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| Click on the images to see a short .wmv video
clip |
 We
filmed this episode on a beautiful day in late June, fishing an
area known as the Cigar. This long, cigar-shaped (hence the name)
rise is located just outside the 20-fathom curve, about 32 nautical
miles East of Cape May Inlet, not a short jaunt by any means,
let alone in a small boat. But we selected our
Parker 23SE specifically
for its seaworthiness, and with crew and camera, a full fuel
tank, the best electronics, and a compliment of safety gear
we headed for the numbers of the north tip (38 57.303/74 03.808).
The Cigar is well known for the variety of species that can
be found there. Bluefin tuna, bonita, false albacore, skipjack,
dolphin, king mackerel, bluefish and big sharks are often found
feeding in the vicinity of this structure. On this day, very
early in the summer trolling season, we were treated to just
a few of these, all of which happen to begin with the letter
B.
“All the world is a stage, and we are merely players.” Shakespeare
wrote that. He must have known something about offshore trolling!
Summertime trolling off the coast of New Jersey can produce
many varieties of gamefish, but only for those who can put on
a believable production (and we don’t mean a TV show).
Offshore trolling is akin to putting on a play. The boat, propeller
wash, lures and wakes are all players, and all must work together
to create the illusion of baitfish on the run with other predators
already at the luncheon. The elements of the boat and propeller
wash simulate the sounds and low frequency vibrations of fleeing
baitfish. The lures play the part of the weak that have fallen
behind. The wakes and spray of the boat create the illusion
of baitfish fleeing the scene. This entire commotion may at
first seem secondary to the hooks and lures, but to be successful,
the “show” must be believed by some pretty keen-eyed
critics!
To start our day, we set a five rod spread of our confidence
lures. We placed a natural-colored cedar plug off the port flat
line, and a #2 Clark spoon rigged behind a daisy chain of small
tuna clones and a 4-ounce drail on the starboard flat line.
The two long outrodders were sent out with a Ballyhood lip ripper
jet and smaller jet-headed lure of unknown origin (this one
proved to be the top producer all day). Finally, the “shotgun” lure
was a Green Machine/Boone Bird combo, pulled by an International
30 combo from the leaning post rocket launcher. This combo is
usually deadly and on this day it would prove to be worth its
weight in tuna.
When pursuing bluefin tuna, we generally try to run a 7-rod
spread, if conditions allow. However, on this day we anticipated
running into so many bluefish, that we opted to go with a simpler
approach and run only five rods.
We set our trolling speed at 6.5 knots, as that seemed to
be the fastest we could run and still have our lightest lures
working properly. Typically, small jet heads and feathers need
to be run so that they are just under the surface of the water,
and tracking relatively straight. It is not a bad thing if they
occasionally pop to the surface and then dive back down, but be careful not
to pull these lures too fast. Every day is different and trolling speed must
always be adjusted based on conditions. A lure spread that runs great at
7 knots on a glass-calm day, might not work at that speed in
a steep chop. Don’t
focus too much on your speed gauge – concentrate more on how your lures
are working.
Our inshore trolling is done almost entirely with light tackle.
Certainly, we risk having an unusually large fish overpower
us, but we’d rather enjoy the vast majority of the strikes
we get, and honestly we’ve rarely hooked a fish we couldn’t
handle. High quality gear is an absolute necessity in this situation,
and our Penn rods and reels are perfectly suited to the challenge.
We set out to these grounds in search of tuna with a full
compliment of International 975 lever drag baitcasting reels
spooled with 40-pound power pro and matched to 7’ Penn
Kingfish series rods. While many bluewater buffs scoff at such
light tackle, the smooth and solid aluminum frames
on these big hearted reels have allowed us to subdue some surprisingly
large fish. In fact, these light but powerful outfits have proven
to be our ultimate light tackle tuna weapon!
We began our troll about a mile from the tip of the Cigar,
and our first runoff turned out to be a beautiful Atlantic bonito.
These fish are underrated as both gamefish and tablefare. These
speedsters are phenomenal as sashimi. The set of hardware in
these fish’s mouth is enough to make a bluefish jealous.
They feed voraciously on most of the same forage as bluefin
tuna, so they are usually caught in the same areas. After putting
a few “bones” in the box we began to weed though
the bluefish.
While bluefish are terrific light-tackle gamefish, we were
really on the hunt for our first bluefin tuna of the budding
2005 season. When trolling, every runoff must be treated as
if it is a tuna. That is the true allure of trolling; one never
really knows what will happen next. After several hours, and
what seemed like a million bluefish, we did finally get our
tuna, and in perhaps the most unconventional way that any fisherman
has ever seen. But let’s
not give the ending away here. Enjoy the show!
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