Big-Game Fishing Heats Up

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > SPORTS

As the fall season closes in, sport fishing for tuna and other prized species moves further offshore in Atlantic City region.

By Ray Schweibert

Add Comment | Comments: 1 | Posted Aug. 26, 2010

Atlantic City Weekly associate editor Ray Schweibert holds a wahoo caught aboard the sport fishing boat Deep Blue on Saturday, Aug. 21.

Fishing for larger quarry like tuna and marlin is generally an activity even the most avid outdoorsman has to limit to special occasions. It is not an inexpensive endeavor — a fact that especially applies to a down economy.

But if you love to fish, and feel fairly confident you’d be comfortable on the water and a long, long way from land, a trip offshore is something worth experiencing at least once.

“Offshore” is a general reference to the dozen-or-so, deep-water canyons about 60 to 80 miles off the New Jersey coast, among the more popular ones within striking distance of an aptly equipped vessel being the huge Hudson Canyon to the north, and the smaller Toms, Carteret, Lindenkohl, Spencer, Wilmington, Baltimore and Poor Mans canyons below it. All hold species like tuna, marlin, mahi-mahi, wahoo and occasionally swordfish that you won’t find too close to shore. Being out there among these deep-water predators sort of feels similar to trolling the back bays for bluefish — besides the fact that there’s nothing around you except a vast expanse of ocean — until one of them crashes a lure and rips a line off an outrigger. Then the thrill is on.

Last Saturday, Aug. 21, I took my second-ever offshore fishing trip, which, like the first one six summers ago, was aboard Jim Kay’s spectacular Viking sport-fisher Deep Blue out of Brigantine. Deep Blue’s twin 1,100-horsepower diesel motors pushed us out there in about two-and-a-half hours doing about 30 knots, and our trolling speed was about seven knots primarily in water about 500 feet deep (canyon depths can reach more than 3,000 feet). Our five-man crew — captained by Kay with mate Anthony Sullivan overseeing the eight lines trolling artificial lures around the edges of the Lindenkohl Canyon — boated two small yellowfin tuna, two mahi-mahi, and a wahoo in the 30-pound range.

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