GAMBLER --Offshore Tuna Trips

[captbogan]

Although not every trip has been great, overall offshore tuna fishing has been good again this fall for the Gambler.

On our last 36 hour trip, which returned Thurs night, the bites were sporadic. We caught fish in the dark and during the day but we could not get a flurry going, although I saw good marks on my fish-finder, especially during the morning hours.

The boats that had returned from the Long Island bite the day before had reported that the squid-boat grounds had dried-up since the North-easter days before. So we wound up at the Hudson on the East side. We found a great shot of blue water which jumped from 67F to 71F. Lots of life in it, chasing bait-fish. We saw whales and porpoise, flying-fish, squids and good lines of Sargasso weed with mahi and bar-jacks swimming below it.

The anglers aboard caught some mahi and jacks early when we first got there along with some nice golden tile fish. Drifting was the way to go, as the sun went down. A couple of yellowfin were taken in the early night. Then, as the Gambler drifted into the deep, we took 3 nice swordfish. The biggest being close to 200lbs. Two of the 3 swords were taken on our rental rods, just using regular butterfish bait.

Eventually, we had to anchor in 700ft, as the wind picked up and we began to drift too fast. We took a few more big yellowfin in the dark. Around 5AM we caught a couple longfin tuna on bait. Just before dawn, we landed a huge bigeye, nearly 200lbs. The crew did a great job assisting the angler, getting the big fish into the boat.

As the morning turned into daylight, we took a few more longfin tuna and picked away at some big mahi that were swimming through our slick. I read the most fish on my screens between 8AM and 11AM but they didn't turn on the way we had hoped. Still --it was a good trip and everyone went home with fish.

The way this water looks, I see no reason why we should not catch these tunas offshore into November.

Hope to see you aboard

Capt Bob