Went from 17 tuna on Thursday to 0 on Sunday

[Caveman Sportfishing]

That is exactly what happened the last few days on the inshore tuna grounds off Cape May, NJ. My mate fished on a private boat on Thursday for hire as a teacher and they had 17 tuna with a mix of Bluefins up to 90 lbs and a couple of unders and the rest nice size Yellowfins from 45-70 lbs. They kept 10 which was all the group really needed since it was only 3 anglers plus my mate and he has all the tuna anyone would ever want from what we have caught already this season on the Hooked Up II. The last 9 tuna were all caught on jigs as they quit chunking altogether in the late morning. We ran a regular charter on the Hooked Up II on Friday and ended up with 5 tuna all Yellowfins caught hand feeding butterfish and sardines on the surface but there were at least double the boats (over a 100 all chunking or jigging) from the number on Thursday. On Saturday there had to be at least 200 boats and we ended up breaking off a couple of tuna due to 30 lb. leader and those were are only bites all day. I could not count how many times I have seen the very same thing as boat traffic does impact the tuna bite big time. The upside is friends that fished late in the afternoon prior to sundown after the fleet thinned out to 15-20 boats slammed the tuna (mostly Yellowfins) all under the rays. Find the rays and it was instant Yellowfin hook ups. Boats that had peanut bunker and live spot out fished the fleet on all the days as live bait was far superior plus they did not need to use very light leader to get bites. We will see how the bite is today being it is a Monday and my best guess it will be similar to last week when we fought tuna for 6 straight hours.

The water is now 80 degrees on the 20 fathom line where we have been fishing for the last few weeks and it is only a matter of time before massive schools of big Tiger sharks move into the area if this plays out like in past years when we had great inshore tuna fishing. Once you get surface water pushing 80-82 degrees it become more White Marlin water than tuna water and with the warm water comes the sharks then it will be time to switch over to Big Eyes and Yellowfins in the canyons where he water is down in the 76-78 degree range. Hopefully we will have another week or so of great inshore tuna fishing as it sure is nice to ride only 40 miles and have the quality of tuna fishing we have had recently.

[Caveman Sportfishing]

As expected the tuna bite was back on both trolling and chunking today as it was a Monday with far less boats than the weekend. Plenty of big nasty Bluefins pushing a 80-100 lbs. were caught, lost or released today along with nice Yellowfins all over 45 lbs. the great inshore tuna fishing is alive and well after a slow weekend with 200 boats on the tuna grounds. Same area 41 miles from Cape May but the tuna are now on some other lumps and hill all within 5 miles of where we have been fishing for the last two weeks.

We have two dates open next week if any anglers want to come down to Cape May and get in on this inshore tuna bite.