Bluefins Hit The Dock for Day 1 of the 2026 HUK Big Fish Classic

By Scott Lenox

Posted on July 24th, 2026

Just got back from day 1 of the 2026 HUK Big Fish Classic and it was a surprisingly busy night of scales action. 13 boats fished the first window from lines in at 7 AM this morning until lines out tomorrow at 3 PM and several of them came back and weighed some fish. There were a few mahi and several bluefin tuna, and three of them hold the top three spots in the Big Fish category. Here’s who’s leading after the first day of scales.

Big Fish

1st Place Canyon Blues 73.5 Lb bluefin

2nd & 3rd Place Restless Lady 62 & 61.5 Lb Bluefin

Away from the tournament, Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters had a nice day for his group putting them on a couple of bluefin tuna and a nice king mackerel.

Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run Charters had a great day for his anglers today putting them on some bluefin tuna early and some nice flounder after.

Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters had a great day in the OC Inlet when he put his folks on two very nice sheepshead, a keeper flounder and 2.5 keeper tautog. A shark attack at the boat cost one tautog its lower half. This evening it was two more keeper flounder for another happy crew.

A father and son visiting from Michigan had a good time with Captain Tony Battista catching some rockfish and one keeper flounder at 19.5″.

Chris Wooten used his Deadly Tackle to capture this flounder in the Chincoteague Bay.

Anglers fishing on the Angler had a good time with plenty of keeper flounder with some very nice fish in the mix.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a good day on the mahi for his folks today

Dogone light NE winds are hard to cipher. So far so good for this one, but a tad more wind on top?

It would get plenty saucy, quick. Supposed to taper overnight. Hope so!

Ambled on off to Ringmaster Reef Group where Daphne and Chris sent today’s block unit to the bottom. Again & again – every trip – our block deployments are always to improve/broaden a reef’s footprint; to grow more coral over time.

Works.

If these light noreasterlies persist we may well have mahi at the Bass Grounds soon, but not yet. I continued east.

First drop – fish on.

A single.

Would happen many more times. Closest we came to a school of mahi today was five fish I think.

Ugh..

Several times twos and threes would just turn their nose up at our offerings.

Fussy little scoundrels.

Hope they get thicker.

James won the pool with a fine inshore specimen.

Tomorrow a cbass/fluke trip. Probably see fifty mahi!

Cheers,