Chunk or Troll

By Scott Lenox

Posted on July 27th, 2017

Well the wind that is forecast for this weekend started blowing this afternoon and it doesn’t look to stop until sometime early next week. Throw in rainfall totals possibly over four inches on the DelMarVa peninsula and this weekend could pretty much suck. Forecasters are calling for a front that is pushing through tonight into tomorrow to turn into a full on Nor’Easter and that usually lasts an odd number of days like 1, 3 or 5. Let’s hope it’s 1 or 3. The forecast for this weekend is so bad that the 4th Annual HUK Big Fish Classic scheduled to start tomorrow has been officially postponed until September 8-10.

The offshore fleet had a decision to make before fishing this morning on whether to chunk or troll for tuna. Chunking at the Hot Dog and other lumps inside the canyons was pretty terrible the past two days so some boats opted to troll offshore while others decided to hope for the best on the Hot Dog. Captain Luke Blume of C Boys decided to troll the Wilmington Canyon today and he and mate Jon Henry had a good day. C Boys put Joe Nibali and his crew on four yellowfin tuna and a white marlin release and also released a couple of undersized yellowfins.

Captain Joe Drosey and the crew of Rhonda’s Osprey decided to try their luck chunking for another day and they were lucky….or good enough to put some fish in the box. Captain Joe put his anglers on four nice yellowfin while other boats reported not having a bite.

Carl Bittenbender submitted the below photo of his crew from the First Due out of South Bethany reported a mixed bag from just west of Massey’s Canyon caught between 8 and 9 am. The crew caught mahi and tuna with one weighing a big 60 pounds.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported a decent sea bass bite and a couple of mahi before the wind started blowing this afternoon.

The Judith M had a good 1/2 day morning trip from 8 -1:30 putting some nice sea bass in the coolers.

Captain Jeff Coats of Pitboss Fishing had Sami, Maggie and Ali Dassatti along with Mom and Dad and boyfriend Will in the Bad Influence today for some family fun. Captain Jeff put the Dassatti crew on some inshore shark fishing action just off the beach until the wind kicked in.

Captain Drew Zerbe of the Tortuga gave Cait Nichols from Boyerstown, PA a squid and shiner combo and she turned it into this 17 1/4″ keeper flounder that was the afternoon pool winner. Net men were mates Serge Garder and Matt Harris.

Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing had to deal with some tough conditions because of the wind today, but he still put his shooters on some great action with cow nosed and southern rays.