Remember the late 80’s early 90’s. Man you could kill em. Drive through the school and watch the 6 rods go off. Though I dont remember the mahi bite being near as strong as it is today.
Andy, there have been a few small fish landed with blackfin, most were undersized and mistaken as blackfin. If someone caught a 50# fish or bigger, it would have lit up every message board on the coast. I have not even seen many from the commercial fleet. So Pancake…I’ll bite, Who caught a decent YFT off of Charleston this year?? We ran almost 80 miles out on our last Sword trip and the water looked “fishy” birds, bait and I told dave that If it wasn’t dusk I would have loved to put a spread out. I hope that the fish come back like in the early 2000’s
.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
I didn’t imply that any had been caught. You guys know much more about this type thing than I do.
I can remember days in the mid 90’s when we caught as many yellowfins as we did dolphin. Personally, I haven’t caught one out of Charleston since 2002. I only fish off a few times a year now though
What is the history of yellowfin off of our coast? Have they gone away for so long before and then come back? How many times?
They still catch them south of here at the port canaveral tower (120 miles out) and they catch them north of here…Outer banks, so logic would dictate that they are swimming past here. The longliners still get them and bigeyes and the occcasional bluefin. I have heard they did the same thing in the 70’s, and came back in the 80’s. 2003 was the last time we saw any real numbers of them.
.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
We caught a small yellowfin yesterday mixed in with skipjack and false albacore. 29 inches, just above 15lbs. Fished out of Georgetown.
It has more to do with how the water mixes off the coast IMO…and I am referring to a larger hydrological mix from freshwater to saltwater.
My belief is pretty complex, yet lack of rainfall over a consistent amount of time among other environmental factors has made the offshore seen barren of YFT.
Yet if I was going to gamble on fishing for them, April and October are the two months I would target them per say. That is based on traditional historical landings of the past. October 23~31 would be ideal.
And as far what happens on the other side of the stream, it is a whole different world.