Following are the accounts of two separate tuna trips. The first was on Ed Lafleur's 21' Triumph, with Rick Schwatrz and Dick Nicholson on board launching at Bass River and running 20-25 mi. to the secret spot East of Chatham. The second was about a week later on Dick Nicholson's 18' Maritime Skiff (his brother, Bill "Nick" crewing) running from Wellfleet out to the Fishing Ledge and then on to Stellwagen, also about 20 mi.
Bass River - Chatham Trip:
Salties, Ed Lafleur and Rick Schwartz (Dick's on the camera) heading across Nantucket sound at dawn on Aug 25, first day of the special 3 wk SBFT season. Ed has Rick's destination waypoint locked into his GPS in case we encounter the legendary Chatham Fog banks. (Note: using GPS waypoint navigation saves time and gas!) We did not need Ed's radar this day.
Ed bags his first keeper (41" approx 50#) small bluefin tuna (SBFT)! Do you think he's happy? For the curious, this tuna was gorged on 4 medium-sized squid, a sand eel and a butterfish. We followed the gospel according to Schwartz: bleeding out, gutting and icing the fish before stuffing it into Ed's cooler.
We each ended up catching a SBFT ...all about the same size before heading home at 11AM. Here's Rick's fish.
Releasing Charlie (torpedo style) to see another day.
Getting ready for some sushi at Ed's fishcleaning station.
Rick, Ed and Ed's nice rig in his backyard on the Bass River.
Wellfleet - Stellwagen Trip:
Here are pictures taken Wed AM August 30 on the South edge of Stellwagen Bank off Ptown. Brother, Nick & I scouted the Fishing Ledge and other tuna spots in the Cape Cod Bay then headed out to the tuna fleet where we hooked this 41" (~50#) small bluefin tuna on a rainbow squid rig with a 'bird'. Took about 100yds of 65# PowerPro line off the old Penn 113H (former wireline jigging reel!) on the first and only big run. After bleeding it out, gutting and icing it, we tried for another but no luck. Whales were in vicinity and about 25 boats livelining and trolling plus a CG cutter. Swells of up to 6' were rolling in from the East but the wind and chop were light. No problem for my 18' Maritime Skiff CC with 70hp Suzuki. We headed back in to Race Point where we casted and jigged for bass only to get bluefish. Saw a 15-20' Basking Shark off the 'bathhouse' on way back down to Wellfleet.
We encounter guess who, Rick Schwartz and son Peter on our return run off Great Island, Wellfleet. Nice spiny dogfish, Peter! You know the English make Fish n Chips out of them. Think I will try eating one this year (in case bass & blues go extinct). Note the nice remote controlled trolling motor setup. Great for getting into really skinny water for sight-fishing stripers.
When fileting a tuna, the first cut is down the lateral line. Use the backbone as your guide with the knife tip just tapping the spine on every cut. Then you carefully remove the four filets before skinning and steaking. We use a Food Saver brand vacuum bagger before freezing meal-sized portions separately. Tuna from 2005 was "95% fresh" 9 months later.
Thanks to Cape Cod Salties including Rick Schwartz, Ed LaFleur, Bill Hubbard
and others for inspiration and experience to make this happen. (Saltie, Dave
Croft maintained the reel a few years ago and it worked great!) Thanks to
The HookUp and Blackbeard's for the gear and thanks to Maritime Skiff for
making a very seaworthy and frugal 18' CC at home both on blue water and
shallow estuaries. And thanks to my First Mate Bro for coming out on the adventure
and handling the "Fish-On!" fire drill expertly. 'Honorary Saltie',
Bro-in-Law, "Montauk Skisher" Paul Melnyk was a catalyst with his
'canyon' stories and his gift of a spectacular Alutechnos 50# class lever
drag reel and stand-up rod. No point sitting it in the garage when there is
SBFT action only an hour and a half from my Wellfleet Harbor mooring.