Posted on December 16th, 2024
Time is running out for Christmas shopping…..Get to Atlantic Tackle for the 12 Days of Christmas!
Weather wasn’t the nicest today with some rain and fog so the fishing was left to just a few. A few was all it took to see some more very nice bluefin tuna.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star has foregone the sea bass fishing as of late to put some of his clients on some awesome bluefin tuna.
Pushed this second of back-to-back trips off a bit; delayed 2.5 hours to allow the worst of this morning’s weather to slide offshore. Glad I did too. Instead of fog, rain & heavy standing seas in a hard ebb at the mouth of the inlet we had a flood tide (a calm inlet) and clear vis..
Extra sleep didn’t hurt anything either!
Only had three clients on this short notice open boat trip. They were three of my favorite anglers though – off we went.
Played a hunch; looked further south. Found life and saw a few tuna on my screens but no bites.
Kept paddling.
Back where we had em yesterday worked.
First one bit a Shelly and came across the rail in just 8 minutes. Forty nine inches but not the heart of some.
Exhilerating when headed for London; our second fish dumped a lot of line on the strike; had bitten a wayback to begin with so perhaps 400+ yards of line out! After several rounds of anglers it took 43 minutes to slide over the rail..
I have to fill out an eVTR for each bluefin (Thank Goodness not for sea bass!) The premier charting agency in the world first asks for Lat/Long. Then asks if I was in Eastern Standard Time or Central (I swear!) Then NOAA wants to know whether I was in Fed or State waters & what was the ‘block’ of data – here area 621. Then they ask how deep it was…
Ummm.. Shouldn’t all that be instantly known via Lat/Long?
Oh, it gets so much more fun. The agency that has absolutely no shame saying Maryland Shore anglers kept 170,000 pounds of sea bass in Sept/Oct 2017 then asks me a dozen more questions about each bluefin. A great one is “Was the weight estimated or measured?” ..have to answer that question or the form won’t complete ..but they don’t actually ask the weight.
Frustrating agency.
Really frustrating.
Dern sure the tuna are fun though!
Cheers,
Monty
Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters had some tuna anglers on board again today and he put them on another limit of fish with three “under” and one “over” bluefin tuna. The largest measured out at 69″.
