I believe they are calling for an El Nino this year. Maybe that will do the trick.
quote:Again, you saw one school in 5/6 years. Tuna are known to be finicky. Even 20 years ago, people would have to change tactics to catch them on any given day. The difference is, 20 years ago, people saw 5-6 schools a day, not 1 school every 5-6 years. You could literally light up your open array radar, find some birds and haul ass over to them. They did this pretty much every day of the week in April\May. Not once a week, not once a year. EVERY DAY!!! It was nothing for some of the charter boats to pick up 8 man limits of YFT several times in a week. [/quote]
Originally posted by skinneej
Not only that, but you used to catch them everywhere, too. They were not just at the Hole.
quote:Now youre talking Redstripe! I will say, the tropical weather was very active from an El Nino situation for the last three or four years before I moved here. Yellowfin were reported everywhere around the area in tournaments. Then if I remember correctly there was a La Nina event.... and they were gone. I read on roffers report that the pacific water temps were soaring, but nothing about the El Nino
Originally posted by RedstripeI believe they are calling for an El Nino this year. Maybe that will do the trick.
Despite being fake about megladon, here is an interesting video about how the earthquakes in our oceans in the last 10 years are changing fish patterns. Im sure you could probably research more how natural disasters permanently affect the ocean.
i dont know much about fishing offshore in charleston but i grew up fishing in cape cod. I use to do alot of canyon and tuna fishing. unfortunatly since i moved to charleston i havnt fished very much. However we would see drastic changes in the yellowfin fishery. last year was the first year in maybe 10 years that the yellowfin were south of cape cod with in 40 miles. Usually we would fish 80-120 miles south in the canyons. that run to the canyons however were mixed back fishing marlin bigeye wahoo dolphin… I have to say there would always be some kind of fishery that would be out of this world each season. One season it would be large schools of medium size bluefin in close the next it would be a nice run of white marlin the next maybe wahoo. from what it sounds like charleston is due and those yelowfin will most likely show up when the right slug of water moves in.
if anyone ever wants to give it a real go i would be interested in pitching in for fuel and i can get some of my yellowfin tackle sent down i have a ton of freshly rig gear sitting up north… spreader bars splash bars machine bars…
I would give it a go as we’ll… Need a big boat with a really good fuel burn and a pretty patch of weather
The weather window for us weekend warriors is what kills us here,i wish i had a job that i could just go when we have a 2-3 day window?.
We attempted once but had to abort due to thunderstorms that popped up…
My dream is to take my boat to the Charleston bump…
i want to start doing overnighters this year. mabe not this far though haha.
Some YFT are being caught east of the Abacos right now.
21 Contender
Couldn’t help feeling the urge to chime in on this thread, we actually caught a yellowfin last june in 250ft. just north of the Edisto banks. it was small, around 15lbs. trolled through a -4.5 degree pocket and bam! marked the spot and trolled around for an hour and could not find the temp break again. Have not caught one in 10yrs and could not believe it so I had to confirm it when we got home, and sure enough it was a yellowfin.
any pics cat-chum-up?
Dont know why he would need pics. YFT’s being caught east of the Abacos is no great feat. They are out there. It just depends on where you are. Longliners are having no problems bringing them in.
Surprised no one has said anything about overfishing by third world countries. Its hard to ignore the large tuna vessels / nets in the middle of the oceans around the world that take 1,000’s of fish at a time with no respect to international laws. These bastards are stripping the oceans of fish like this. No I am not a tree hugger, just a responsible fisherman.
Even in the Gulf they disappear for a couple days at a time.
reports from the last few days looks like not only are the Yellowfin gone but the blackfin are too! Bonita are still thick. I guess if your fry… nah… I will find something else to eat. 
Set the trap boys, we going to pass through them again!!
I do not swallow the media & leftists bull**** about “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” and I don’t think most of the lefties truly buy this crap either. They just want socialism. If they did believe in GW, there would have been a rush to buy up the future oceanfront property along I95. With that said, I do miss the vast schools of YFT. This world is changing with every volcano - earthquake - and solar flare. I do believe that the YFT will be back, there are plenty in the ocean.
Also, there are many nations that don’t buy into the international fishery laws and their fabricated numbers and limits. I will never refer to a fisherman as an ocean stripping bastard. Anyone that disagrees with commercial fishing should never purchase seafood from a restaurant or retailer. Also, I will never use the word “overfished” again. The history of the SAFMC has proven that this word has no meaning. Don’t come to my job and knock the broom out of my hand.
Carl
quote:
This world is changing with every volcano - earthquake - and solar flare. I do believe that the YFT will be back, there are plenty in the ocean.
My thoughts too. Just a cycle of nature. It goes around and comes around.
quote:
Anyone that disagrees with commercial fishing should never purchase seafood from a restaurant or retailer.
Agree with that too. We are blessed to be living on our coast and being able to harvest our own seafood, but people in Kansas and Nebraska want to eat some seafood too and they can’t catch their own. It belongs to them just like it does us. We have to have a balance.
Did somebody say catching tuna? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5dOLiF9fjk
Edit: We had some beautiful sushi grade yellowfin tuna steaks last night and I didn’t catch it. I appreciate whoever did, they did a fine job:smiley:
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose
I didn’t go back through and read all of the posts, but there was a mention of big Sailfish catches being a fairly recent phenomenon. Well it may be evident to many that I like to do some late night googling/reading. Apparently the Sail population was decimated by longliners the same time the swordfish population were. They spawn and congregate in the same areas. Their comeback seem to coincide with the Swordfish. Maybe they can be ruled out as something that is opposite the YFT absence. Food for thought. A sword is on the list this year.
Jeeeesss Please do some more late night research. The sword and sail population was never decimated by long liners or any other fishermen. The sword issue was a contrived issue by a bunch of miss-guided (but well meaning) chefs fueled by the usual enviro groups.
Nate…Are you telling me that the swordfish overfishing controversy a few years back was a bunch of bs…??.I have read a ton of stuff, and the average weight of fish caught is half of what it used to be. I am on this side of the argument, but I keep an open mind.
quote:Actually my statement was with the noted DECLINE of sailfish catches in the Charleston area over the past couple of years. Yes, we had a good decade where they were hot and heavy and now they seemed to have tapered off. Did the long-liners come back? No. It's pretty obvious that "something" changed in the environment to push them somewhere else right now... A natural cycle... Let's hope that the disappearance of sails brings in more tuna.
Originally posted by RedstripeI didn’t go back through and read all of the posts, but there was a mention of big Sailfish catches being a fairly recent phenomenon.
There really isn’t anything you can contribute to a sailfish decline right now except weather. The last 2 years when I was in Miami were two of the warmest winters on record and sailfishing really sucked down there by South Florida standards. Just because numbers go up or down over periods of time doesn’t always mean the dirty fishermen are killing them. Nature is not constant. It is constantly in flux.