Bluefin from kayaks

[JonS]

This winter I decided it was time to give bluefin tuna a shot from the kayak. Cape Cod bay has seen an influx of them in recent years. The problem was the fish have been doing very well and growing quickly. Reports were that the fish were running 150 pounds and bigger. Too big to take on from kayaks at least not as a first try anyway. ;-). I got a call from Joey. Danny found a captain who was interested in exploring kayak fishing for tuna. Danny called Joey and Joey called me. We were in. The boat is a 29’ cat and it only had the ability to transport 2 kayaks. So Hobie Revolutions and gear were put on the boat. The trip got cancelled twice and we finally went yesterday. Unfortunately the weatherman had it wrong for the morning. It was nasty and we were fishing near shore waters about 30 miles out. It was too rough to put kayaks in the water. We were butterfly jigging and caught a bunch of big bluefish, wrong kind of blue, and skipjack tuna. The weather was worsening and the predicted 5-10 mph winds were now 15-20 plus. We started heading in and hit another high spot and by the time we explored it the weather completely changed. It got very nice. The wind dropped and the seas calmed so the captain asked if we wanted to go to the canyon. We said yes and we were off to 50 miles from the beach. Danny got the first tuna and I hopped in Joey’s yak to assist in landing the fish. We were going to keep it so I gaffed it. Guestimation is it was about 40 pounds. Joey got the next one and it was about 10 pounds bigger and was released. We only got the 2 fish. Joey was a bit under the weather so I took his kayak and Danny and I fished the next couple hours. We had a couple hits and that was it. It’ll probably bust open today. I can’t wait to do it again.

Here's the link to the video Chris put together. http://www.catchthebite.com/fishing-video.html


We'll have a full article with more pics, video, etc. in the next issue of KFM. We couldn't wait to share.

[msgdan]

Thanks for the post and pictures Jon! Here are a couple more pictures from the day. The first couple are from Joey fighting the fish. It take that long to get the tuna up the first time, but as soon as they saw the kayak it was back down with a couple hundred feet of line with it.

On the way back we came across a huge dead sea turtle which had it's own eco system around it. There were small mahi-mahi and tons of small bait fish all around the dead turtle.








Danny V

[JonS]

Guys, Joey is not fishing next to the turtle.

[Odin]

Congrats on a great outing gentlemen! It's nice to see Dan actually got a day off to do some fishing, and even got to have his picture taken holding up one of Joey's fish! (insert a few guys rolling on the floor laughing here.)

Hey Dan...

Did you know that one of the Breezy ol' timers "Rich" ( aka "Mr. Rogers" ) took a Bluefin right off of the tip of the Breezy Jetty while fishing for albies two summers ago? About a month and a half away...

Looking forward to reading about the day...

[NJ Musky]

Nice catching guys!

[yakman]

after watching shark week all week it looks sharky out there

[JonS]

While I had Danny's tuna on the gaff bleeding in the water Joey jumped in to cool off.

I had a hammerhead try to take a dorado off my lip gripper in Baja and it wasn't even bleeding. I didn't want to hang onto that fish too long. But instead they got Danny's rod, got him in the boat while I was sitting there with a bleeding tuna.

[Odin]

Originally Posted by JonS

While I had Danny's tuna on the gaff bleeding in the water Joey jumped in to cool off.

I had a hammerhead try to take a dorado off my lip gripper in Baja and it wasn't even bleeding. I didn't want to hang onto that fish too long. But instead they got Danny's rod, got him in the boat while I was sitting there with a bleeding tuna.

You people are crazy...

At the end of the striper season last year, during one of those few mile long migration, blues and bass blitzes that run the beaches outer bar, a shark came up and playfully nosed-pushed a half chewed low teen sized striper that was wiggling on the surface like a bluefish chopped bunker.

The shark then came up and grabbed the striper in it's jaws two feet from my kayak's side and pulled it under. I in turn, screamed like a little school girl and paddle so fast I was left a rooster tail behind me! < insert a few smileys rolling around on the floor and laughing here. >

Really can't wait to see the rest of the pics to this outing!

[JonS]

I guess my fishing for bull sharks in the Everglades isn't something you'd want to do? My first one was between 8-10' but it broke the line 2 hours into the fight. I did land plenty from 5-7' though.

[JonS]

Here's the first video. http://www.catchthebite.com/