I took Ralph DaSilva and his buddy Earl out in search of Charlie on today's trip.  Pea soup fog again (4th day in a row) but with radar and gps we made it safely out of the harbor.  Stop on the way to the grounds to make make and found some good macs after a bit of searching.

Fog is heavy all the way to the bank to the point where I drove into a school of feeding tuna and never saw them until by bow was within feet of their splashes...too bad as they were sluping baits and would have easily taken a bait.  At least we were in the right area.

The morning slack was a dud.  Not much showing and no takers for our live baits.  The fog lifted and we decided to do a little cod fishing during the fast water.  The area I have been fishing is within a few miles of where I fish tuna so it was a perfect setup.  Today however the setup ended as tremendous schools of "endangered" dogfish have blanketed the area.  Every cod taken was followed up by 5 or more dogs.  The quality of the fish was also not to my expectations as we caught a ton of short cod and many brown bellies. Time to find a new area to codfish on the next trip to this area....no worries as this spot I have nevered fished before and I havent even looked at my good numbers yet.

Around 1100 a lone stick boat past us and took up station a couple miles to the east of us.  1230 a couple more show and around 1300 the spotter plane appears over head.  The seas were flat ass calm...a perfect day for the harpoon guys...tough conditions for rod and reelers.  While I hate wind I did hope and afternoon southerly would kick in so that I could fly my kite and give the surface of the water a slight chop.  Actually the rougher it is the better they chew and on calm days it is really hard to fool them.

We move to the grounds around 1400 and setup a drift with live baits on ballons..with no wind whatsoever it was impossible to fly the kite. 1430, on hour before slack, we saw the first busting tuna.  From that point on for the next 3 hours tuna where crashing every where.  Big ones, little ones and some in between.  I was the stick boat guys working hard...I think one guy must have developed arm fatigue from the number of throws he made.  Never saw a ball being chased but it hard to tell how many (if any) any got stuck.

Tuna where all around us and one nearly jumped over our ballon but we couldnt get the bite.  These fish were keyed in on something and I thought I knew what as I have seen this show before.  At one point I looked into the water around the boat and saw I was right.  A huge bait ball of spike mackerel (4-6") long was under the hull using us a covered from the marauding tuna.  When tuna are keying on this bait it is nearly impossible to get a bite on either bait or artificials.  Our hope was that a big fish was in the area looking for a much more substantial meal and would take our horse which were being offered.

1630  came our best chance when on the sounder the largest red arch mark of tuna I have ever saw past under our boat 25ft down.  I thought sure we were going to get bit but the ballons never moved.  The water was just too calm and this fish had seen this game before and passed us by...thats why they call it tuna wishin!

We pulled the plug around 1700 and steamed at 26knots back to the harbor.  3 miles off the beach I see gannets hitting the water so I backed off the throttle and eased up on the school.  Plugs are sent flying and one fish takes a swing must misses as another nearly hits the side of the boat while jumping....What an end to the day...tuna everywhere we went and the next time we will put them in the can.

IF YOU WANT A GREAT SHOT AT TUNA YOU SHOULD BE CALLING ME RIGHT NOW!

Tight lines,

UPDATE

7/15  all out tuna blitz on the grounds after the morning slack.  I had a noon Cape Ann Kids trip scheduled so I missed out on the fun but many <59" ( which you can keep) where taken both on baits and artificials.  My source told me some monster fish were seen pushing halfbeaks so I decided to try on Saturday's afternoon slack for giants.  I will try to post a short report but I have charters the next 2 days so no promises.

Capt George