JIGGING AND POPPING FOR TUNA
aka..RUN AND GUN TUNA
2010 is coming up. We've got some incredible fish in our rear-view mirror. 2009 was beyond words productive for us and the guys that do it every day. We work with other boats in this fishery, and the communication goes a long way to making your trip more successful. Dom Petrarca, on Coastal Charters Sportsfishing and myself tackled more tuna than anyone else on the coast. Working together and with a game plan helps put you all on fish and keep you there.
How much do I like this type of fishing? Well, I build my own lures for it! TUNA CANDY. And TUNA CANDY MAXXX. We use spinning rods and jigging rods to catch bluefin tuna on Stellwagen Bank, Provincetown, Peaked Hill Bar, Cape Cod Bay, and in many other places. In 2008, these fish were almost all 58"-65" long. That's a big fish on spinning tackle! In 2009, the TYPICAL fish was 150-200 pounds. In fact, however, there is a huge number of larger fish in the area. We hooked more than a dozen giants in 2009! Two of these fish were fought for 3-4 hours, only to lose them near the boat. One other fish spooled us completely in 32 seconds. That was 500+ pounds. Start working out now!
This is deep-sea fishing at it's greatest and most challenging.
Our boat is perfect for 4 people, because you can all cast at once and there is still plenty of room for a full cabin to get you out of the elements. We caught fish until mid-November, and the fish were still around in mid-December. That's a cold ride out if you don't have a cabin! See you out there.
In 2009, we're using appropriate tackle for these fish. With large spinning reels from OKUMA (VS80 and Salina 80) and rods from OTI(Ocean Tackle International), we are confident that we can stop just about any fish out there. These reels have great drag systems and these rods are 7 1/2 and 8 1/2' long with backbones to hoist fish and stop them (they're rated 40-60 pounds and 60-80 pounds). Fishing line from Western Filament, TUF-Line is a great braid and their Tuf-Line Indicator is marked every 10', which makes precise jigging an easy move. Jigging for tuna was incredible in 2009.