NJ Fishing Report -2020

[steplift20]

Hey Skunk is that Browns marina hour straight?

[SkunkBoat]

We overnighted at the Hudson Canyon where we lost a yft at the boat and boated another. On the way in we hit the the hot yellowfin bite near the Haskell wreck. Boated two nice yellowfins there. Chunking butterfish with 40# leader and a tiny circle hook was the ticket.
Nice day turned ugly halfway back to port. I feel sorry for the center consoles....

https://youtu.be/5hqR8WSQIZM

[Giorgio]

Looks like you picked a perfect day, water was beautiful and so was the fishing, nicely done and a good video.

[Blue_Runner]

Probably my favorite catching/eating fish in the whole ocean, nice work guys

[SkunkBoat]

Some news for all you flukers out there. The guy who docks next to me was fluking at Shrewsbury Rocks, saw bunker getting busted, threw a popper and landed a 61" bluefin and hour later.

[Giorgio]

WOW a dream come true!!!! Warm water brings in the whole ocean. Tell your friend, nice job.

[SkunkBoat]

We couldn't wait any longer. "Iffy" forecast but it was flat when we left at 5 am.
Plan was to run 78 miles to the hot yellowfin tuna bite out past Triple wrecks, catch some YFT, go out to Hudson if the weather was good and troll pots for Mahi, then hit some wrecks on the way back for black sea bass.

So we reversed things, stopped after sunrise 40 miles at the Resor wreck on the way out, limited out with 20 nice black seabass in 40 minutes, then continued on to tuna.
It got "sportier as we went. Came into a fleet at 70 miles, just past the Haskell. 5 or 6 Humpback whales working bait. Seas jumped up to 3 to 5 just as we got there. We slowed to trolling speed, dropped just one rod back with a blue/white chugger daisy chain and headed to some whale blows. It got bit in 30 seconds. Boated a nice 50 inch YFT. Trolled around for a while but just kept getting little tunny (aka False Albacore aka Bonita). Went to the downwind side of some whales and drifted baits, throwing some dead peanut bunker. YFT exploded on the peanuts at the surface but our baits were down! My brother cranked his bait up and hooked up. Unprepared as always... I quickly rigged a big spinning rod with a circle hook, flipped out a peanut bunker and was on in an explosion. We boated the double, though mine took 40 minutes on that spinning combo. Never again...PAIN!

We had enough tuna. Seas were too big to go out to the Hudson pots for Mahi so we ran in to the Chicken canyon pots and found some small mahi biting. Also caught & released a small Bluefin tuna.

We managed to catch all of our target species...SUCCESS!!!