Captain Andrew Zazeski on the New Horizon from J&M Sportfishing in Monterey took a crew trip out to the deep canyon waters off of Point Pinos last Sunday working on a chance to catch a big bluefin tuna. J&M offers daily fishing trips as well as whale watching from their shop on Fisherman’s Wharf. Recently they noticed bluefin activity in that area, so Zazeski decided to give it a go. Also aboard were lead deckhand Matt Thompson and two of J&M’s whale watching naturalists, Maddy Bliss and Isiah Foulks, who have been observing bluefin activity increasing over the past two weeks, while on the whale watch. Neither Bliss nor Foulks had ever caught a tuna before.

Trolling Mad Mac lures at 11 knots, nothing happened for nearly four hours. Zazeski recalls, “We were getting ready to call it quits when the rod went off.” Hookup. And, it was a big one. They battled the fish for about 45 minutes before they could get it on the boat. “We gaffed it and pulled it about with a HUGE team effort. We were all so worn out but just screamed, hugged, and high fived for a solid 10 minutes.” With this success, J&M are seriously considering running some tuna charters in the near future.

Likely the largest and most prized sport fish available in the Monterey Bay area bluefin tuna are much more common to the Channel Islands area and San Diego areas, where big schools provide months of action for a fleet of long-range charter boats as well as smaller private vessels. We are nevertheless seeing an increasing number of bluefin caught in our area over the past few years. Unlike the southern schools, our bluefin tuna seem to travel in much smaller groups. And, they are nearly always the large or extra-large models, with most fish caught in Northern California waters weighing from 60 to over 200 pounds. 

The fact that they are here, especially over winter, indicates we are blessed with a thriving marine life environment. There are plenty of baitfish that make it worthwhile for these apex predators to remain in the area. That same bait factor is a big plus factor for our upcoming seasons of rockfish and lingcod, California halibut and king salmon as well as more giant bluefin tuna.