We left Osterville harbor around 7:30am, on a calm day last week, after loading all our rods and gear into the boat for the long 100+ mile trip to the canyons.
Along the way we stopped in Madaket Harbor to top off the tanks with fuel. We then proceeded on our journey. It was a pretty life-less ride out but the weather could not have been better.
More...
Once we got to the canyon (which is revealed in the "Member Downloads") we dropped our lines into the water and trolled towards the fleet - which was only a quarter of a mile away.
As we were setting up the spread, we took a look at the fish finder and saw massive schools of bait about 400ft beneath our boat. Once the spread was set we trolled for 3 -4 hours with short run offs and knockdowns from marlin and tuna.
Then a massive blue marlin raced across the spread and attacked the center rigger, but didn't come tight. The huge fish then jumped over to the left long rigger and hits again, but still did not come tight!
This went on for about two more minutes, but despite all the hits we weren't able to get a hook in him.
"We Got What We Were Looking For"
Another couple hours pass by and the time is now 7pm. We get a hit on the short rigger and this one is hooked solid.
We then see the unmistakable tail of a White Marlin putting on a show right on the surface - which was very entertaining to say the least. We fought the 80lb marlin and got the fish to the boat in about 10 minutes.
After a clean release we went back on the troll and 30 minutes later we double up on small "skippies" and toss them back. We reset the spread and finally, about 30 minutes later we get the bite that we were looking for.
Yellowfin Tuna start crashing the spread. I think every lure in the 8 rod spread was hit, but only two made it to the boat after very lengthy battles.
We iced down the tuna and then set up for swordfish.
Unfortunately nothing much happened during the night, but we did have a sword go through our lights which was pretty cool.
In the morning we managed to pick off another yellowfin and a couple of mahi mahi. We packed it in around 9am with plenty of fish.
Total tally for this trip was 3 Yellowfin Tuna, 2 Mahi, a White Marlin and 3 or 4 missed Blue Marlin.
Member Downloads
Additional information on the area fished
What do you think? Let me know by commenting below.
Sorry Ken for getting back to you so late, i’ve been very busy with fishing and haven’t had a chance to reply. From what I hear you don’t have a great chance of getting a tuna. South of the vineyard has slowed down tremendously since earlier in the year when people were getting multiple bluefin days. Now only a couple people are lucky enough to connect with a bluefin.
I’m thinking about heading to the vineyard sounds this weekend do you think I have any luck on any football there
I think south of the Vineyard would present you with a pretty decent opportunity Ken. I heard there’s white marlin out there too.
Great fishing and report. Thanks Kurt. Keep it coming.