Renegade - Hatteras - Giant Bluefin Tuna Jigging Report - Insane

[Captain Mike C]

On Saturday March 20, the Renegade Sportfishing team returned to Hatteras, NC on another R&D mission (our second in 13 days) to absolutely try and destroy some of the light weight jigging gear. Teaming up with Capt. Jay Kavanagh from owner/operator of Bite Me Sportfishing we departed 6 am Saturday morning. Headed NE out of Hatteras into the stream about 30 miles in flat calm seas. Started off slow with a couple falsies. About 30 minutes and few moves we finally started to mark and land some decent bft’s. The 6th fish leadered we decided to take which weighed 155 pounds and was lean/empty (see photo). Fish was whooped in 20 minutes on the Shimano Talica 16II/ Trevala XXH. By 10am jigging was off the charts with triple, quadruples and finally five on at once. This school was larger with the final fish being fought for a ridiculous 4 hours , passed off 80 times including the mate and Capt Jay, while backing down for 10 miles in the stream. Fish was released with Capt. Jay estimating it at 75 inches and 250 pounds, a personal jigging best for all including the boat. The giant destroyed all 8 of us while taking up half our day, as courtesy dictated, no others could jig except BP.

We had about 24 bites total, with about half leadered to the boat all in the 70-150 pound class. Jiggers destroyed trollers getting down deep. We also had schools of large bft’s busting water feeding on bluefish. The Torsa 40 and Talica 16II two speed reel had the most power. The giant was actually fought on a Daiwa Saltist ST TLD 50, 80 pd suffix braid and 80 pd floro, the pole was a Penn Torque 80-130 jigging rod. The Stella’s were not used since our braid did not arrive in time. The Sagarsosa 18000f’s with the new drag washers worked flawlessly with a 100% improvement over the old drag washers. Momoi Diamond Blue 65 solid braid had minimal resistance over the 100 hollow core. All colored Shimano 10oz and 12oz jigs performed the same with no color really out producing any other. The Fin Nor 085 also did well with no problems. Excellent Captain and crew who went the distance for us by days end when we were close to 60 miles NE of Hatteras and fishing with the Oregon Inlet boats. Small yellowfin are also making their arrival south of Hatteras. We will be returning next week for another bft jigging trip. Possibly out of Oregon Inlet as the bft’s are slowly moving north. Can't wait for these fish to arrive in our waters. Renegade will be running 4 times a week and specializing in offshore bft jigging. If interested in a charter call us now to reserve. Our first trip is scheduled for June 5th. See website for additional information.

Capt. MC