Posted on July 12th, 2016
Now that the Ocean City Tuna Tournament is over….the chunk is on. Some boats were actually chunking as early as last week, but now that the tournament is in the books, chunking will become the preferred method for catching tuna fish. For those of you that may not know what chunking is, it is a dead boat technique where anglers cut bait into “chunks” and throw them over to attract schools of hungry tuna. The most popular and plentiful chunking bait is butterfish, which is available at most every Ocean City tackle shop like Atlantic Tackle in West Ocean City. It can be a very effective way of catching tuna like it was for some boats today.
I got a report from my buddy Austin Ensor who took a short trip to do some chunking this morning. Austin was fishing with the lovely crew of Haley Cornell, Cierra Hovermill, Katti Carpenter and Ciara Thumma. They boxed a really nice 50″, 69 pound bluefin and were back to the dock by 1 PM. All of the girls also took turns cranking on a 51″ bluefin estimated at 75 pounds that they fought for an hour and 30 minutes on 20 lb line that was released. These were the first tuna for all of the girls and they did an awesome job.
Austin also introduced me to the “Butterfish Crush” which we agreed is “Disgustingly Delicious”!
C Boys fishing with Captain Luke Blume had his first chunking trip of the season today. They managed to scratch out a decent day boxing four nice yellowfin tuna.
Captain Joe Drosey on the charter boat Rhonda’s Osprey out of Sunset Marina was slinging butterfish as well today. Captain Joe put his crew on two nice bluefin tuna on today’s trip.
Our Fish in OC charter Pitboss Fishing with Captain Jeff Coats is usually seen in the back bays of Ocean City putting anglers on flounder, rockfish and bluefish, but today it was his fiance’ Karen’s day off so it was a fun trip to the chunking grounds. Karen caught a beautiful 40″ yellowfin and broke off a bigger fish while breaking in the Bad Influence on it’s first tuna of the season. Captain Jeff also sent in a photo of a flat of butterfish so you can see what it is we’re chunking with.
I got a Facebook submission from Joey C with some photos of his chunking trip from Monday. Joey fished with Dave Weller and Jason Snader and had five yellowfin tuna and a 75 pound bluefin tuna. The guys didn’t leave the dock until noon and were back by 6 PM. Joey said they left the fish snapping, but didn’t have anymore room to store them.
Captain Chris Mizurak on the party boat Angler reported some decent sea bass fishing today. There were plenty of keepers and some really nice sized fish.
A great report from Bear at the Oceanic Pier today included some cool shots from the OC Sharkin’ crew of Joe Porcella and Phillip Abrams. The boys were at it again at 130th street catching sand tiger sharks on fresh bunker. Bear’s report also included a shot of 15-year-old Alex from Frederick, MD who caught a nice 28″ keeper rockfish from the sea wall on a finger mullet, and Dustin from Pennsylvania who caught two Spanish mackerel on a chartreuse spec rig from the sea wall.
