8/2 Fluke Slumps, Tuna Picks Up

Several more Fluke trips oceanside that were not as good as I hoped. First trip since my last post was pretty much on par resulting in 14 keeper Fluke between 3 of us, releasing one 26.5" fish and keeping the rest. We went back out the next day and found much slower action. Couple keepers here or there but as a whole the fishing was off. Even the Seabass were off, making us sweat just to fulfill our limit of 2 per person. That 2nd day we had maybe 6 keeper Fluke with none being over 6lbs. Did catch another bonito that day mixed in with the mackerel.

After seeing the Fluke fishing drop off, and hearing reports of lots of small Bluefin Tuna showing up, I figured my next trip would focus on the Tuna and fall back on Fluke after some time on the Tuna Grounds. We limped out to the area of The Gully at 18mph through the fog and swell and didn't arrive on the Tuna Grounds until 730am. Our first 2 hours out there were pretty slow, we saw a few fish caught in the huge fleet, and had a few bites that we missed. Finally around 10am I got a good bite and put our first Tuna in the new Boat! We caught 2 more and lost another in the next hour, fulfilling our 3 fish limit of unders (its 2 under 47" and one over 47" per boat recreationally, 3 under 47" and one over for Charter, which I have the charter permit). All 3 fish were caught on 8" Ronz. We didn't even drop down after putting the 3rd fish in the boat, thinking we would go get Fluke and Seabass, which was a mistake. We Fluke fished all over and never found a good chew, catching only one small keeper the rest of the day, in addition to our seabass limit.

Report is out of big schools of Bonito to the East. Newport to the Cape, large schools are providing great action, mostly smaller bonito but some nicer fish in the mix. Hopefully that means we have a good season of funny fish ahead.

Been a funky year. Slower than usual fishing in a lot of areas, RI included. One of the slowest Fluke seasons Ive seen. Reports from Jersey have been terrible as a whole. This is peak season now, and we are seeing some good fishing at times, just as a whole its been slower than Id hope.