Stripers and bluefin tuna (last 2 weekends)

[JDTuna]

7/12/19 – 7/14/2019
Headed up to spend the weekend fishing in Rhode Island for striped bass with my good friend. We planned to fish topwater lures during the day and take one night trip for giants.

I arrived Friday evening, and we headed out for some evening action. It didn’t take long to find fish, and we had striped bass and big bluefish blasting our lures out of the water. We fished until sundown, scoring some nice bass and blues.





We headed out bright and early on Saturday, and found fish in no time. Lots of action on striped bass with a few bluefish in the mix. We only fished topwater, so even the missed strikes were exciting. Both bass and bluefish blasting the lures three feet into the air, or coming out of the water to crush the lure. Just awesome fishing.







Unfortunately, our plans to head out and night fish fell through, as my friend’s buddy ended up not being able to fish Saturday night. He could fish Sunday night, but I needed to be at work on Monday morning at 8:30am. The weather Sunday night looked beautiful, but it would be too tight a timeline…or was it?
Decided to roll the dice this time, and figured if we were back at dock in Rhode Island at 3am, I should be able to make it on time to work even with some traffic. As we headed out, I desperately hoped there would be no mechanical problems with the boat, because any deviation from the timeline would kill the plan.
We arrived at the spot, and began fishing. After a little while, we began to get bit. My friends decked two fish in the high 30lb range relatively quickly. Suddenly, my rod bent over and the drag was peeling off the reel. The bass were definitely angry that night, and after a short fight I landed a large bass. Put her on the boga, and she weighed 49lbs. Just shy of 50, and after a quick pic she was released.



We fished a little longer, with my friends catch two more at 52lbs and 48lbs and then we headed back to dock.

Hit the dock at 3am, dropped off my friend’s gear at his house and we were off. We didn’t hit too much traffic, and I rolled into work at 7:45am and was the first person in the office. No sleep, mind you but I managed to do it.

Saturday 7/20/19:

Headed out with my friends on the Mushin for some inshore bluefin action. Got a 90lb fish on troll right off the bat for my buddy from Florida. Then we started jigging. Had to work for them in the beginning, but the bite got good on very nice sized fish. My biggest of the day on the jig was right around 120lbs and was released.
Wind died early, so it was nice and sweltering on the water lol.