I saw nothing but yearlings for the past 3 days off Newport. If there's bigger fish they're low profile. I saw one blow up that made me suspicious but that's it. 10 pound bluefin are the rule out there, mostly. I'm sure the paper will report 30 pounds, but they're 10 pounds. I thought I was fighting a bluefish several times after casting into a school of tuna. Kind of disappointing even on light tackle. For more fun find the skippies and leave the BFT alone, a 10# skippy blows the doors off a 10# bft anyways.
The best inshore tuna guys I know never go above 1500 rpm moving from school to school. Everyone should keep that in mind, as there were a lot of people out there who skunked today, charging around and wasting gas. The fish were up and down so fast it wasn't even worth moving towards them in many cases. All my fish were standing still and waiting near bait or idling slowly to the fish. It's hard to adjust to pursuing fast fish like this but it works. While everyone is busy charging to the next the school the fish they just finished putting down will be coming back up just as you arrive. Orange Viva parade on a slow retrieve and also bone Jumping Minnow burned over the top of them got it done. Tough fishing if you're trying to hit them on the surface.
Now that it's online I'm sure the boat wars are going to get a lot more intense out there. This is the first post I've seen, anywhere. It was nice and quiet for a while with a reasonable number of fairly well behaved boats. To avoid overloading any particular area I'll let the cat out of the bag. They're almost everywhere inshore. Have been for a week now. Not 1/2 as intense as last year (yet) though.
Single hooks (avoid trebles) and fight 'em fast if you're going to cast at them. They're just babies. Don't be a baby killer.
Either that or try and find some skippies, you don't have to feel so bad if you kill one of those. There's plenty more where they came from.
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