Lures of choice, anything large and white, top waters was most fun!
Species: strippers, large great than slot strippers.
Area: Deer island / main channel
Slept on boat Saturday night.
Picked son up at HYC dock at 6am, cruised out though mooring field, saw lots of small balls of pogies.
Headed out to deer island, quickly found boats and after slowly motoring around found some fish going off.
Highlight: caught 5 or so of these bad boys in a couple of hours.
Low lights: had most light weight spins onboard, that were really up to the task of throwing the large heavy lures or fighting this class of fish.
The one heavy rod we did have was a shorty and for some reason kept having problems.
At one point we had to run a rescue mission for a large bone colored floating plug that broke its leader. Yes the knot was still on the lure and yes the leader was new. I think it was just under weight, maybe at 20lbs and / or just old!
Net net: we had fun and all the fish realized healthy.
To that end, I removed ALL trebles, switched to single barbless hooks for all lures. Yes we missed a few bites, but still got the excitement of seeing some amazing and very explosive top water hits and the bonus that release were easy for us and quicker for the fish
A friend out also saw and took video of one of these:
Slept on boat, brought fan as it was pretty humid night. Woke at about 3am and stepped outside to complete calm, zero breeze, however could see pogies flipping all around the boat.
Afishionado at its Mooring.
Woke again at 5am, fired up the boat, headed to dock to pick up Jono. We did a touch and go and headed out. On the way out of Hingham harbor, saw multiple bait balls on sounder, and fish splashing on surface.
No real bird action in Hingham or Hull bays, we headed towards Squantum and nothing there. Next we headed towards Boston and Spectacle Island as we both had seen boats there last few mornings.
No boats or fish at Spectacle, but some near Deer Island, so we headed there, but nothing biting. Next we saw boats out near North / South channel split, so we headed there. Found some fish busting on the surface. We used large white, walk the dog plugs and Jono quickly hooked into this one.
Jono with the first fish
We caught a few more fish all larger than slot and all released unharmed.
Saturday, took Tate out of a spin in Hull bay, lots of birds, no fish. Spent the rest of the day cleaning and waxing the boat.
Sunday, went out a little early by myself. Covered all of Boston harbor, some birds no fish.
Monday went out early with Chris & Jono, and caught my first fish of the season.
We started out from Quincy Bay marina, didn’t see any pogies. Went to rips at Deer Island light. We fished close to the light on an out going tide.
First pass Chris hooks up with a black plastic eel like thing, then Jono hooks up with a similar white plastic. Nothing for me.
Next pass similar thing, no bites for me.
I should come clean at this point and mention I’d brought the wrong rod. For some reason which at 4 in the morning had made sense to me I thought I needed the heavy spinning rod. They had both brought light tackle. I switched up to a medium pink RonZ, my go to, still nothing. I then tried a black and silver eel from Hogy. Finally was on the board! I’m not sure if it was the 50 leader or the size and shape of the luhr or it’s color but something was spooking the fish.
After than we did a cruise around Hull, Hingham, Fore River Bridge and back up to Fort Point, where we finally saw a ton of boats! We didn’t see any pogies, so jigged what we had, after about 20 mins Jono and I took a break to watch Chris. He had found some eel oil that he put on the luhr while both us made fun of it, he went back to jigging the black jig off the bottom. A few minutes later he had a great fish, much bigger than slot on and to the boat.
Shortly after this we spotted some splashing and snagged a couple of pogies that went back down on circle hooks. Chris missed his, but Jono got his one and landed another nice fish.
A great day and a good number of fish given no top water action.
Met Dad & Sister in Miami. Traveled on to Guatemala City and then on to Sailfish Oasis lodge.
Day 1: Great breakfast at the lodge, followed by a short 5-minute van ride to the boat, and off we go to find the fish. Great day of fishing with double-digit sailfish raised and a good number caught as well as a number of dorados, enough for lunch and dinner for all. The boat heads home and I’m off for a nice swim and great dinner at the lodge
Day 2: Sailfishing was a bit slow to start, but the dorado fishing was off the hook and we filled the ice box with food for all.
Day 3: We had a good morning sailfish bite, with us releasing close to 10 fish before 1pm or before lunch of fresh grilled dorado was brought out. Just before lunch got out the door, the captain spotted Spinner Dolphin, spinning, and a huge flock of birds working ahead. He shouted out, “want to catch a few tunas”? To which I responded “Hell Yah”!.
We pulled the baits just ahead of the dolphins, and BAM, we had two football tunas. Next, we switched up to larger 50-wide reels and matching rods. got in just ahead of the dolphins again, missed a fish and then a great bite and hook up on the other rod. Another tuna in the boat. We have plenty of fish for sushi. We all agreed on one last pass. Got to the same area and another strong bite, line peeling off the reel. The skipper kept going for a bit to see if we could get another one more to bite. I on the other hand was losing line at a rate of knots and started to see the backing peaking out from under the main line on the spool.
At this point, the skipper had completed the circle and we were running toward the fish so I was able to get back some line. Once we were on top of the fish, we started to realize the power this beast had. It made a number of good runs straight down whenever it wanted. I started to inch the drag up on to the strike button and beyond. Didn’t change a thing, the fish still went down when it wanted. The one thing it did change was my arms were on fire, only twenty minutes in. We carefully switched me over to a stand-up rig, which was a huge improvement.
I started to get on top of the fish and move it up towards us. It was a slow and painful (for me anyway) process with me taking in three or so feet of line and the fish then taking back out two or so.
After about an hour of back and forth between us, I was able to sneak in a few sips of coke and a longing look at the beautiful dorado lunch that I hadn’t been able to eat. Another half an hour in, fish in good circles and me with arms aching, legs shaking, and feeling out of breath.
At a little over the 2hr mark I hit the wall and tapped out. Skipper Chris, agreed to jump in. On taking over the rod and a fighting belt, he was like, yikes you have some drag on this. We switched him over to the standup rig and he put the heat on the fish. It wasn’t much longer till we saw color and the size of the fish.
I guess the fish saw the boat and decided he didn’t want to be anywhere near it. So with a flick of its tail, it peeled a good chunk of line, along with a good chunk of hard profanity from captain Chris.
Chris went back to putting the heat on the fish again and shortly had it in tight circles under the boat. Now the dangerous part, getting it close enough to gaff, but not cutting it off on the boat.
A couple of circles near the boat, then it was nearly all over, the line got caught in one of the trim tabs. The mate was super quick with the gaff and was able to untangle it. A few more circles and again it got hooked up in the trim tab and again mate detangled.
Finally fish came alongside close enough for us to get a gaff into it.
Emilio got a hook into it and then the fun really started. He was screaming to get another hook into it, I grabbed a gaff and almost hooked the tail as I’ve seen in “Wicked Tuna” when I realized that I needed to be in the head. I got my hook in and we had a better hold, but still didn’t have the fish. Chris got another gaff into the fish and then we all tried to heave it in. Try 1, no go. try 2 no go. try 3, fish started to inch into the boat, got it over the tipping point and with a big wham it’s in the cockpit.
The wack of the deck must have told the fish that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore and it went crazy. Graffs went flying, people went flying and the fish started beating it’s tail with the goal of getting away. The fish was so strong you could feel each wack of its tail throughout the boat.
The crew and I finally had a chance to catch our breath and measure the fish. I think it was 75 inches long by an I don’t remember the girth, but it was a lot. The net, the fish estimate was 270+, the largest yellowfin the boat had ever taken.
Entire Team and FishMe, my dad and sister Sarah.The FishIn case you are wondering why fishing is called a sport. Here’s my heart rate over the course of the battle!
Day 4, yes we went out again, and again we caught tuna, though smaller we still caught one over a hundred pounds, instead of almost 3 hrs, it took me just 15 minutes. Amazing how different fish can be. It probably helped that I had the drag up to eleven and didn’t let the fish build up a head of steam.
We ended up releasing double-digit sailfish and caught a dorado or two to boot.
The next day we headed back to Guatemala City via a lunch stop in Antigua and on to home.
Another great trip with great team at Sailfish Oasis.
So another amazing trip with the Sailfish Oasis team, including well over 400lbs of tuna caught!
Don’t try to catch or in this case don’t try not to catch a New England tuna on a small jigging rod unless the reel and in my case the line that’s attached to it is ready for a fight…
So woke up early, looked outside and it looked calm and nice, so decided to grab the fly rod and hop into the whaler at 5am for an early fish.
Got out didn’t see anything towards Weymouth so headed towards Hull, when something caught my eye in the Weymouth direction. I had seen a bird circling and then saw another heading in that direction.
I put Hull on the back burner and headed for Weymouth. As I got closer I saw more birds and POW, there was a good bird work up and fish splashing on the surface.
Ran into some early issues sorting out fly line and a tangle on something in the boat. But finally got the line out, right on target and 3rd or 4th strip, had one on…
Had a good number of bites, maybe as many as 10-15, saw a couple of nice takes close to the boat.
Overall landed and released a couple big fish, and one small fry, in a little over an hour.
Great morning out, not another boat fishing as far as I could see
Environment Info
Location: Weymouth / Fore River Area (see image below of detailed area)
Time: 5:15am start
Tide: going to dead low tide at 6:33am
Wind from the North 8-12
Air temps in the 60’s
Fish Moving Around in the Box AreaOne of the bigger guys
Fishing Boston Harbor and Beyond 