# yellow fin or bluefin



## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

I was going to Cape Cod for bluefin. But good showing of yft in 60 lb - 90 lb on the Frances
changed my mind as I needed to test light Black Hole Cape Cod Special 80g/150g for smaller tuna and it's been long time since I enjoyed good yft jigging in canyons.

We had only 22 guys on the trip and we had plenty of room for everyone. 
The boat left 10:00 pm on Sept 1 and arrived at the destination around 5:00 am. There are about 10 boats there and we started to drift. 
I started with light Black Hole Cape Cod Special 80g jigging rod/JM PE6 with JIGNPOP Super Sardine jig. A few guys hooked up tuna immediately. While dropping my jig, I had slack line suddenly. TUNA ! I tried to crank as fast as I can, but it was too late. I felt heavy weight and it is gone. 
It didn't take long to get a solid hookup. The tuna acted strange. It didn't take any line at all until I saw the tuna on the surface. But the real fight started. It took about 5 minutes to bring the fish to the gaff range as I was reluctant to give more drag for the first tuna. 
When was the last time when I landed 80 - 90 lb yft on jigs on the East Coast ? It's been long.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

I heard tuna were biting at night. So I assumed we were going to troll all day.
But it was not. To my surprise, we had steady pick all day.
The high light of the first daytime fishing should be mate Chris' nice bigeye on Super Sardine jig. I tried to jig hard, but I couldn't get a hit.





pilot whale were everywhere.



Chris fighting a bigeye.






I don't know how many tuna Chris got on the Super Sardine jig on the previous trip. No painting left on the jig, but it worked.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

The Viking Five Star was there.


And the Helen He too.








They have a good system. If one angler hooks up a tuna, everybody nearby has to reel in to clear. Unlike long range boats out of San Diego, they use heavy sinkers to fish deep on the party boats on the East Coast. If you don't clear your line, the tangle is inevitable.



It is nice to have a portable rod holder.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

He fished a lot on the long range boats out of San Diego. He got a hit when he sent his line without a sinker away from the boat.


When an angler had a tuna, mates were standby on the left and on the fight right away.





continued....


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

I had a great expection for night bites and I was prepared for jigging all night.
But night bites were slow except a few flurries earlier. 
I went sleep after midnight to rest as we still had plenty of fishing tip next 24 hours.






Daytime bites were good and we had steady bites all day.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

I had a tuna on a jig and asked Capt Mike to fight so that I took video/pictures.
When I came back with video camera, tuna was already on the surface for gaffing.
The setup was Black Hole Cape Cod Special 80g/JM PE6 reel.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

Black Hole Cape Cod Special 80g jigging rod used for the trip. The line rating is for 20 lb - 40 lb, but I used 25 plus lb drag using 80 lb braid for testing.


He hooked up a 400 - 500 lb blue marlin.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

continued..


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

*2nd night*

Even we had slow fishing on the first night, some boat did very well on the same night. 
We were just unlucky tuna were not around our boat on the first night. 
Evening bites started great.





When had tuna on Super Sardine jig again. I asked Capt Matt to fight for me.
The setup was Black Hole Cape Cod Special 150g/JM PE6 reel.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

I had another hookup on the same Super Sardine jig while cranking fast. Tuna completely swallowed my jig.




They did great job to take care of tuna. As soon as we catch tuna, they cut the head off and gutted before put in the iced storage.




I had my last hit on a jig around mid night. Fish was big, but unfortunately 90 lb leader line got broken. I jigged all night until 6:00 am before leaving for the dock. But nothing happened.

It was flat calm on the way to the dock.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

comparison of Black Hole Cape Cod Special80g/JM PE6 with other tuna rod. We catch same sizes of tuna. 






It was a great tip by any standard. Nice weather, nice crew, nice fishermen with limited load as well as good fishing with nice sizes of tuna.


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