bluefin in North Carolina on March 24- 26, 2017

[ksong]

I booked the Good Times out of Oregon Inlet,NC from March 23 to 26 to fish two days.
But weather looked great from Marh 24 ro March 26 and we decided to fish three days.

As most catches are giant recently, I pepared for giant tackle.

Tomo from MA, John from NY and Bryan and Marco from FL joined the trip.

Day 1
All drove to Oregon Inlet and we met at the Oregon Fishing Center at 5;30 am on Fri.
It took 2  1/2 hours to get the destination. We were encouraged to see several boats fight tuna.  Bur we didn't get any bites on jig and poppers until 10:00 am. But suddenly luck changed.  Bryan missed  a giant on his popper and Tomo lost a big giant on a jig with Black Hole Cape Cod Special 450g rod/JM PE8 when the 130 lb broke after big giant took lots of line.  I also missed a hit when I jigged wih 7' Black Hole Giant rod/Penn 50W reel. Just before we started to move to look for tuna, a giant took live mullet and fight is on.
We used 7' sample Black Hole Giant rod/JM PE20  reel.  After fighting for a while, the light graphite reel seat got broken. When I got the sample, the put light Fuji reel seat  just for sample as there were no heavy reel seat that time.

However we managed to connect line to othe reel/rod and we resumed the fight using other rod/reel. Even the drag was pretty tight, the giant didn't give up easily.
Finally giant came up to the surface. It was huge.  As this is the first tuna, we decide to pull the fish on the boat for taking pictures and tagging. It was close to 100". It could be around 600 lb.

Bryan got a small yft on Heru Skipjack.









Tomo got a nice giant with his Black Hole Cape Cod 450g/ JM PE8, but the 130 lb leader line got broken.


Bryan fighting a yft on Heru Skijack.



Big boy is on.

[ksong]

Day 2

When we got to the area where we fished, many boats were fighting tuna. We used jig and poppers for a while for nothing. We decided to trolll with green stick.
Wirhin 15 minutes, tuna was on.  We landed and released about 350 lb (85") in 20 minutes and resumed trolling. Within 10 minutes we had another hookup. It looked nice one, but it pulled the hook while fighting.
Within 15 minutes after trolling, we had a hookup. We knew this one is a big one. After fighting 30 -40 minutes on a heavy drag, 600 lb giant (estimate) came up to the surface.
We released the giant and we resumed trolling, Strangely we didn't have any knockdown for three hours. Finally we had a hookup aroudn 2:00 pm and it was a small yft.

350  lb giant




600 lb giant




small yft

[ksong]

Day 3

John had to work on Sunday and Greg from Virginia replace him on March 26 trip. I also had to miss the trip. While I was driving to the north, Bryan sent a message at 1:30 pm.
He said bites were great on poppers and they returned to the dock already !
Am I a human banana ?

They told me that they had two bluefin in 80" on a troll and had 4 -5 hookups on poppers.

Bryan fighiting a bluefin using prototype stickbait and Synit popping rod.





Tomo fighting a bluefin




Greg fighting a bluefin




Whar a three days bluefin fishing.  Everybody enjoyed this tirp.

[Rancanfish]

Thanks for the awesome pics!

[Tiddlerbasher]

That is some fishing