce Peters and "Marilyn S"
