Boston
Metropolitan
Region

August 6th, 2004

Testosterone Time

Featured Affiliate

Stop breaking your back lugging your Kayak or Canoe to the water. This handy carrier is lightweight, compact and a steal at $69.97 plus shipping

The tuna are in and you're going to be hearing a lot of the old adages and metaphors over the next couple weeks. Comparisons to Santiago from Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", references to screaming freight trains, and all manners of advice, often based on scant evidence and often less experience, all will be available in countless versions from all the usual sources. Don't even get me started on the "hot color" discussions.

Since I started fishing tuna in the mid-eighties, I could probably write a book on just the strange stuff I've seen. From the guy in the zodiac who landed a fish in the 500 lb. range (he had to have another boat help drag it in), to the secret codes shared sparingly among friends on the water to confuse and obfuscate their strategy and location from the rest of the fleet, the stories abound. Let's just say this, this is the season the tackle companies love (except for those lifetime guarantees). Gear gets trashed and visa cards get maxed in the chase for these beasts.

For those of you who aren't geared up yet and are considering a run to the shop to get started, let me give you the one bit of advice you'd do best to heed...go with a guide the first few times so you get an idea of what you need, and more importantly, what you're in for

For the rest, I'll offer a few tidbits. I should preference this by saying that I'm a contrarian, and for everything I say, there are going to be other points of view.  Don't forget the permit! http://www.nmfspermits.com/

1. Fluorocarbon - use it. The visual acuity of the bluefin is incredible. Any thing that helps cut down the chance of being seen is a good thing. I once literally hand fed butterfish to sbft off the side of the boat one time. Each piece would float down a few feet, then get nailed. Then I'd drop one down with a cleverly concealled hook. No matter what I tried, the one with the hook was utterly ignored. Even full concealment didn't make a difference. On the opposing side, I have seen times where we were able to grab trawler discarded whiting off the surface, slam an oversized hook in it, toss it over and have the thing nailed almost immediately. Striking to me was that both of the above occurences happened on similar brightly sunny, flat calm days. The results could not be more different.

2. Low light conditions rule - Early morning, and dusk are great times to be out fishing for these guys. Yes, they hit during the daylight, it's not an exlusive deal. My advice is to get on the water as early as possible and stay as long as you can. I've often saved the day at dusk when the other guys were in washing their boats or sipping martinis.

3. Plan - When you've got one on is exactly the wrong time to start planning. That's when the Chinese firedrill ensues. Be smart and plan what everyone on the boat is going to do when you hook up. Even if your plan doesn't work, you'll be making adjustments, rather than barking orders at everyone.

4. Don't get lazy - if you need to re-rig do it. By the same token, check all your knots, check your leaders for any sign of fraying, and be sure that your flies, lures, bait, dynamite, etc. are behaving the way you expect. Bait improperly rigged will twirl, as will flies. Get a good look at how they're actually working.

5. Break the rules - Just because you've heard that pink is the hot color, don't be afraid to swap over to green, etc. This isn't chemistry, there are no pat formulas that where a + b = tuna at the transom. More often than not, these rules are based upon observations of behavior, and the inferences that are made can be wrong.

6. Don't crowd other boats. As bad as it is during Albie season on the southside, remember that tuna often take a lot of line. If someone is hooked up, reel up and get out of his way, and hope he'd do the same for you. These fish are hard enough to catch, without other fishermen making it harder.

7. Try to remember you're having fun. Missed opportunities can be upsetting, and fishing for tuna can be a lot of work. No matter what, in January, you'll be dreaming of these days.

At First Light Anglers, Capt. Derek had this sage advice:

 We have been having good luck on both the fly and spin tackle. The bait is primarily sea herring and tinker mackerel. Both baits are in the 3-6” range, although the fish we have killed have had probably 50 to 1 herring over mackerel.  We have been fishing mainly mushmouths and kinky fiber flies tied on 4/0 and 5/0 Gamu SC15 hooks. On the spin tackle, we have been casting mainly the large YoZuri Hydro Popper in the Mackerel colors or the Mackerel and Sardine Hydro Jigs. I like fishing the poppers simply because the take is so fantastic. We have been replacing all of the poppers/jigs hooks with heavy duty treble hooks either Gamu or Owner or the single Siwash hooks in 5/0.

Reel-Timer Soundking had this advice:

One: Flourocarbon cannot be stressed enough, not only for its properties relating to visability, but for it's abrasion resistance. Bluefin have many small, razor sharp teeth that can wear through mono, but they cannot wear through flouro.

Two: Zap-A-Gap every knot in your system, spectra to swivel, flouro to swivel, and flouro to jig/popper/fly.

Three: Every third cast let your jig sink for a 20 count, bluefin break in an "iceberg pattern" for every fish breaking there are many more down below looking for stragglers. Then fish it with a snappy retrive...I usually catch a fish doing this.

Four: If using a fly, use one with some bunny in it. This may suprise you, but the tunafish love the action of the bunny strip hanging back. This can double in application, one, a short, quick, hard strip to give the bunny tons of action and make it bounce through the water, another is to simply cast the fly into them, and just keep tension...for some reason this works when nothing else will, I guess as it slowly sinks the tuna will pick it up for an easy meal.

Five: Don't get nervous when the fish is screaming drag, the fish will slow and eventually sound, many people make the mistake of chasing a fish too early, when it is often better to allow the fish to tire and use the weight of the boat and drag to slow the fish down...its easy to run a 100 yard sprint without weight, its damn near impossible to do it while pulling a truck.

 

Seven: When fighting the fish, slow progress is everything. I like to keep the tip of the rod bend into the water, pump the rod up with short pumps to about six inches above the water, and then crank the tip back into the water.

 

Eight: Switch the angles of pull on the fish, the tuna will go sideways to the line, and use its shape to its leverage, but if the line direction and angle keeps changing the fish cannot grind it out deep as well, and will tire more quickly. Nine: If you release the fish, try not to take it out of the water, these fish are near death when they are landed, it is best to put a lip-gaff into them and pull them along side the boat until they get fight back into them, much like they do will billfish.

Hope that this helps, I have more if you would like, but these are little tricks that tend to work very well, and can really be of assistance to someone first trying for the tuna. Thanks, JJ

Okay, thanks to all who have provided advice this week.  Share your tips on the Reel-Time forum in this thread.

Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...

Tight Lines!

Mark Cahill

Boston Harbor

Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports:

August 4, 2004: Jeff Robarge, Ben Holden and Jeff's business associate Tom joined me for a morning of fly and light tackle fishing for blues. The morning was off to a slow start but before too long picked up when we located bluefish that have been hanging around offshore for the past week or so. These fish were feeding on 5" sperling or adult silversides and would take any kind of popper we could through at them. It was a beautiful day on the water... Happy anglers with sore arms. Not too tough to take!

August 2, 2004: Had the pleasure of taking Peter Jones of Oxford, England out today for a fantastic morning of blue fishing. We found small pods of blues about two hours into the coming tide that willingly took our poppers on 8 and 9 wt fly rods until it was time to leave the water. The fish were about three miles or so offshore to the north and averaged 5-8 pounds.

Yesterday was a different story altogether. Unfortunately for Chris Allen of Plymouth and his son Luke and daughter Liz, the fishing was terrible. We couldn't find any blues to cast to and didn't even get them on CD-18 Rapalas. The trio managed to scratch up a few bass off the rocks but that was it. And sometimes, that's fishin'!

Saturday was very good for blue fish offshore and my charter, comprised of summer lawwassociates, had a great time catching blues on light tackle (after learning how to cast...).

Slappy had this to report from the harbor:

8/4 Lots of boats in the haba

There were quite a few boats out in the haba last night, and no reports today. It seemed to be mostly trollers/bait guys, but there were a few fly fishers.

Inspired by the ninja, I brought along a couple eels. They produced a few fish, but caught many fish on the big plastic. Almost half the fish were legal size, but barely so. Steady bite, overall a great night for fishing--calm and all the boats left when the fish started to bite! No blues where I was last night.

South Shore

Tuna...blues...tuna...big stripers...tuna - the reports from the South Shore are great.

Take ScottNE's reports from yesterday...

8/4 Ccb Am

Actually got out semi-early and had a blast. 10 keepers, 1 blue, 3 woofers in 3-4 hours. Most fish were taken in the top 20 feet aside of the woofers which were down deeper. No great secrets other than I stayed away from the fleet a slight bit but the fish were balled up well. Not sure what to make of the VHF....I only saw a few keepers caught but know of another boat that hammered them in the same area. VHF made it sound like there were no fish in the bay...beats me but usually I don't listen aside of 16/9

Biggest fish was 36 pounds, smallest was the one I kept and will be in the photo later at 18 pounds. Not sure of the length of any of them, most went right back quickly. The one I kept I had hooked through the top fin and was sure I had a 40 pounder...nope just a 20 pounder hooked so she could run.

Total reshuffling of CCB in the last few days...no fish where they'd been and no bait. Did see charlie tuna a few times when I took a run...they were totally unmolested with no boaters in sight.

Fish were still hitting when I left but work calls as does the gas gauge. Good morning for a change...sunrise was great. NW picked up and it got nasty quick as i ran through whitecaps on the way in.

Then later in the day...

8/4 Ccb Pm

Hmm...where did those massive schools go from this am?

I never made it back down that way, wanted to see if I could find the fish in the spots they'd been holding the last week...nope. Finally came across some fish outside the canal at dusk. Ended up with maybe 15 fish, 10 blues, 2-3 dogs, and 2 bass, one small keeper and one in the mid 20 pounds.

Best I can say is there was an invasion taking place at the east end. Last seen at 9pm thousands of angry bluefish were swarming into the east end. I didn't mark anything inside the jetty's on the way in at 9, but back 1/4 mile blues were stacked top to bottom and hit anything.

North Shore

First Light Anglers has the report for the North Shore...and the forums are

The Merrimack River