The morning began at 4:30AM just before sun break. The fish the few days prior seemed to be working south and I had a pretty good number on where they might be. However I expected there to be quite a few boats chasing these fish.
It wasn't long before we started seeing fish jumping here and there. Stick boats were harpooning tuna all around us, but we were having a tough time getting on the fish with the spinning gear.
I made some calls and found some good reports of life about 25 miles from where we currently were. The weather was good so I decided to make the run.
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Tuna On The Spinning Rod
My client was from Texas and I really wanted to get him into a good fish while the tuna were up on the surface. Immediately I did not see that much life, but there were some fish popping up here and there.
There would be a group of birds here and a swirl or two there. It was not a blitz by any means but there were some tuna feeding on sand eels. Only problem was that the fish were super spooky and they would sound whenever we approached on them.
Finally we set up on a group of fish that were coming our way. I shut down the engines as the fish sounded beneath us and popped up on the other side of the boat.
My client made a great cast and got his plug right into the mix of fish. A couple pops is all it took and SMACK! we had a fish on.​
The fish looked big initially because he threw a lot of whitewater when he hit the plug. However the tuna did not do all that much on his initial run.
We weren't able to horse the fish because we were using such light tackle. We fought the fish for 45 minutes before we got her to the surface.
Once on the surface I could see that the tuna was in the 60-65 inch class, which is pretty perfect for the spinning rod.
Cullen's happy Texan client!
​I would of liked to have hooked a fish that was a bit bigger but it was good to get this one to the boat.
This was my first tuna on the spinning rod this year so I wasn't complaining!
The past 2 weeks has been really good for tuna fishing. To be honest it really doesn't get much better.
It's good to see all sizes of tuna too. We have seen school fish all the way to giants, often during the same day.
It's good to know that the stock seems healthy and plentiful, at least right now in our area off Cape Cod.​
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A 5+ minute audio report by Cullen recapping the trip and sharing more details on the areas fished and techniques used
What do you think? Let me know by commenting below.
How far out do you need to go to find these small tuna? I’d love to try it at least once, but I’m nervous about going too far out in my 19′ Grady.
By the way, Cullen you need to add www. to your website link, otherwise the site doesn’t load. Your webmaster can fix that, but for now update the link with www. before the domain.
Jim,
Sorry for the late reply. I have been crazy busy. Anyways at times the fishing can be close to shore. In the fall off Chatham fishing can fall into patterns of being within three miles of the beach. Obviously weather is a concern that time of the year, but if you pick the right day you should have no problem.
Hope this helps!
Cullen
Love these stories. Thanks, Cullen