I grabbed this post off of another forum, did anybody in here hear or see this. I've never heard of Tuna this size coming this close to shore, especially since it's nearly December.......

Watched 2 boats chase the tuna. I was at Hazards rock from 2 until 3:30. Saw
one boat hook up only to loose at the boat after a 30 min. fight. Tuna at
first glance appeared to be Yellow Fin but a real good look at a nice breach
about 75 yds. from shore proved them to be indeed Blue Fin. The largest
appeared to be a tad over 100lbs. the average seemed to be 50 lbs. Best
sighting was about a dozen at one boil.Lots of fun watching, one of the few
times I was fishing from shore that I was cheering for the boats to hook up.

179 WHen I worked on the Misty the giants were being caught right off matunuck ,another spot was just south of the old Brenton tower/////////////////

wow just missed you i was there 12pm till 1pm talked to a guy who said yesterday you could see them swimming right by the big rock he said he never seen anything like it i seen fish breaking way out then i had to leave sorry i missed you would have liked to say hi next time

179 == today I was at the far west end of misquamamet -;I know its spelled wrong] only truck on the beach ==everyone else was at eastor c/b === well they were there ,couldn,t believe the size== 11/26/2002 TUNa ?????

:cool: :cool:

What do you think there feeding on?? Schoolies?

I've heard blue back herring, but not sure. Man, I would love to see this, won't make it in daylight until T-day, and they'll probably be gone?

I knew I was putting the boat away too early, lol....I might take a drive by there at lunch today to see if they are still around... Tunas and Snow, a nice combination...

Check this story from Capt Mitch.

hate to sousnd like the old salt who likes to spin yarns of
yesteryear, but here goes anyway. I can remember back in the
fifties(1950's) when we routinely fished off Nebraska shoals. I saw tuna
pushing tinker Mackeral back then almost right up on the beach. Another
time, the famous Hunky Clark fought a tuna that swam right in the beach
amongst swimers. The whole story is probobly best told by drew D'Angelo
of the Meridee who fishied with Hunky for a few years when he was in
college. Other stories of giants being taken in the traps and shore
fishermen getting stripped and bracking surf rods were common back then.
I never have heard about a tuna being taken from the beach,but I have a
story almost as unbeleivable. Want to hear it? Well I'll tell it anyway.
I had the Sakarak up on the Cape and we were fishing the Southwest
corner of Steelwagon bank with Manny costa a long-time freind of my
dads. After fishing the corner from daybreak till about 11:00 Am without
a bite I made a call for some advice. Manny hadn't left the dock to my
knowledge as of yet but said he had a 6oo pound blue-fin on the scales
as we spoke. HOw could that be? Well seems one of the big boys had swam
into Provincetown harbor and was munching on the by-catch falling off a
dragger at the commercial wharf. His mate and another fellow harpooned
the fish right off the dock in front of on-lookers and tourists. And
that's the truth!
I hope you all appreciate the info I was saving it for a book Ha Ha Ha
!
Capt. Mitch

Left work early today, and stopped at Narragansett Pier on the way home around 3 ish. Saw some breaks far out at Monahan's, definitely tuna. Moved up to Hazard Ave, and Holy Crap! There was a pod of tuna busting bait, sometimes no more than 100 to 200 yards off Indian Rock. They were coming up here and there intermittently, with the birds following. Had the glasses, with clear shots of backs and breaches, pretty cool. Stayed for about half an hour, froze my ears off but it was worth it!

Bill that is wild. I can't seem to get down in the daylight. Now I stuck up in NW Connecticut for the holiday, oh well. They are feeding on the herring that those Russian ships are coming for.

That is a cool story - so anyone get a crack at those speed demons?

Hey Duke41 - you really hit me with some nostalgia! I remember Hunky Clark from the 50's. I remember charter boats catching blue fin out of Deep Hole and off Nebraska Shoal all the time.
Wasn't Hunky's boat the "Shark". If I recall it was a black hull.

I have a house in Snug Harbor now and think about the days when Giant Blue fin commonly in the the 600 - 900 pounders were brought in to the Snug Harbor Marina on a Daily basis - and the excitement each August of going over to the west wall early in the morning and watching the boats for the Atlantic Tuna Derby running out.

As a kid I worked on the dock at the Snug Harbor marina and cleaned my share of tuna and swordfish.

I thought i heard of someone catching a BFT off nantasket beach a few years back while striper fishing. Any of you guys from around there here that one? i never read anything about it but i just heard talk about it. :confused:

PeterN - welcome to S-B

Mr K - for the past few years you have been able to get into them, especially if the live macs were still found in July...

BC & FW were getting into them a bit over the past couple years...

(school fish)

yes i got two school BFT this year not to far off shore of nantasket beach but the one i heard of the guy that caught a few years ago off the beach was 280lbs. like i said i have no confirmation of this but if it is true there must have a been a lot of running up and down the beach to land that one.

You mean from the beach and not boat?

StriperMike got an 80 pounder from the beach this year in Scituate - is that what you are talking about?

no i heard somewhere that a guy landed a 280# BFT while fishing for stripers on nantsket beach maybe 5- 10 years ago. anyone else heard that before?

Mr. Kav--I believe the fish was caught around 5 years ago off of Nan. Beach. It was estimated at 250 lbs. If you ever get down to Hull b+t, I think there is still an article about it posted there. The fish apparently got disoriented and swam right onto the beach. The action this year was amazing. According to a number of lobstermen, this has not happened in over 15 years as far as numbers of fish seen. The fish seemed to hang on the 120 line east of Graves to Minots, and I'm sure much farther south. I managed to hit one with a ldead pogie but that's about it. There were some 300+ fish mixed in with the "small" ones! A boat at Hewitts hooked up on a 80w for over 45 minutes but lost it in lobster gear. They were livelining pogies. My plan was to jig up a bunch of bluebacks and use the live chum method but I never got out after them again. Maybe next year.

The rumor's definitely true. I was on the rocks at Newton Ave. on Thanksgiving morning at dawn and a pod of BFT went nuts about 200 yds off the rocks. They were coming completely out of the water and they were BFT. Huge ones at that.

A few minutes later they surfaced for a few seconds closer than the first time. None of us hooked up.

One of the dawn patrollers has a boat. He and his brother hooked up to them three times a couple of days before T-Giving. They got spooled twice and kept the third one on for a long time by chasing it with the boat, before the leader snapped. Of course, they're illegal but exciting as hell to get into.

BTW, on T-giving morning at Newton, a seal swam by about 50 feet off the rocks and eyeballed us, and then a flock of turkeys scared the hell out of us in the pucker brush behind the rocks. They just all of a sudden started gobbling at the same time and it made a hell of a racket.

"Of course, they're illegal but exciting as hell to get into."------------------Not illegal at all. You can get a permit for school tuna, or giants if you want to sell the 71"+ fish. You can't get both though, I tried!

You can't get a permit without a boat, correct? Therefore they are illegal from shore. But that does'nt mean you can't C&R one.

good point, I never thought of that. I don't think anyone actually targets BFT from shore, YET, but maybe someday! I'm sure you could petition the NMF to issue a shore permit but it would probably take a few years to get through the red tape and studies that would have to be done.

just use a Kayak. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
:smash: :smash: :smash: :smash:

Yup. That could be one hell of a ride in a kayak.

says the permits are valid from june2002 till may 2003 are bluefin close to shore in march thru may or is this a fall type fishing in close if and when im ready to target bft i would like to be legal its only 27.00 its amazing the size and power of one of these i would love to fish for a small size one that i could handle safely now if and i say if you caught one and wanted to sell it thats a whole different type permit? i found the way to apply online for a permit is there another way where this is federal can you apply somewhere in mass!! id probably wait till next june and get a 2004 permit that way id have it for next fall unless there in close in the spring now im into a whole new game of fishing here more to learn!!!

I'll be ready for them next fall. But guess where they'll be????

team rock on

thanks for the confirmation, i knew i wasn't imagining that story, i got both of mine this year on a 50w in a little shallower water but not much. i hope next year produces the same because i would like to target them a little more next year.

about bft and mako sharks what an experience that must be to hook into one of them the mako seems to be a terrifing yet exciting experience for the novice angler to see that massive shark jump 6ft out of the water and if your not careful land in your boat oh boy!!! abandon ship is not an option cause there all around with all the activity they have even attacked boats and caused exstensive damage some good stuff at this site on how too!! slip you better read up cause im gonna try and get us into that action http://www.newenglandsharks.com/ you scroll to bottom and it tells you how too the most important thing i got out of it was boat handling keep it away from fish at all times till he tires good advise!!!!!! lol! i understand that!!