What an amazing fishing trip off of Chatham!
Middle of November and the giant bluefin were on a feeding frenzy. My first time fishing the big Chatham bite. It had not been this good in over 5 plus years. We arrived to the spot, about 30 to 40 boats. We were a little nervous, due to the fact that we had heard so many different fishing methods to employ while here. Big current, you need 50oz. of weight and so forth. We started chumming, had not marked much.
All of a sudden, a large tuna boiled the surface like you see on the youtube. videos. He was eating the frozen baits we were tossing right off the surface! So I reeled my bait back over the boil. I dropped the reel into free spool and fed out the bait. Bam!! The tuna grabs it right out of my hands! I slid the lever up to strike and we were on. What an amazing bite, to say the least.
About an hour later we harpooned and tail roped a monster. The second bite was very similar to the first. We were marking about twenty giants under the boat, in the chum. My buddy Steve fed the bait back into the slick and once again, another tuna grabbed the bait out of his hand. Shorter fight this time... about twenty minutes into it, we realized he had tail wrapped himself. So we backed down and got on him quick. What a sight! An 800lb. tuna coming up! A quick harpoon shot in his tail and we had him.
This is the stuff fisherman dream of, and yes, dreams do come true. What an epic bite.
I am so glad we made the trip. We have hopes of the fish sticking around and a weather window. We should be back down there next week. Man, life on the ocean... you never know what you will see. Just keep on fishing. Thanks!
Capt Collin
www.karenlynncharters.com
