Posted on July 14th, 2015
The bigeye bite in the Washington canyon has been really good lately, especially if you’re there in the evening. The one problem that anglers are running into is the large number of sharks that have congregated in that area and are trying to make an easy meal out of both bigeye and yellowfin tuna after they have been hooked. When the tuna have been hooked and are fighting, they become easy prey for sharks, and anglers are forced to try and get the tuna to the boat as quickly as possible. This scenario sometimes leads to pulled hooks, premature gaff shots and other mishaps that cause boats to lose fish that would normally be caught. We’re ready for the sharks to leave already….fishing is tough enough without having to worry about the possibility of losing a fish to a toothy predator.
One boat that didn’t have a problem with the sharks last night was the White Lightning with Captain Luke Blume out of Sunset Marina. The White Lightning took an evening trip to the Washington Canyon last night and had a great trip. The crew recorded a white marlin release, 4 mahi and this beautiful 220 pound bigeye. Captain Luke reported, “we caught the bigeye in about 30 minutes, no sharks thank goodness!”
Today’s fishing was a bit of a different story. A front pushed off the beach this morning and seas started off moderately this morning at about 3.5 feet every 5 seconds or so…not nice, but not terrible. That changed. By the end of the day it was down right rough! Captain Rob Skillman on board the Moore Bills reported that it was every bit of 6-8 feet with the occasional 9 footer, and at one point the wind blew so hard that, “the ocean was all white”. He and others have already cancelled for Wednesday.
You can check buoy reports and inshore and offshore forecasts before your next trip here…
http://fishinoc.com/resources/weather-sea-temps/
Captain Joe Drosey on board Rhonda’s Osprey played his hand smart today. Captain Joe stayed a little closer to the beach for some bluefin action and I saw him back at the dock and cleaned up by 1PM. Rhonda’s Osprey ended up with two nice bluefin and a mahi for their efforts.
