Here is our last report

Just got back this morning. We decided to head in early because the fish boxes were full and the charter was tired of catching fish.

I am now running as second captain on my good friend's boat Angie Sea and we have decided to pool our resources and offer our charter's a choice of two boats to fish on. The Angie Sea is a 48 foot Pacemaker that is built for offshore and rough seas, and the James Gang is a 34 foot proline that will accomodate smaller parties with good creature comforts and higher speed.

Back to the fishing. We left Barnegat inlet at noon on Sunday and headed off in the direction of the Spencer canyon with the intention of trying to catch a bluefin at the lobster claw on our way out. As we got close to the claw, the water turned green, and we decided to continue to the 100 fathom line.

We got to the hundred line between the spencer and lindy and had nice blue water, flying fish, and some shear waters picking. We worked our way to the tip of the lindy and saw tuna breaking water near a squid boat that was dragging the area. We turned to the squid boat and three rods went off. The fish were all mixed in size. We landed the first one, a 50 lb'r, pulled the hook on an 80 lb'r at the boat, and landed the third and it was the biggest of the trip at 105 pounds.

We got one more 70lb fish on the troll prior to setting up on the chunk. While on the chunk, we got two shots of fish at 11 pm and 3 am. We went 2 for 2 each time and put another 4 60-70 pound fish in the boat. About 4 am, the mahi arrived in the slick. We bailed them until 6 am putting 35 5-10 pound mahi in the boat.

We cleaned up, re-packed the fish on ice, had breakfast, then began trolling around 8 am. The day troll was pretty boring as we worked from the lindy to the carteret along the 100 line, then headed off to the 500 line on our way back to the lindy. While on the 500 line we went 1 for 2 on white marlin and boated and released a nice 70 pound white.

We got back to the 100 line of lindy and the signs were pointing toward another evening troll bite. There were lots of shearwaters sitting in the water, flying fish, and plenty of bait readings. At 6:00pm 4 rods went off. What a difference a day makes as these guys on the charter all followed our instruction and we put all 4 80-90 pound fish in the boat. We went 2 for 2 45 minutes later, and got our last fish around 9pm in the dark on the troll as we were cleaning up.

The boxes were full with the bigger fish, the charter was tired, and they wanted to head to the barn. We were all ready to set up for another night of chunking, but it would have had to been catch and release.

Trip tally 14/15 on yellowfin, 1 released white marlin, 35 mahi........

JT James Gang