TUNA

Tooth

Tooth

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Does anyone here have the Tuna bug? I am pretty crazy about the tuna thing, but have had a pretty bad success rate. Two years ago my first year trying to catch tuna I lost one at the boat. Last year I had one whip me for over half an hour only to break the line without ever getting him close, and I was using a 50 with a new leader. In the summer I visit another forum as often as I visit this one, but over the past two years the info has been stingy. People are pretty quick to brag about their catch, but do not give out intel. I fully understand as the north west corner of stellwagon has become a parking lot, but was hoping I could find someone here to share intel with. So if anyone is as tuna crazy as I am let me know.

Thanks[smile]
 
The SW corner of Stellwagon is good ,but can be crazy on weekends. Live lining with pogies or some times draggin' squid rigs work well. crank on the VHF and listen to the jib jab and you can figure it out after awhile.
 
Get one of these radio direction finders.

http://www.consumersmarine.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?r=view&i=980008&aID=45A

980008_M1.jpg
 
DitchDigger said:
The SW corner of Stellwagon is good ,but can be crazy on weekends. Live lining with pogies or some times draggin' squid rigs work well. crank on the VHF and listen to the jib jab and you can figure it out after awhile.
Click to expand...

Last year Tuna were jumping like crazy right there.
 
Hi Tooth..I am Tuna crazed as well.Usually hit the NW Corner and it does get crowded. Have had limited success been doing it for two seasons and caught a couple and had a few break off. I try to get out on the weekends as often as possible.
 
Tooth ,I also have the itch...Im gonna go stick fishing next week for the first time w/an ole' pro, I'm exicited .... he's got a good pilot.
There is alot of Tuna around right now.
Fishermen are tight lipped & for good reason,don't expect any asistance on forums for "Hot-Spots".

Its like a Gamblin'/Sex addiction (but worse) [laugh]
 
I rather fish for tuna any day over ANY other type of local fish! Tuna are awesome fighters & even if you don't hook into one, it is always fun to experience the battle. Big adrenaline rush for sure - great eating raw or cooked. :D
 
Has anyone seen this yet? Kind of kills the mood.

UPDATE TO RECREATIONAL BFT RETENTION LIMITS




NMFS announces the following three actions regarding the Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) Angling category fishery: STARTING ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH (1) adjustment of the daily retention limit for private vessels to one school or large school BFT (measuring 27 to less than 59 inches) per vessel per day/trip and for charter vessels to one school BFT (measuring 27 to less than 47 inches) and one large school BFT (measuring 47 to less than 59 inches) per vessel per day/trip, for the remainder of the 2010 fishing year, (2) closure of the southern area large medium/giant “trophy” BFT fishery (for BFT measuring 73 inches and greater), and (3) transfer of 1.7 mt from the Reserve to the northern area trophy category subquota. The Angling category North/South line is at 39°18’ N. lat. (off Great Egg Inlet, NJ). These adjustments are intended to provide a reasonable opportunity to harvest the U.S. landings quota of BFT without exceeding it, while maintaining an equitable distribution of fishing opportunities; to help achieve optimum yield in the BFT fishery, to collect a broad range of data for stock monitoring purposes; and to be consistent with the objectives of the Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan (2006 Consolidated HMS FMP)
 
Any of you guys have a commercial permit? i.e. Can sell the tuna to a wholesaler. I wanted to see what the price you guys are getting for it nowadays.

I don't know what you would do with a few 100# of tuna if you can't sell it. There's just so many family and friends you can give it to.

Speaking of which, can I get in line for a few scraps? My wife makes some pretty delicious things with tuna. Her family used to own a Japanese restaurant.
 
No charlie last weekend, but found big cod on Jeffery's Friday, and stripers on Stellwagon Saturday. Stellwagon has had pretty spotty groundfish, but the huge stripers are still therer (can't keep them though). I am going to try Jeffery's again this weekend and will post what I find if anyone is interested.
One thing I have learned from the commercial, and charter guys I know is that sharing intel is key. Would appreciate any tuna intel. If you want to keep it private you can send me a pm.

Thanks

Tooth
 
Tooth said:
Does anyone here have the Tuna bug? I am pretty crazy about the tuna thing, but have had a pretty bad success rate. Two years ago my first year trying to catch tuna I lost one at the boat. Last year I had one whip me for over half an hour only to break the line without ever getting him close, and I was using a 50 with a new leader. In the summer I visit another forum as often as I visit this one, but over the past two years the info has been stingy. People are pretty quick to brag about their catch, but do not give out intel. I fully understand as the north west corner of stellwagon has become a parking lot, but was hoping I could find someone here to share intel with. So if anyone is as tuna crazy as I am let me know.

Thanks[smile]
Click to expand...

Well...I've been out of it for about 10 yrs, but we did ok fishing part time commercially. I'll throw out some of the things we did, you may already know some these. My buddy would probably call me and give me shit if he read this [grin].

One of the tricks we used to keep them from breaking off was a 5' piece of 1/4" black poly tubing with 22oz egg sinker attached (drilled a hole for the poly and taped on with electrical tape) to protect the line. We attached with a thin rubber band to the balloon and when the fish takes it down the rubber band snaps and the line protector slides down to the hook and prevents the line from chafing off. We also never horsed the fish in, fought it at the strike drag setting. Also check your drags before you start fishing to make sure they are not stuck with salt. We lost a fish because the drag froze on us. Ever since we yank some line out and make sure the pressure is good.

Another thing we did was make sure everything below the water was black, black is a neutral color for tuna. Our bottom paint was black, dacron was black, mono leader was dyed black.

We also used a variety of baits (fished four rods). Herring chunks, just big enough to hide the hook in them. Kept them as close to the size of our cut up chum as possible. Tuna are feeding on your chum chunks, they are smart fish and will ignore something that looks out of place. We floated our balloons with chunks away from the boat so the depth would be somewhere around where our chum was going. We kept the live baits (herring or whiting) close to the boat out of the chum slick. A fish following your chum will probably ignore a live bait as long as there is chum in the water. A fish cruising through might take a live bait so we tried to keep them separated. If you mark a fish kinda looking like an "S" on the screen instead of the standard "^", then it probably means it's feeding up and down on your chum. We would chum heavy and work our lines. If we keep marking him and he won't take a line we reel up the bait close to the boat and let it out again, the bait looks more natural as it drifts back down. If it won't take a live bait or chunk and we still mark him we'll pull up another line an do something different like a dead whole bait. We got three fish in one week working them like this. Twice they took the bait as I was letting it back down. We also changed out our chunk baits frequently, maybe every half hour or so. If you mark a fish at 120ft and your lines are at 80ft, it's nice to have that line fishing right at the boat close with no ballon. Just drop the lever and you can get a bait right down to where he is.

Communication is nice, sorry I can't help you there, but the bait guys are pretty good to get to know [grin]. The guys selling tuna gear usually hear if there is a bite going on and will share if you spend money at their place. We used to also keep an eye on the fleets looking for sideways boats. Tuna will usually follow a pattern and come through the same areas for several days, mostly around the same times with the tides. So if you see action one day, get up real early or camp out on anchor, to be in that spot the next day. Don't be bashful about other boats, get right up in there. I also liked to be in the front part of the fleet in around 180ft of water.

Just some of my experiences and maybe you get something out of it, feel free to ask any questions. I'm no expert, but we did get at least a few fish on the boat each season [grin].
 
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Finally!!!!!!! First TUNA last sunday. Northwest corner of stellwagon. Live mackerel on a kite. First time using the kite and I am a believer that this should be part of my live bait presentation.
Hopefully I have finally brocken the curse. I am going on a charter this weekend w/ captain Dave on Tuna.com. Hope to learn allot from a very knowledgable captain.
 
I hope you have enough to share with all of us here on NES...
Just kidding... But don't you have to eat the fish guts or something disgusting to break a curse???
 
Went on a charter this past weekend with Captain Dave. His web site is fishgloucester.com, and his boat is tuna.com. He put us on a real nice tuna, and I learned a ton. I told him I wanted to learn and the whole day was like tuna class 101. I went from being the tuna virgin to getting a nice fish two weeks in a row. Life is good. Both days were on the northwest corner of stellwagon bank using live macs. I keep my boat in Newburyport and if anyone is willing to share intel out there give me a shout.

Thanks

Bob
 
Old Glory said:
where did you get the mack's?
Click to expand...
Paint factory on Sunday, Mouth of Marblehead harbor the Sunday prior. The macs have been easy to find this year. On my boat I have had no problem getting them at breaking rocks off Hamptom and thatchers off rockport.
 
I went tuna fishing last week with my boss. he took us on a charter trip. What a blast! We went most of the day with nothing, then got hits on 3 rods within 20 minutes. the first 2 broke lines but we got the last one in with a 30 minute battle. talk about an adrenaline rush! it was 92 inches long...
 
nateo said:
I went tuna fishing last week with my boss. he took us on a charter trip. What a blast! We went most of the day with nothing, then got hits on 3 rods within 20 minutes. the first 2 broke lines but we got the last one in with a 30 minute battle. talk about an adrenaline rush! it was 92 inches long...
Click to expand...

Nice fish! Did you use live bait? [smile]
 
md2020 said:
I rather fish for tuna any day over ANY other type of local fish! Tuna are awesome fighters & even if you don't hook into one, it is always fun to experience the battle. Big adrenaline rush for sure - great eating raw or cooked. :D
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken, it's the only fish that you can eat raw without having to worry about getting sick. This is why it's best served on the boat right after catching it.
 
A little off topic (maybe) but I opened a can of Bumble Bee tuna yesterday and the metal top that they use is now so thin that you can't use it to squeeze out the water any more. It is one step up from aluminum foil. I just can't eat soppy tuna.

I am so tired and disgusted with the "spend the same money for a crappy product society that we now live in".

Sorry for the rant.
 

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