[ksong]

Here is a fishing report on 07-08 from other site (not me ). One boat did very well on chunking/jigging inside of Washington Canyon which is about 70-80 miles Cape May, NJ.
I plan to go tuna jigging/chunking trip to the area on Thurs/Fri and I'll give the report when I come back.

Always appreciate the info this board has to offer so I figured I toss some back into the pot. Fish saturday 6/8 inside the washington....almost every boat we saw was trolling, we tried that the previous weekend and watched guys catch all day and we couldn't get a bite but marked fish all day. this time we brought 3 flats of butterfish and thought that would work and it sure did. We fished from 7:45 till 3pm and had 4 yft to 65lbs and 14 BFt to 135 lbs. We lost some real bruisers, one that would've pushed the 73" mark. We didn't really have to chunk too hard as the fish were so thick. Got 5 on diamond jigs. Most of the day we were marking fish pretty heavy between 100' and 140' so the jigs were the ticket, especially since we could tie direct and put some pressure on those beasts. We were tossing 3-4 chunks every 30 min-whenever we remembered to. We only had 3 guys on board so it was kinda tough. Had 2 triple headers and 4 doubles....pretty insane chunking and nothing in my opinion beats hooking a slob on a diamond jig....8oz hammered. There was also a nice troll bite in the am but it seemed to shut down as the fleet arrived. All Fish were loaded with sand eels. Hopefully this will help someone else have as good a day as we did.

 

[RueHoo]

Thanks Kil for the info and good luck on your trip.

 

[Minnow]

That was me, I use the wrong pc.

 

[Ragman]

The way she outfished us this weekend, I was worried she was moving to offshore!

 

[ksong]

OUr trip was postponed to Monday(07-17).
I hope I can catch first bluefin tuna on jigs.

There is an unconfirmed report that a guy caught 360 lbs bluefin tuna on a Butterfly jig at Atlantis Canyon a few days ago. If it is confirmed, I'll post a detailed report.

 

[ksong]

The final our tally is 27 bluefin in 40-60 lbs, mostly caught on jigs and released all but one.
We released 9 bluefin already before dawn when no boat was in sight.
At that moment it seemed bluefin hit anything moving.
As bluefin were willing to hit jigs, I could experiment different jigging technigues and different jigs.

One new discovery was Jananese style jigging is working !
I tried short jerking/cranking technique as you see Shimano's Butterfly jig system video and it worked. I had three bft on the thechnique. I had one on long jerking/cranking technique which Mr. Mastutani of Seven Seas showed in his dogtooth video.
All jigs look small worked. Jananese jigs with assist hooks worked too. Among them, the jigs worked best were Yozuri's 200g Metallic Sardine and 5" long Seven Seas' Hooker.

How need harness ?

 

[bellyup]

Sounds like a great trip!! Glad you caught some bluefin on the jig.

 

[Minnow]

Kil, is that your rod rigger on the picture?
That thing looks cool.

 

[ksong]

Kil, is that your rod rigger on the picture?
That thing looks cool.
No, that is my friend's.

Here is mine. It is cheating, but very effective on a private boat.

 

[Gunsmoke]

I like that cheating stick. Great idea. I think I'll have one made.

 

[Deep_Sea_Gull]

Nice picture there Kil.

I had forgotten seeing that back in Venice. Now I know how it works.

Would it ok to glue on either some haplon or water pipe insulation?
My boys could make good use of it without me having to worry so much about getting a rod bruised.

 

[ksong]

Would it ok to glue on either some haplon or water pipe insulation?
My boys could make good use of it without me having to worry so much about getting a rod bruised.
I highly recommend to have som haplon or insulation on it as my favorite Cosmotech rod got broken right at the spot(fore grip) where it touched the holder.

 

[Ragman]

Great report Kil, as always!

How do you like that Acid-wrapped rod for jigging?

I know Rick speaks highly of his.

 

[ksong]

As soon as I came back from Alaska trip, I went tuna fishing again as bigger bluefin tuna showed up in the same area I fished last time.
Other boats reported they had excellent jigging bites before dawn, but when we got there around 6:00 am, tuna just ignored our jigs though we had steady picks on baits.
I jigged pretty hard though I didn't have any single bite for several hours. I had to as my new jigging student watched me to learn. I told him he got to jig until he get bite no matter how long it takes and his time would come.
Finally my time came when my rod got doubled with masive hit.
I knew immediately this is the fish I am looking for. I decided to fish on my custom rail though I felt it is too high on 36' Contender.
When fish pulled my rod violently I became worry about my rod. When I relaxed for a while after I pulled the fish within 10 - 15 ft from the boat successfully after a long fight, the fish made a final sudden dive and my rod broke at the fore grip where it touched the rail. I lost my two favorite jigging rods on two consecutive trips in 10 days !! Actually I broke four jigging rods since last Oct while I never broke rods in 10 years before it happened. I had a few E glass or composite jigging rods, but I seldom used them as they are pretty heavy than the graphite rods. But I have no choice but to use them in the future trips. I could estimate the lost fish around 150-200 lbs based on how it pulled my line.

happy moment

dangerous moment

sad moment

 

[Deep_Sea_Gull]

Ouch!

 

[Gunsmoke]

Kil,
Maybe this is God's way of telling you not to use the cheating T-Bar. I do like that bar. I've never used one before but can see what an advantage it could be to a tired fisherman. I've had those years where I broke four or five rods. I don't think I've broken one in a few years.

Look at the bright side. You now get to shop for more rods. Expensive, but fun. I'm leaving in a few minutes to go and fight the seas in the gulf. Looks like 4-5s for Saturday. It will be a little bumby, just have to go slower. A friend of mine went out Thursday and had to turn around. He said the seas were nothing less than 7-9s out to 8 miles where they made the decision to turn around.

 

[ksong]

Kil,
Maybe this is God's way of telling you not to use the cheating T-Bar. I do like that bar. I've never used one before but can see what an advantage it could be to a tired fisherman. I've had those years where I broke four or five rods. I don't think I've broken one in a few years.

Look at the bright side. You now get to shop for more rods. Expensive, but fun. I'm leaving in a few minutes to go and fight the seas in the gulf. Looks like 4-5s for Saturday. It will be a little bumby, just have to go slower. A friend of mine went out Thursday and had to turn around. He said the seas were nothing less than 7-9s out to 8 miles where they made the decision to turn around.
The rod I used is cod jigging rod. I liked to use the rod for tuna jigging as it weighs like feather. The wall is so thin that I shouldn't use the rod for big tuna. And my custom rail position is too high because of Contender's hull design, so that I couldn't lower my rod when fish pull hard under the boat to loosen the pressure on my rod.

On the first trip two weeks ago, I broke my GUSA Wahoo rod near the tip when I banged the rod as I tried to release the fish. It was avoidable my mistake.

Yes, it is a good excuse to make another jigging rod.
As I have pretty success to catch tuna using Japanese jigging style, I might use 5" long Japanese jigging rod in the future.

 

[ksong]

I went back to same area today and found tuna were willing to bite.
The amazing thing was I saw only one tuna out of about 30 we released was under 100 lbs !
I caught only two in 120 - 140 lbs range out of 6 hookup on jigs. The lost ones were much much bigger and stronger.

The curbed fork length was 58 inches. Later on I released a 61 incher which was caught on jig too.

A 56 incher.

Captain Mark and crew ready for releasing fish.