Cape Cod Offshore Fishing Report | Fish Tails Canyon

This is a guest report from MFCC member Andrew Massard recapping a Canyons trip he made on Sept 4-5, 2014

With a strong tuna bite in the area of Block Canyon, known as Fish Tails, going on for more than two weeks, and a beautiful weather window, we knew heading out to that the area would be anything but free of traffic…

But as the sun set over America, some 100 nautical miles to the west of us, we started to see exactly what we had gotten ourselves into.

Was This To Be The Most Crowded Night In Canyon Fishing History?

When I received the invite to fish aboard All Business, my friend Dave Baldi’s 36 ft express out of Old Saybrook, CT, I was very excited to say the least. The “on fire” Yellowfin and Bigeye tuna bite there had leaked to the masses, and everyone had heard of the double digit Bigeye days or the commercial boats catching thousands of pounds of tuna in a single trip.

All Business and her crew had managed to fill the boat with 18 nice YFT before midnight on an insane night bite only six days prior. This, all while I had struggled with weeds and desolate fishing grounds 60 nautical miles to the east in Atlantis on the very same day.

On the morning of September 4^th, I made the 2 hour and 15 minute drive south along 95 from Cape Cod to Old Saybrook and arrived at Between the Bridges Marina around 9 am. It was good to see some friendly faces; guys I hadn’t seen since last year’s fishing season.

As soon as I got there the only topic of discussion was about how hectic the trip was going to be. “Hundreds of boats” from all over were expected to make the long trip South with the predicted winds at 2 to 5 knots. Words like “cluster” and “nightmare” were usually closely associated with some sort of expletive describing what the scene ahead of us would be like. The not so secret intel was that there would be plenty of fish to go around and we hoped to capitalize.

We arrived 10 nm north of the Fish Tails around 3 pm. We had seen 8-10 boats on our way out and already people were trolling south towards the canyon. With an anxious crew we pestered Dave about when to start rigging rods, but he remained patient. As we continued south we realized just how many neighbors we were going to have.

Everything from mid-20 foot center consoles to green sticking down east boats to a 95 foot sport fishing yacht were parked out there with lines already in the water. Our captain continued to head along the west wall until we found a pod of whales. The whales were the ultimate indicator in the previous trip, and once we had found them we had two dead squid, a chunk bait, and butterfly jigs out within a couple minutes.

The Super Simple Technique

On this trip we were using one of the simplest drifting techniques.

Because of the strong tuna bite we elected to skip any elaborate rigging methods to hide the hook and simply put the circle hook through the top of the bait. The circle hook was attached to a 5 foot 60 pound fluorocarbon leader and then attached again to a quality ball bearing swivel.

The ball bearing swivel was attached to the main line which ran through an 8 oz. egg sinker. All connections were made using an improved clinch knot. The main line runs up to a balloon which is set at the desired length away from the egg sinker.

We ran only three lines at a time with your deepest bait being the farthest away and your closest bait (usually the only line without a balloon at all) being the most shallow. The drag is set only high enough to keep the line from coming out anymore. As a fish picks up the bait the drag will scream. At this point count to 2 or 3 and slowly bring up the drag. The fish should have inhaled the bait by now and the slow increase in drag should bring the circle hook to the corner of his mouth.

With lines finally in the water, our anxiety and excitement soon petered out as we realized that the fish were not biting during the daylight. We moved constantly trying to stay ahead of the whales and we were marking fish, but they seemed to be staying deep.

The word on the radio was the same. People marking fish, we even steamed past a dive boat who said he saw good sized fish under the pods, with only a few lucky hookups. All in all we were positive about the outlook of the night bite.

As the sun went down I climbed the tuna tower to take some GoPro footage of the sunset and the horizon full of boats. What I saw was almost unbelievable… I counted over 200 anchor lights!

The entire canyon was filled with boats. With hundreds of them now on the drift, but dozens still trolling things were becoming ugly. Captains were constantly fighting over the radio. Green stick birds being run over, hooked fish being cutoff, it was mayhem and uncomfortable.

The Bite Heated Up Once It Got Dark

Finally, around 9 pm, we were distracted by the sweet sound of drag as one of our baits had been picked up. The drag was slowly cranked up and the fish came tight. Fifteen minutes later we had the first Yellowfin of the trip on the deck. A nice fish weighing about 40 pounds.

Not huge but we were glad to get the skunk out of the boat. We had lines back in the water soon after, but completed a drift without another fish.

As we pulled the lines and steamed northwest to start another drift the skyline became denser with boats… We estimated that there were over 300 boats at this point! At no point were we more than 300 feet away from another vessel. We were passing boats, balloons, and even some people who were still trolling…

After we had moved up through the fleet about a mile or two we had lines back in the water. It was approximately 10 p.m. and we started to see squid in the underwater lights. Using Dave’s new “industrial” squid net (many off the shelf nets will bend under water pressure) we were able to grab a few live squid; I even grabbed one bare handed which earned me the “squid master” nickname!

We got these live squids down on circle hooks and they were swallowed immediately. We had four Yellowfin on that drift. It reached a point in the night where only boats with live squid were hooking up. We saw many boats using HydroGlow sticks, which are a cheap and easy addition if your boat does not have underwater lighting.

To get a sense of what I'm talking about, check out the video below, which I filmed during this trip:

Soon we had four live squid in one five gallon bucket, but the freshest one managed to kill the other three… Someone constantly had to be on squid duty. Next time we will bring tubes or more buckets to keep the squids separated.

We Went 11 For 12 Over The Course Of The Night

As the night continued, we consistently caught fish each time we passed over the center of the canyon. We had 8 fish in the boat after 5 hours and some of the crew decided to go to bed. I continued to work the lines and we managed another 3 YFT before sunrise, going 11 for 12 over the course of the night.

We also had a number of baits picked up and bitten off. Unfortunately, this is the trade off with the circle hook placed through the top of the squid. If the squid had been rigged with floss, and the hook in the body, we may have landed those fish, but at the same time the few minutes spent rigging the squid, without a bait in the water, may account for lost fish as well. It is a constant trade off like most things in the fishing world.

As the sun rose over the Atlantic Ocean, we were fortunate to not have had any fish cut off, and we weren't run over by any boats (although we managed to come within 20 feet of another vessel twice during the early hours of the morning).

We had survived what could have been the most crowded night in canyon fishing history. And as we picked up lines for the final time around 7 a.m. and started north, I could not help but think what a crazy experience it had been.

I was glad to be a part of it. Seeing all of those boats on the horizon is something I am not soon to forget.

What do you think? Let Andrew know by commenting below.