Damien does a whole bunch of trips with us every year and was committed to either catch nothing or catch a big-eye on this trip so we went back to the Hudson Canyon where we hooked 5 this week alone. I have written articles about never ever trying to do this, that targeting big-eyes is the easiest way to spoil a productive canyon trip.
Unfortunately the trolling for yellowfin keeps slowing down in the Hudson and all they did Thrusday afternoon was one small yellowfin and a few mahi. The yellowfin was trolled on a ballyhoo.
They had very little bait but finally had the tuna come thru at 4am and pulled 1 yellowfin despite having fish right in the slick at the back of the boat. The fish ate 9 and 6 Canyon Runner rainbow squid bars.
He choose to drift and ended up pulling a 100 pound mako at night caught on a J-hook on 80 pound flouro and a sardine meant for tuna. The tuna were caught on Canyon Runner 9 squid spreader bars and green machine bars.
Capt. Mark DeBlasio and Capt. Tom Kelly and mate Ty McGowan had the Todd Balestro charter out Sunday to Monday and ran right to where we had them Saturday but working that area for hours only produced 2 yellowfin on Canyon Runner green machine bars. Up on the troll in the morning he picked 2 more yellowfin again on Canyon Runner Green Machine bars and purple black 9 squid bars and went home with 11.
The pattern included 5 six-inch Canyon Runner rainbow squid bars trolled of the riggers and everything else was ballyhoo with either moldcraft little hookers in blue white or Ilanders in blue white or green yellow. With the knowledge of marlin around we were ready for the second one and teased it right up to the back of the boat after it tried to engulf the spreader bar and once red hot yanked the bar away and it piled on the ballyhoo.
He started to tilefish on the West Wall and made one drift and they pulled 6 tiles up to 15 pounds one the first drift and then a boat trolling past them hooked up with a double and back out went the trolling rods. They spent one last half hour on the troll and were lucky enough to find a nice slick with chicks working the area and got a 4 banger of longfin putting 2 in the boat to finally get some tuna in the box.
We got tired of going south for those bluefins and with good water on the temperature charts and a couple decent reports we headed towards the Dip but stopped 10 miles short to the west. Up on the troll in the morning they pointed the bow west and worked the 100 fathom line back towards the Dip and pulled another good shot of yellowfin all on tuna clones and ballyhoo.
Capt. Mark DeBlasio took the Rick Kral charter out on an extended overnighter late Monday night returning Wednesday afternoon. The charter ended up putting 4 Golden and 5 Gray tiles in the boat and 1 wreckfish.
They arrived at Massey's at 6am and did a couple drifts before finding the fish. A great point that someone mentioned to me yesterday and needs to be stressed regarding the jigs is while we first deploy hammered diamond jigs with treble hooks, once we have our limit, we take the treble hooks out of the water and deploy only circle hook hammered diamond jigs.
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