Yesterday, the Gambler was out on a 36 hour canyon trip.
Capt Bob had been in contact with other sport and commercial boat captains before the trip. He checked the weather and surface temperature charts. Decided to head for the Hudson. We left at 8AM on Weds morning. Listened and watched on our way out. Saw 20 draggers working 10 miles inside the tip. Capt Bob set up a drift in the middle of them, hoping to catch bluefin or any other kind of tuna or pelagics. Gave it more than an hour. No bites. Got to the tip of the Hudson canyon and started pot hopping. Very good mahi action, best on chunk baits. A few jacks in the mix, too. The temp there was 68.
After that, we headed for the east wall, where he saw a good temp break. Put it on a drift. Very good conditions, drifting to the east. Caught a few more mahi on the drift and as it got dark, saw lots of squid and other life. Guys were drifting baits and pumping jigs. Looked very good but no tuna bites. Drifted from 600 to 2000 ft. At around 10pm we picked up. One sport boat was anchored on the east corner, the another was on the west corner. Capt Bob started heading for the west corner but the temp was going down, so he bent it back and anchored for the night on the 100 square. In the dark, we had a mako on and a blue shark and maybe a swordfish.
We hung tight till about 8AM.
At 8, we picked up and tried trolling on a straight line towards Jones valley. Trolled for two hours into the deep. Beautiful water. Looked lifey. No knock downs. The two sport boats trolled east and west sides --nothing except for some mahi.
We ran back and tried another drift on east wall for an hour. Caught some more good sized mahi.
At 1PM, we tried several drifts, jigging baiting and bottom fishing over a sunken wreck in 400ft. Only caught one big hake.
Finally, gave it one more try amongst the draggers before heading back.
I spoke to commercial guys that reported longline boats are catching lots of tuna near the Canadian border.
Another party boat had tried Block canyon and reportedly only caught one tuna for a 48hr trip.
Another party boat was at Wilmington canyon a few days ago and released 4 white marlin and caught a swordfish and some mahi while drifting
Capt Bob has ears and eyes all over the place and if he gets some reliable information, I will be very interested to check it out.
There will be boats returning between now and our departure so we will be getting more intelligence (if we can call it that)
The main thing to know is that the Gambler crew wants to catch fish (as I'm sure other boat crews feel the same.)
