Article by Larry Budd
This Week Last Year
• The Big Fish Classic had 110 boats register and a record purse of $1.22 Million. Most boats chose the 32 hour Friday to Saturday window based on the weather forecast for Sunday. Swordfish dominated the event and the big winner was the “Reel One” with a 301 lb. swordfish. This brute also took the top spot for Heaviest Fish, Stringer, Swordfish and Billfish! The top release boat was “Kilo Charlie” with 1,000 points.
• The inaugural Jimmy Johnson’s Quest for the Ring was held in Atlantic City. Local boat “Roll Groove” dominated the event with a 679 lb. blue marlin caught by Darren Helwig. The “Fish On” took top honors in the Dolphin Division with a 36.7 lb. fish.
• The “Makowish” landed a 90 lb. wahoo in 30 fathoms outside of the Hot Dog.
While the heat and humidity over the past week put the hurt on anglers, it did not seem to bother the fish offshore! The main catch from the canyons and inshore lumps remains yellowfin tuna. We also have seen some nice bigeyes hit the docks over the past week, including our new Heaviest for the season. The “Wrecker” set another record with a 276 lb. eyeball they caught in the Washington Canyon last Friday. Outside of tuna, dolphin remains small with the larger ones caught last week in the mid teens. Billfishing is a whole other topic with this season continuing to see poor conditions. More on that below, so lets get to it!
Tuna
The theme over the last week would be ‘consistent and larger with a lot of throwbacks’ to describe the yellowfin tuna catch. We are in that time of the season where some captains are still chunking with cut butterfish at the inshore lumps while others troll in deeper canyon waters. The good news is that both methods were productive and fish were coming in from almost everywhere. The second half of last week saw a lot of boats out with the exception of Thursday which had a forecast of some afternoon winds. Most boats brought back catches in the mid to upper single digits, however the average size was up over previous weeks. The inshore lumps were the hotspots with the Hambone remaining the top location followed by the Hot Dog and Fingers. 20 to 30 fathoms were common depths. The “Marli” had two trips with limit catches of 18 yellows and another trip with 10 in the box. The “Restless Lady” had two big landings last week as well. One is on the cover where the crew pulled in 12 yellowfin tunas from several inshore lumps. It was however Saturday that saw an explosion of action and mainly from the canyons! The “Restless Lady” returned from an overnight trip with 13 yellows in the box and a mess of blueline tilefish from Massey’s Canyon. Capt. Ronnie Fields on the “Big Stick” hit the scales at Sunset Marina with 9 fish from trolling in the Poor Man’s Canyon that weighed a combined 500 lbs., averaging over 50 pounds a piece. The “Capt. Ike II” out of the Indian River Marina got 7 yellows with the largest at 73 lbs. On top of the consistency of the bite and the larger sized fish, we had a new Heaviest Yellowfin for the season reported for Maryland. The crew of the “C-Team” caught an 89.2 pounder in Massey’s Canyon using a 8000 class spinning rod!
We had 3 reports of bigeye in this issue, all bending the scale at over 200 lbs. Most notable was the one mentioned above from the “Wrecker”. The other two were a pair of 225 lb. fish caught on the “Outlaw X” and the “Leve’en Limited”. Both were found in the Washington Canyon and both took over 2 hours to land.
Like last week, we had no reports of bluefins or longfins and little tunnys and bonitas remained in the mix.
Billfish
Billfishing remains tough. Clear gulf stream water and warmer temperatures remain with the gulf stream far offshore. Normally by this time of the year an eddy or ‘feature’ as Capt. Ronnie Fields calls them, would have broken off the gulf stream and brought some of that water closer in. We have just not seen many of those this year, and the ones we have seen are very short lived. For example, there was one on July 16th that was east of the Washington Canyon about 90 miles out. The “Billfisher” took advantage of that and had 4 white marlin releases and a sailfish as we highlighted last week. The “Fishizzle” was also in the Washington that day and released a tournament sized 80” white. Otherwise, billfish catches have been sporadic with only a few whites being reported last week and a single blue marlin release. Early last week on one of the “Marli”’s big tuna trips, they also released a white in the Baltimore Canyon. The “Kilo Charlie” released 3 whites in the Norfolk and the “Loose Screws” released one at the Hambone that they caught on a jig! The lone blue marlin release, estimated at 250 lbs. was from the “Turnin’ Fins” who were also fishing in the Washington Canyon last Wednesday.
The level of action is about to turn up as we formally enter Tournament Season. Over the next 7 weeks we have 6 major offshore events including the Big Fish Classic this weekend and the White Marlin Open, the Poor Girls Open and the MidAtlantic in August. Check out the details in the Upcoming Tournament section!
Until next week, I will see you at the scales! §
Upcoming Tournaments
• The 56th Cape May Marlin Tournament is July 28th - 30th hosted by the Canyon Club in Cape May, NJ. This is one of the oldest and prestigious release tournaments in the Mid-Atlantic. More at SouthJerseyTournaments.com.
• The next big money tournament in our area is the Big Fish Classic! It is the 9th rendition of the event and will be held July 28th - 31st. Unique to the Big Fish Classic is the 32 hour fishing window with unlimited anglers allowed during that time. This allows for a lot of time on the water with most boats spending the night offshore from Friday to Saturday. Always lively at the scales with lots of entertainment at the Talbot Street Pier. Scales are open Friday & Saturday 4-9PM and Sunday from 4-8PM with awards & payouts following at 8:30PM. Be sure to check out the action and lively vendor village. More at BigFishClassic.com.
