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Yesterday was a gorgeous day to be on the water. My morning began around 3AM getting gear together and hooking up the boat. At around 4AM I received a call from my good friend and fishing buddy Jason Mazzola, asking for a little help.
Jay was prepping his boat in hopes of a giant tuna and was unfortunately experiencing truck issues. Fortunately there was still plenty of time to kill before my striped bass charter so I launched the Miss Loretta and let him borrow my truck so he wouldn’t have to cancel his tuna plans.
So after some carpooling and coffee we had both boats in the water and ready to go for sun up. I headed off with Chuck and Mark (two great guys and experienced fishermen I met through my cousin Kevin-thanks Kevin!) and Jay headed out to the tuna grounds with new-found optimism and his first mate Mike.
Chuck, Mark and I had a gorgeous morning on the water and were able to put some really nice bass in the boat. We managed a bunch of nice bass up to 41 pounds and had a blast experimenting with jigs and a new squid lure I picked up earlier in the week.
As always big thanks to Chuck and Mark for another memorable day on the water.
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I was having a blast striper fishing but the entire time I couldn’t help but wonder how the tuna bite was. I had heard there were a few nice fish being caught and was eager to open up my phone and see a picture message from Mazzola of a nice sell-able tuna.
Well morning soon passed into early afternoon and I figured that Mazzola and Mike were probably doing more tuna wishing than tuna catching, as is often the case when targeting those elusive fish.
But at 1pm my phone went “ding!” and I received the picture message I was quietly hoping to receive.
“Got one!” was all it read along with the below photo.
Success!
After dealing with an atrocious amount of dog fish, equipment failures and a lot driving around Mazzola and Mike had found an area with life and yanked an 81 inch tuna from the ocean. Nice work!
I met up with the guys back at the dock around 3:30PM for the offload. The fish was in great condition due to Jay and Mike’s superb job taking care of the catch. Kudos to Mazzola for putting in the necessary time and hard work learning the ins and outs of the local tuna bite.
Of course both Jay and I have a long ways to go as far as consistently catching giants is concerned, however it does go to show that an absolute beginner just a couple of seasons ago can make it happen off Cape Cod. Over the past several years we went from knowing absolutely nothing about tuna to now having 2 giants and more than dozen 50-170 pounders under our belts. Not setting any records by any means but we are happy!
[slideshow id = 35]All in all just another great day striped bass fishing and tuna fishing off Cape Cod.
The fish dressed out at 291 pounds and 81 inches. Not bad!
Click here for the full tuna report video of the action, tips and tactics on how you can catch a tuna of your own from a small boat off Cape Cod.
Have a great week and tight lines!
Ryan