10/11 - 10/12 offshore tuna trip - epic yellowfin bite

[Jigman13]

Shoved off at 5 am from Montauk on 10/11/22. After a slow but steady steam we arrived to a city on the sea in the Hudson. Set up on the outside of the fleet and started chunking immediately at 10:30 am. Within minutes we had bruiser yellows right off the starboard side shooting through the slick. We hooked up x3 immediately. Two spit hooks and one fish landed. Couple rusty guys onboard but everyone got real loose real quick lol. We proceeded to get waves of fish throughout the entire morning into early afternoon. No rats. Nothing under 65/70 lbs. One fish was 53" and extremely round.

We had 4 in the box. Then we got boarded by the coast guard. I had to nearly sedate my father as he was on the verge of flipping out on them for doing this while we had fish eating out of our hands. As the 2 coasties are doing their thing I keep chunking and paying out baits. Hooked up for 15 mins and the coasties got to watch me put the screws to an 80 lb fish.

After we landed the fish, it took a while for the coastie zodiac to position properly and picked up their guys. My dad was pissed but it is what it is. We took a little cruise out of the fleet so I could process the fish on deck, ice them and check all leaders, knots and hooks etc. Retied a few, guys got some drinks and back up on the drift we went.

It slowed down a bit as guys started heading for the barn. We moved around and eventually picked a spot to drift for the night on the opposite wall. Deployed some sword lines way out and worked three chunk lines in tighter. Every squid i netted went straight down, 50', and got demolished. Butter slivers with the hook passed through once (like a squid strip) was ticket. 50 to 75' down. Set the drag and boom. Like clock work every 10 min from about 1030 pm until 2 am. With 12 fish on ice from 65/70 to roughly 100 lbs, we had our limit and released a few others. Spent the rest of the night drifting for a sword but came up empty. Cleared the deck and cleaned up at sun up and pointed the bow home.

I decked 9 fish. My body hurts. My hands are swollen. My back will not forgive me lol. My dad said he hasn't seen tuna fishing like this since the 80s. He's 73 and has been doing it over 45 years. His buddies onboard--60s and 73--said the same thing. I turned 40 today. I feel 73 lol. Can't imagine what they feel like today hahaha

Went through 2 spools of 60 and 2 spools of 80 fluoro. At night 80 is all you needed. Get on them if you have the means. It's epic.