Captain Rob Taylor of Newport Sportfishing Charters returns to collect on last year’s bass wager, then talks big stripers, giant tuna, and how to make the best use of the koi pond on your college campus.
Newport Spotfishing Charters: https://www.nsfcharters.com/
Captain Rob Taylor on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newportsportfishingcharters/
This episode of the OTW Podcast is presented by Old Town. We’ve been using these stable, versatile fishing platforms for everything from small pond bass to big water albies and stripers. Check out their line of fishing kayaks at https://www.oldtowncanoe.com/onthewater
Welcome to another episode of the on the water podcast Jimmy fee Anthony dichi and coming back around for the first repeat guest on the on the water podcast Captain Rob Taylor who was here for our very first one Rob welcome back thanks guys and we covered a lot of ground with
You last time but we barely scratched the surface on fishing with I don’t even remember where we went and on that one I mean we were a little from fresh a little from Salt we kind of all over the place but the thing that I remember most from that podcast was was an
Ill-advised uh kind of bet competition that I took you you threw the gauntlet down and said how about everybody puts in 500 bucks for who in the year 2023 catches the largest largemouth bass yep we did we did I didn’t even bother bringing my scale like the second half
Of the season anymore after you know he’s like oh I’m up to S and a half everyone knew where it was going you won with a how big was that fish I was I think it was 7 and A2 a little over 7 and A2 on the jerk bait so tell us the
Story of of how you caught that fish what what was the story behind that then then we can tell the story of our biggest bass from from uh last year yeah I uh I had been on a pond that I knew had some big bass and I don’t know the
Water was colder in the spring for whatever reason it was definitely a different bite so instead of throwing the big Bas where I would already been throwing Huds and stuff like that I had to go and scale back so I actually was out with Earl and me and Earl were
Waiting around and uh I had actually just pulled the hook on another nice bass but I had for two days I finally narrowed in on this pattern where they were like the third Contour from the bank so like they hadn’t come in yet right cuz you got it’s a steady sloping
Pond so that they’re sitting in there so this was waiting not on a fancy bass boat 7 and half Pounder from Shore in your waiters yep yeah yeah freshwater surf casting it’s the only way go and on a jerk bait cuz when we were talking
About this when we made this bet we were talking wake baits big baits we were really excited to do that and you ended up winning it on a jerk bait which is something that I really want to get better at fishing jerk baits P pattern had changed you know you can’t force
Feed them it so they really it was it was a uh and I actually had to adjust them because instead of like a slow rise it had to be a slow sink because they were that lethargic so adding a lead dot onto the 110 just a little bit so the
Mega bass Vision 110 yep Jimmy that’s uh that’s fun cuz you and I were we we were we were gung-ho to uh to compete what were we doing while he was doing that what were you and I doing Jim so I’m pretty sure you beat the peepers out we
Did we were out there it was early March the first night we went out there and we caught fish we were wake baiting at night and I remember there was a night with ice in the guides and it was freezing so much and I couldn’t see I
Broke the tip off my rod because that thing had froze I was taking a crank and all of a sudden just it snapped like a twig like it was that cold of a night where it was icing up so bad you couldn’t feel your hands or anything we
Caught fish I think my biggest fish of the year was I don’t think I broke five last year uh kind of embarrassingly but um I know you got a really nice one I did late season kind of by uh not by accident but it was kind of a random
Catch or one up in Vermont yeah yeah I mean I I um I had just come from the Connecticut River where I I got an awesome Pike on a uh on a jerk bait and it was my biggest by a mile and then I get up to the hotel we were going up
There for a wedding and my wife was like I’m kind of tired and I’m like uh okay mind if I jump in the lake for a little Wade session and she’s like no I saw this point looked real juicy got in the water before the private property started and worked my
Way second cast with actually a drop shot believe it or not I stuck like a probably a six lb class large mouth didn’t have a scale so we’ll never know but it was one of those big head big body right build fish and uh it was
Awesome so Rob one thing this is one of my major freshwater goals for this year is getting better at fishing jerk baits give give me some advice what how how do I get from I catch some fish on it I don’t know how how do I get better at
This Cadence Cadence Cadence and then you have to keep a mental track of your Cadence so when you do get bit you’re repeating the same Cadence right so it’s like all right almost like the first time I’m going to go twitch twitch pause twitch twitch pause and then count your
Pauses out until you start getting a reaction you know I mean and every day is going to be different what’s the longest you’ll pause it depends it could be you know depending on depth in 8 10 seconds maybe like a good 10sec count 1 1,000 2 1,000 but the other thing I
Found is like if the fish are a little bit more active the slow rise will produce bites and if you’re not getting any bites on the slow rise find something that slow fall you know so being able to change the jerk bait you know or if it can be straight neutral
That’s always good too but sometimes even the slow fall will outfish a neutrally buoyant jerk bait got it man yeah it’s it’s a I know how deadly it is it’s a numbers bait it’s a quality bait but uh it’s something you need in Your Arsenal for ice out but anyhow cheich
And I always pay our debts um yeah this was the most I’ve ever lost in a fishing uh tournament um so chich should we want to uh get pay the man oh look at he asked specifically for a big fing check so we had to give Captain Robin novelty check
Well not novelty there it is no this is what I want right here this this was it that’s it’s all worth it dude it’s not it’s not worth anything we didn’t actually don’t try to cash it betting against a far superior angler I am going
To put this in the trophy room out of all the trophies and big novelty checks this one may be my favorite that’s I’ll make sure Chris has enough money in the account so but anyhow I want to I want to back way back what we didn’t cover last time
Was uh man how how’ you get into this whole fishing thing where did where did it start for you oh man if we were to go back to that it would have been fishing with my father and a lot of that actually started when I was three up at
Uh seago Lake in Maine so you know started with the freshwater gig fishing with the old man so you guys are from Central m so we are yep and then uh my grandparents had had a cabin on Fry Island and then eventually my father and my mother got a small place on Fry
Island too just a little little A-frame cabin so that we would go and just uh fish out of the old C nymph up at up at seago that’s awesome Yep in fact I remember my first big uh Smallmouth caught it on a live crayfish just outside of Jordan Bay there’s like a
Little series of like small Islands just crayfish on the bottom that’s classic man I I know Kevin blinkoff is from uh from Buffalo he used to say that getting the live crayfish that was what everybody you go you could buy them at the tackle shops there or just go flip
Rocks and catch them I’ve never actually used live crayfish for bait I don’t know that I have either um successfully anyways but have you ever fished hel gites uh I have not fished hel gites I’ve heard some good stories about people fishing and and I have seen them
In the in the wild but I have never ever fished helise crazy creature yep for me it was either my live bait in the beginning would have been crayfish obviously the Nightcrawler and then you know if I was we were feeling fancy it was shiners or
Smell like it so from there uh was your dad a saltwater fisherman too he he was too so you know it started there when I was younger then as I got older I got to go on more of the saltwater trips you know and and fish out there in fact I’ll
Never forget one of my first really big strip bass which was a 30 pound class striper I think I was either maybe 11 or 12 and it’s right when like my father started really using braided line you know cuz thinner diameter and we were three- weing eels at night in the race
And you know heavy heavy sinkers the race rips and I remember hooking bottom and I was jammed up and I couldn’t I wasn’t strong enough at the time to break you know the 65lb tough line or whatever we had on there so I’m like Dad I’m going to get spooled so we switch
And then you know he’ll say I caught his fish but I would didn’t want to snag the bottom so I was burning it up you know and and as I started burning it up then I hooked that striper so you know he would say that I caught his fish and I
Would say we wouldn’t have caught the fish if I didn’t burn it up to the surface and now a note from one of our sponsors who are literally the reason we’re able to do this podcast this episode of the on thewater podcast is sponsored by our friends at Oldtown
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From is as important as what you buy visit Buzzards Bay yacht.com today I heard stories uh I think it was ardan Gardell we were out um giant tuna fishing a couple years ago and he said uh he was there when you first really got into surf fishing oh yeah y so that
Was when you were in college right College yep yeah where I started well cuz he’s the one that got me to fish in the wet suit right that’s what he said cuz he’s from New York and like you know it was much better than what I was doing
Which was filling my waiters full of water all the time you know and where did you go to college uh Roger Williams University that I wish I’d had the foresight to know where I was going to what I was going to end up doing when I
When I grew up and I would have chosen a college that was like that seems that’s produced so many fishermen that college and you were real close to the water you could fish constantly I went to you know I was 90 minutes I was at two hours from
Saltwater where I went to college and so we actually even on campus they had a small pond that was outside of the uh like the I guess it’s aquaculture building now I mean it was small like little then they had a few koi in there and back then you could keep Herring so
Herring were not illegal to harvest so we would go and dip net our Herring and then we would keep them in that Koi pond was our our little bait pen that’s incredible pen that’s awesome so how often were you uh were you fishing um in
College man I don’t know if I want to say but you I a lot you know I spent more time fishing than partying for sure that’s awesome man and so you got out of college and uh you worked a couple years at the saltwater Edge right yep did did
The saltwater Edge thing tried the sales rep thing then went back and in between tree work you know and Commercial Fishing I did that all the way through and then uh decided that I wanted to guide and Commercial fish that’s awesome man it’s been great uh I mean I remember
When you were when you graduated to your fiberglass boat saw the the original real easy I fished on that one now fished on the current one several times and every year it’s uh it’s my favorite trips seem to happen on that boat man yeah you know I mean it was I think I
Would say it was like fishing with like Corey pic Billy Sylvia BJ Sylvia you know Dominic petraka because back then before I was a guide those guys were all guides and I was doing mostly the commercial side of Rod and Reel and I was like yeah maybe maybe there’s
Something to this so how do you like it so how do you like taking other people out and having those experiences it’s awesome with them yeah awesome yeah you’ve got a pretty loyal client it’s funny we we when we put you on Instagram or or on YouTube you on the on the water
One there’s without question somebody’s like oh man I’ve got a trip with Robbie coming up or I just had an amazing one I mean you certainly have a uh have a have good time on the real easy we do have a good time what was the first real easy
What uh what rig was that uh the first real easy was a 28 BHM so that was the the first real easy and then before that there was the Black Betty which was a 21 foot nset and then we had a 27t Eastern as well nice
So working at the shop great way to make uh connections there oh with all the captains especially one like the saltwater Edge which was just a hub of yeah I mean we were just dieh hard surfcasters I mean you know it was a surf fishing was an everyday Affair you
Know back in in the in the days of the on the water cup you know I mean I was going through like three girlfriends a season cuz you know they would they forget who I was so you know cuz we fished every day I remember talking to
People and i’ be like wow you caught so many Big Fish during that season and I’m like H yeah but I mean I don’t know if my average was good cuz I fished every single night so like you know it’s it is true there’s something about that kind
Of uh there are guys who were surgical with it you know were like I know these conditions are going to be my big fist shot I I was never I was like I if I don’t go every night I am not going to catch them I need to go be there every
Night for the Bad and the good and then like because there were always nights that surprised you too that’s right night when it was calm and like you know the one point that you haven’t checked and you’re like I never catch here but I’m going to go try it and then it’s
Like bam that’s where the big one comes from you know plus there was always fomo you’d just be laying there in bed and be like what am I missing right now I could hear them they were blitzing in the surf I’m like ah and there’s never even if
Your buddy went and didn’t catch anything part of part of you is always like well you didn’t do this like I I would have done it differently and I would have actually right caught maybe you know it’s there’s never a satisfactory missing a night I never feel good about missing a night really
So what of all the fish you caught in the Sur you were man super serious about I know you still get out there but not quite as much more on the fiberglass Rock now but what was uh what was your most memorable catch out of the surf I
Think my first 40 lb fish was my most memorable cuz I think that season I had I was up to like 280 fish over 30 lbs in the surf and not one that was 40 lbs and I was weighing every single one I just couldn’t break it it was like a curse
And I thought it’s because I had gone from a 30 lb Boga and had saved up and I bought the 60 and then it was the curse of the 60 lb Boga some that was a thing I bought my 60 lb Boga and somebody said
To me go you’re never going to top 30 now like now that you did that you’re never going to break 30 lbs and it was just maddening and then finally you know got one on a rig deal off the off Ocean Drive so what was your was that your
Favorite way to fish rig deals you think n it I liked all of it you know it’s tough to say what my favorite my favorite way is what’s working yeah you know cuz like I like to start off the night just getting bites whether it’s a schoolie or anything I just like to
Catch fish so big fish come you know when they come but I just definitely like to get bites so I I mean honestly I think my favorite way to fish is a Bucktail I the the bite you get on a Bucktail and and and and not like
Jigging it like you would in the canal but swimming it you know just in the surf and stuff like that is an awesome hit but you know then sometimes it’s like the bite on a needle fish is cool too they’re cuz they’re all different you know like the needlefish you’re it’s
Such a subtle thing and you’re connected to it and when they hit it they hit it you know I mean obviously yeah we’ve all had the nights where they tap it and you’re like what the heck why is that little tap big is it small like what was
That but you know anything when they slam it I guess so the Bucktail swimming the Bucktail like you said at you like swimming it as opposed to to bouncing bottom in the canal when I first that was my first like real surf fishing Revelation I was at montalk and I had
Bucktails everybody’s fishing mon uh fishing bucktails there under the light and to me I looked at it and I was coming from freshwater like that was predominantly what I did being in Philadelphia I did a lot of largemouth bass fishing I looked at the Bucktail I’m like this is basically a jagen
Trailer uh with deer hair instead of the silicone skirts so I’m bouncing it along the bottom like that and I’m not doing anything and then some old guy goes no he goes try this he goes as soon as it hits the water starts really uh slowly
Reeling it in give it a twitch every five cranks he goes you just want to swim it he said you don’t want to bounce it’s not don’t let jig throw you off in the name of that lure you want a more swim and since then it’s like me it’s
Probably my favorite bucktails and needlefish are my two favorite ways to to fish y feeling that feeling the tension when it’s coming in a different position in the waves you hold up a little bit cuz you know that it’s fluttering and as it comes down in the
Face you got to Speed it back up a little bit but I know one of your biggest surf bass was on a uh on a Darter mhm yep actually it was and that and and it was actually on the Darter then off the Darter then back on the
Darter I mean that is the craziest thing yeah that 52 pounder was like it ate twice so what happened was when I was fighting it I felt this all of a sudden the rod was loaded up and the rod became violently unloaded and then reloaded and
Then the fight was back on and then as I landed the fish when I reached down and I grabbed him on the side of his mouth I got stabbed by something and I was like oh and then I repositioned it under the jaw pulled it up when I put my light in
And I wanted to see what stabbed me it was the hook part of the treble hook on the vmc where it’s welded on had broke off in the fight and then it was hooked completely on the opposite side of his face that’s CRA when the hook parted it
Luckily when he shook his head it came off and then reh hooked on the inside of his mouth that fish was meant to be man I think is meant to be y it’s funny it’s as many ways as you can lose them you know just to have one hang on like that
That’s pretty uh that’s pretty cool but these days your season starts uh in the boat we we caught our first migratory stripers together last year I think remember we were out to fishing with BJ yeah remember we had to Scurry through his boat cuz he had nothing I mean we
Were the plan was to go out and catch some tog and you know do Shak down crows which which we did we got some nice tog but then uh all those stripers I mean they were already like 30 class inch 30 33in class stripers blitzing on top on
Small Herring so we gone it was the end of April we went out there we had a great day of fishing tog fishing bounced around um I caught my biggest ever tog how big was that Jim N and a 12 lbs all right so Mak sure it wasn’t 10 I’m
Getting ever closer to the Double Digit tog and I don’t want I don’t want it just to happen that fast I it was we had a great day lots of fish and you guys it was kind of your like pre-trip like okay making sure they’re here making sure
They’re here and uh you guys you guys I I think I kept a couple to e but you guys put them all back you’re like no these are this is my bread and butter for the next couple weeks yeah I mean and I still you know I knew we were
Going to be back out so if I needed some fish to eat I was working off the last of my sea bass Supply anyway so we’re running up the bay and then see a giant flock of birds and that time of year could be my first thought for that early
In the season is they’re over sea Ducks cuz how often do you see them and they’re diving on Corrs or seed ducks early in the season it’s not actually fish but we get a little closer and all of a sudden you see some big baits spraying and there was nobody had been
Talking about stripe bass that size yet and we found man like a 100 yard long School of them making their way they must have been in on that tide yep yeah they probably came in on that tide but as cuz that tide came in so we were actually just probably following them
Them in that whole time and we finally caught up to him when we came around the other side it was it was that classic scramble where be just like I’ve got this here from I like forgot about this one last year when I went to clean the boat so
There’s here’s this random top water here’s a tuna popper and like whatever something the yeah I dug up a dock like way in the depths of his boat I was like I know there’s one in here somewhere and they ate it we we caught a few of them
And then they uh they kind of dis dispersed a bit and we we called it a day that was it that’s one of the worst feelings when you’re like you encounter something unexpected and you you just don’t have what you would normally have if it was oh dud one I remember like
Menu The Early Times surf fishing and then I was actually fishing for tog on Shore so all I had was hooks weights crabs and some Al popped up cuz it was late in the season it’s August when it reopened up so I remember cutting up my
Stop and Shop card I cut my Stop and Shop card in half put it on a hook and on my three-way and I was casting a threeway out and trying to burn it through and I actually caught an Alby on a piece of a Stop and Shop
Cart it is true like that was I was always the guy that when I when I was a kid growing up like I I would see that enough I’d be like I wasn’t prepared for this So eventually I got to a point where I had the biggest tackle box that
They bought the thing weighed like 40 lb where it was a giant Plano box and it had trays full of everything so at any one time it was like here’s my fluke rigs here’s my Albi stuff and I would cart this up and down Jetties I and to
This day I’m not really like a minimalist there are guys that to go surf fishing they have their one they’ve got a three tube bag on their belt I go I’ve got my six tube bag that we put out a video on um jammed in there me surf
Fishing uh in New Jersey and I had this giant plug bag and people are are ripping on me on uh in the comments section they’re like you know you caught two fish and you had uh 50 plugs with you extra tubes attached to your back I
Did yeah but I know how that is like I started with the double row bag cuz you know and a lot of that too was I had a double row bag cuz my session would start you know I’d start fishing at noon time so I got stuff that I’m fishing all
Daytime and then it would progress tonight so we had to have everything packed but then it goes down to a single row you know you figure out what you like and what you don’t you figure you get an idea of what you and then also you get better at fishing the the the
Main lures too where with a Bucktail jig or a needle fish even as a conditions change I feel like I can adjust that presentation enough to catch the fish on it you know I don’t necessarily if you’re catching them on darters I bet I can still catch
One on a needle fish you know so it’s it’s that type of thing you get where you can sometimes better as the tide slows sometimes better you you you and I are pretty bad at being minim minimalists we uh we we tend to pack for every conceivable scenario that we can
Conjure up in our minds there there was one trip Rob and I took years ago where uh I was kind of unintentionally minimalist where we he’s like you get the eels like I I I I’m working late I can’t can’t get there in time you have
To get the eels but if we get eels we’re going to catch giant fish and then we had to take just a like a classic Rob swim where I’m like half where I hit the halfway point so we had to swim to this rock and it was one of those where I’m
Exhausted and I’m I’m thinking like I’m almost more than halfway so if I need to abort and head back and this is the time to do it otherwise I’m not going to be able to make it so I I make out make it out to the Rock we run across and before
We can get to we had to get to a different angle and a wave like took you out yeah he blasts you off the Rock and it’s just me I’m like oh oh okay well I hope he comes back yep always find my way back so you came back and they like
All right where are the eels and I had them in a mesh pouch on my on my belt and they one had like wriggled out opened up and we had zero eels and I think we we each had like two bucktails as backups but the plan was always eels
And I was so bum I had one there was I think there was one left I just I was like here like I feel bad you take the eel you take the single eel since then I’ve moved up to the the giant jugs with eels and they’re uh foolproof exactly
Yes foolproof and buyant mhm like a little floaty so that was uh that was a big learning moment I was so bummed cuz you’re like there’s Big Fish here I know we’re going to get them we just need eels and that was uh I lost them in my
Panicked uh swim across the channel there short trips where you’re kind of forced to be a minimalist I think that’s where you get the most strides in like figuring out like all right I got nothing but jerk baits with me on this trip or something like that I’m going to
Get this dialed in cuz that’s all I have to fish and I think that forces you to kind of figure out yeah if you’re trying to get into something for sure I mean that’s the even like just like you said swimbaits when getting into swimbait fishing it’s so hard to really get the
Confidence in it if you’ve never used them right because if you have both rods you’re like ah you know 15 minutes goes by you haven’t got a bite it’s easy to pick up a Shaky Head or something like that and then you know and you know you’re going to catch on that where
Sometimes if you just bring the swimbaits you really force yourself and then once you get one bite you can get a million bites right it’s just what you have confidence in I mean that’s rule number one in fishing too is like sometimes if the bite is very good in
The salt water like in the surf or something like that now is the time to experiment and try take the other LS out that you may or may not have confidence with and try to you know get bites on that cuz hey you know the fish are there
You know the time not to experiment is on a slow night when you’re not sure what’s in front of you and if there’s just no fish in the area and you’re cycling through LS then you know they might get put away forever and be like ah these don’t work yeah you’re blaming
Lure when it could just be a lack of fish in front of you if you’re catching them every cast on on darters and you’re think I’d like to learn how to fish a bottle plug or I’d like to learn how to fish a needle fish that’s when you do it even
Like the vertical jig bite right that’s when I like to experiment with colors sometimes when you know I’m crushed them on the green and it’s like all right well let’s I already got one on this and like everyone’s hooked one like let’s let’s try silver pink let’s see is is
Color making a difference sometimes actually it is and then it’s like wow a bunch of times I’ve had retrieves through the fish didn’t get bite let me switch back to this color and then other times it’s just wide open and they’ll eat everything and on our day last
Summer what one of the things that you’d figured out at that point by um mixing and matching the colors was that the yellow fin had a preference for pink they did while the blue fin were were really dialed in on the green which is crazy to me but that’s just you know
When you when you keeping tally of the clickers how many is getting caught on each it’s it you could see the uptick on the pink and the yellow fin so what’s the uh what’s the striper spring striper bite like in Nance at Bay these days still been good you know it’s been good
I mean bunker yeah top water I mean I’ve been messing around a little bit with uh some cool stuff with live Imaging I mean that’s like the topic these days is forward- facing sonar and you know you see it in in the freshwater World guys
You know some guys are like oh that you shouldn’t be using forward- facing sonar in bass fishing and it’s taking the fishing out of it but I think it’s just another tool but I mean I think it’s cool cuz now I can pop it you know take
Mega live put it in landscape mode and you can see your bunker swimming behind the boat so now what I found is so you’ve been been applying it to Salt waterer already I have yeah okay so I I’m waiting I got to get a better Mount
And we’re going to use it chunking with tuna I think that’s going to be the next thing it’ll be awesome that would be amazing to see that but you put it in landscape mode when you’re trolling slow trolling bunker and you can see the the
Bunker and then you can see the fish as they come in to the field of view on the bunker whether it’s a single uh generally if it’s smaller fish you know it’s going to be a small blueish fish you can kind of tell uh but the thing I
Found is if you have multiple fish come in on the bunker before they even blow up on the bunker but you see them coming in so they come into the field of view you can fire a dock or top water in that direction over the bunker work it
Through and now you’re going to add not just one fish but maybe two you double up you know what I mean so so that competition that is a common theme I I that we’ve talked about with with your fishing what you just uh sent me a video
Of you smallmouth bass fishing a couple days ago through the ice and there were multiple fish on the screen you go oh competition competition that’s always that was FaceTime that well it was FaceTime with him yeah I was uh yeah you didn’t answer I was I was like wrist
Deep in a dirty diaper so y a baby’s not not mine y h there’s got to be a better way to say that um so comp competition and uh are you have you been using um the planer still for the uh so I have definitely still experimenting with the
Planers you know it’s tough because the weight of the bunker on the planer is is heavy so I got to kind of find the right ones but I do like how it increases the spread right and then you know now it’s just a question of separate rod for the
Planer or just do it inline because inline has its advantages versus having one separate on its own Rod then then the line releases from that planer so yep still trying to figure that out I mean because it’s amazing how you know a lot of the guys especially down south I
Mean I see things from like Chuck tman or whatever I mean he catches massive fish and I mean he his spread is incredible right I mean 12 to 18 eels at a time and a lot of times in the spring when we’re fishing mud flats we need to
Cover water so I think having that that spread and having more of a footprint helps when you do come across a few bass cuz you know sometimes we have big schools as you’ve seen when we were live chumming that day we we were actually on our way out remember we were leaving and
We saw those things when I was going about 15 knots and that was a big enough school but you know I think picking off some of those two to three you know two to three size fish pods where there’s only two to three bigger fish having that widespread is that means that you
At least can present a bait to them you can get it to them in time before they’re uh they’re out of range they go out yeah exactly so once oh one one last question about the bunker what circle hook you like these days for him anything that’s got a really wide Gap so
I I’ve been experimenting with some mustards some owners I do like the owner makes a inline tournament grade one so it’s not offset but it has a very wide Gap it almost looks goofy because it’s kind of big but when you’re slow trolling a bunker and you’re pulling
Them the weight of the hook and the size doesn’t affect it as much because you’re pulling the bunker forward from the hooks so you know he’s getting dragged essentially anyway so he’s just keeping up it’s not you know I’m not letting him free swim and
Uh that wide that wider Gap is just the increase in successful hookup ratio with that Circle you know and they’re laser sharp those hooks now is it a 80 100 oh it’s it’s a 100 yeah that’s a big hook big big that’s what I mean it looks
Goofy but look at I don’t I don’t think it doesn’t affect action on the bunker and it uh when they come and they swallow them whole I mean it’s it’s getting around the jaw you know what I mean and it’s funny it’s still successful even like a 28 in striper on
A really big bunker sometimes they have a hard time eating it so you’ll watch them hit it a few times before they actually Target it and get it head first but when they do that hook still works even on smaller fish versus but when you
Get like I mean a 30 plus Pound Fish It vacuums that that Bunker’s gone so that hook is going all the way around the jaw I mean it’s you got them um and you’re hooking them through the nose or you still bridling still bridling them okay yeah unless it’s in a
Pinch sometimes if I already know I want to get a bait out quick and you know I won’t spend the time to Bridle it I’m just I’ll hook it through a nostril just just get it out there it does it doesn’t have to be pretty when the action’s hot
You know what I mean just just make it happen get it out there So eventually you get to a point in the Summer where those fish that were in uh eating the bunker in araga Bay kind of push out front of the ocean how’s your uh how do
Your tactics change then uh I mean if I can still get bunker and it’s available I love to bring it with me but then we’re going to fish with eels we’ll start trolling the tube uh jigging bunker spoons actually well not bunker spoons but flutter spoons that’s been
Huge I mean honestly sometimes there’s days where it’s like I don’t even bother with the bunker cuz I know that the flutter spoon just crushes what’s been your approach when it’s like I’m going to the bunker spoon like what’s your program like mean the the flutter spoon
I mean I always have them so it just depends on like how the fish are behaving but like you know if you’re marking and stuff like that and you got a nice wind pop a drift and it’s just fun because you know it’s it’s it’s a little bit and I’ll I’ll always have
Them with me because sometimes you slow troll for a while if it’s effective it’s super fun when it’s slow then I want to switch it up and you know let the Anglers be the one imparting the action and stuff like that how do you coach them up on presenting the spoon I just
Kind of say snap it and let it fall and and and let them kind of do their own thing and find their way into it you know cuz if I would tell them exactly how to do it that how I would do it and then sometimes that they’re not doing it that
Way but they’re still catching so it’s it’s more about I I’ll see how they’re working it see if it’s working I mean cuz the other thing I found with the spoon is as much as it’s great for snapping it if I got a nice drift and
You cast it downwind and give it a count and burn it back straight just a straight retrieve that gets smashed a lot really a lot I mean even to the point where when I was Sur fishing we had like a horrendous East blow I think it was blowing East for like I don’t
Know I was trying to get you to come down and surfish I was like dude it’s going off like every single day was this a couple years ago in October that was this year okay it was it was like and I brought and because of the East Wind
Where we were fishing I just happened to be fishing Ocean Drive I could bomb the flutter spoon out behind me and dude burning that thing through in the surf I mean trust me it’s not a go-to surf floor but they were crushing it that’s cool crushing it that’s awesome you know
And there was like you you you almost couldn’t go too fast like it it was like stripers don’t swim this fast yes they do but I kind of stole that too cuz I was watching you filmed that show with Rob radoff and when he fishes those Big
Woods he’s he’s got speed I that TRS has that’s fast so that thing is moving so it’ll it’ll get those reaction bites so yeah the flutter spoon could be jigged cast I mean and then I like uh big tsunami sheds you know just fishing them erratic I used to fish those those real
Big ones that they made with the double hook like under like you know working b birds and just slow roll it under the school of mostly schoolies and usually pluck a you know bigger fish out but those things didn’t track all that well unless you were super slow
Yeah I see I like the big ones with the single hook it almost looks like a shark hook yeah I like a very erratic like super fast slow it down let it fall burn it you know very very erratic now with the eel fishing one thing that uh I know
You’ve got super clear water out there you’ll scale down your uh leader quite a bit right sometimes I will yep I will scale the leader down it does help in the clear water and I think it helps just get the eel down uh I mean we
Switched over you know using some of the new thinner fluorocarbons definitely helps to which on Premiere you know just cuz the diameter and it seems to sink at like a little bit better of a rate you know and uh yeah I will I will scale down on occasion that that definitely uh
Helps you know and it hasn’t uh hasn’t hurt the size of the fish you caught did you was that was that the biggest uh bass that’s ever been on the real e you guys caught this uh what was it Fourth of July yeah Fourth of July yeah it was
Massive and we had actually gotten a uh 60 lb fish a few days before before we got that really big one and then BJ got one we were fishing we were working the same school of fish we had this pattern where we knew that in the middle of
Nowhere very flat bottom but on sides scan we would pick off you’d see eight marks that literally were on the bottom and were super big I mean you could tell it was odd it was it was not only was it stripers but it was some of the biggest
Smooth dog fish mixed in that I’ve ever caught to the point where they would actually fool you you would think you had a big stoer and I striper and I mean like smooth dog fish that are like At first I actually thought it was brown sharks because it was too I was like
I’ve never seen a dog fish this big I’ve seen smooth dogs and bass run together they were mixed together and they were just not on any structure just in a flat and just you know always running around having sides scan going two or fro it’s like those look like marks slow down
Double back and my 260s BJ caught one and did not have a scale that day and he was right next to me and it looked pushing 70 I mean probably of the biggest stripers I personally ever laid eyes on you know and he’s just a boat
Length away from me we’re right next an earshot I’m looking at this thing and it was just it was a barrel and they were all that classic way big underbite you know just like a different size class of fish I mean I the fish that we caught in
In in that like they were around for about a week and four days week and five days and they were just different different different size class were they on bait or were they just kind of they were just there they were definitely eating something but I don’t know if
It’s that they were using that spot during the day to stage and then at night feeding cuz they were definitely all pretty well fed but I mean they were the type of stripers that would just Corral a school of chog or seab basss and eat them you know they eat small cor
Rants and small children that are swimming they were they were that size fish you know and and we were getting them on uh live yels and you could pull pull a tube and catch them on the tube so your live yel up there what what’s The Tackle look like I like it super
Light you know I I I like to light light action Rod you know absorbs a lot of the head shakes helps keep the fish pinned and I mean you don’t need Super heavy line unless you know you have a lot of current and your feet are stuck on the
Ground and there’s Boulders everywhere right Sur fishing you wouldn’t use the same setup I’m using from a boat but boat very maneuverable it’s easy for me to track one down with the Troll Motor no problem so um what I found is that like some of the lighter action rods
Like whether we’re using like a Nexus or 150 g Black Widow something like that yeah made by J world even with the light line and leader you can apply a lot of pressure by letting the rod Bend right cuz that is where you get all of that
Line so I mean the setups are very light you can fish with them all day you know so I like that VSS x50 I think paired with 20 lb braid and you know I’ll use anywhere from like 30 to you know 50 lb floral now are you any weight on that or
No sometimes weight just depends on how you can present the eel right eels presented with no weight are pretty natural looking but sometimes it’s just your drift and everything a weight is better so it just that’s a lot of condition tide dependent stuff like that
So that that real big one what uh Replay that for us man what was that I knew when he set up on it it just they do like this thing where you I’ll know initially when you set up on the fish how big it is by the head shakes and the
Rod you know like a 20 pounder you know you get that wave you know the 20 lound is like hey how you doing 30 pounder gets a little deeper and then anything that’s like 40 or over it’s just the big I mean like the head shakes make the
Rod tip sway back like four or five feet and I’m just seeing this Rod buck and I’m like and we we because we already knew you know what fish size class fish were in the area and I think actually I had beat up in the floral carbon
Department I went a little bit heavier just because you know we just knew that they were monsters and I was like all right here you go I was like lean back just lean back on the fish I put pressure and try to slow him down but uh
You know he was a freshwater angler also and he finessed it just right cuz the leader was compromised I think that he had actually hooked up to a blue fish and he had put his own eel back on and let it back down and I didn’t check it
We’re normally after someone you know but I was like we were on the fish so I wanted everything to happen quickly so he just did it and I’m pretty sure if anyone else had hooked the fish other than him probably would have lost it cuz like I mean you know you would have
Thought he was fishing like a net it was perfect and when it came up I was like I got a big net I don’t know if that’s going to fit in the net damn that was a common theme of The Last podcast is you had a lot of like fish that Got Away
Source to the point where you jumped off the boat to try to R One That Got Away right next to the boat but uh you know sounds like things have been falling in your favor a little bit more lately and uh so we did a quick hanging weight you
Know just you know I already know we tear the net out just weigh it in the net so it’s cradle did it handed it him back the fish his daughter took a quick photo put it back in think swam away hopefully I’ll catch it this year that’s
Awesome man yeah I mean you’ve seen some monster fish last couple years seeing plenty of big fish off uh off Rhode Island so that’s good to see man it’s it’s good to hear yeah I mean yeah between air and block I mean I mean I’m surprised someone could catch a fish in
That 70 lb class somewhere between you know Newport and Block Island in the next year I mean even some of the fish I’ve seen come out at blocker you know we did one trip coming in from tuna fishing where we stopped on the ledge just to do some Daytime striper fish we
Burn out from catching tuna and I I was I couldn’t believe it I think every fish we caught was over 40 lbs you know during the day and we weren’t I mean I didn’t even have yels we were just slow rolling the ronzi paddle Tails they were
Crushing them so one thing you said about the flutter spoons that reminded me of our trip with uh with Chris last Chris Megan last summer where we were out we filmed um jigging tuna with uh with Rob out uh south of Vineyard where there was a tremendous tuna bite for man
The better chunk of the summer yeah and what you said about the flutter spoons just a couple minutes ago is like you know you let the customers figure it out for their own they do their own thing um you don’t give them too you don’t tell
Them too much what to do let them uh I got to coach a little but you they they have to be comfortable with how the style they’re they’re manipulating The Jig or flutter spin so if you were going to tell someone how to work a vertical
Jig the advice you give wouldn’t be what what Chris was doing but it was working tremendously Chris was letting the jig so what you’d said early in the trip you’re like these things are Grubb and sandals on the bottom and Chris took that and he thought okay I’m going to
Keep my jig in the mud and that had worked a week prior to that where we had a day where it wasn’t about jigging The Jig it was about keeping the jig in the sand and it was some of the most frustrating fishing I’d ever missed that
One because yeah when Chris went up 40 on you you you started to sweat I I’m there if if there was an article on how to jig for blue Fint tuna with metal jigs like I was doing it I was taking the textbook approach you know one lift
Of the rod for every turn of the reel it was the the s sandel that anyone ever saw that’s what my my jig was doing Chris was basically what he his Cadence looked more like fluke fishing where he was basically like slow lifts just letting that thing just kind of flutter
Along and he kept hooking fish and he he did this thing and he always remember we switched the rod on him because his jigging Cadence with that Rod the tip actually helps swing The Jig up perfectly we had yeah you had a slow pitch rod on board at the beginning of
The day here are the you know the classic kind of fast pitch speed jigging rods and then here’s a slow pitch one it was the jigging world luminous series and they have a slow pitch one as well and uh you go if we want to have some
Fun here’s that one so Chris tried that I think he caught the did he catch the first fish on the slow pitch and then I took it from him and then he caught several more he caught a couple more on the on the high pitch then I swapped
Back and he took that and caught another one on the slow pitch all before I hooked one and it was uh I don’t it was tough it was tough to be Jim for a while I can see your face I love that face you just can’t you know what it’s like golf
It’s just you against the fish it’s not you against somebody else or you’ll get so psyched out the insult to injury of the whole thing was I I’m jigging away and Rob goes whoa look at that whale and I you know I take my my head away look
And you did the classic like prank where you you whack the butt or the rod so it feels like I got a bite and I set I go oh oh oh and then I look and you’re laughing in that same moment Chris hooks up and I like this just isn’t going to
Be my day but it what it did end up being my like we we evened out at the end end being everybody’s day it was everybody’s day that was that was incredible and we were outside the main Fleet a lot but you know I’m sure by Design but you were
Follow the follow the fish you know if you’re you’re in a center when you’re in a center console out there you’re thinking fast fish I’ve got to get on them quick I’ve got to move and that’s not always that’s not approach you take I mean one in your boat you’re not going
To take that approach no but two you slow down and you take everything in you’re looking you go too fast you’re going to drive over the fish and you’re going to miss him right on your way to the spot you got to make sure you know
You’re going over all the other spots so you got to pay attention so of all the thing I I I learned a ton on that trip but the main one my main takeaway that I’m going to take with me on every offshore trip from here on out is the
Size of the Slicks mhm so I you know you think bigger is better a bigger slick means more fish what’s what’s that’s a slick that’s old okay yeah you want to get the little one as it’s forming so when we’re saying slicks we mean like if
You look at it looks like an kind of an oil slick and what that is is the oils from The Bait fish the tuna are feeding on below float to the surface and they create kind of a flat glassy appearance on the surface of the water and if you
Find that a lot of times it’s an indication there are Fish Feeding below and I was always of the impression oh here’s a giant slick there must be something crazy going on there but you that’s not what you want you said no I want want to find a new a small slick
Because that’s a new one right and you saw like as the ones that we pull up to they started small then they would grow and then after they got big then we would go and had to find another one cuz they were moving those fish on those
Pockets of sandals and if you were running too fast you would miss those smaller slicks a lot of times and that’s something where you are you’re running you’re constantly looking just as you’re moving around like it’s looking and smelling cuz you could smell them too yeah and and the uh the shear waterers
Are no not the shear wers the storm patrols are the you know the tuna they go and they feed on those oils so th those two together is kind of a great subtle sign that’s easy to miss um when finding fish especially the jig yeah cuz
We didn’t see any fish on the surface just in the morning when we first pulled up we did have a few look like smaller yellow fin that were on there CU I remember you and Chris instantly went to the popper and then when we started
Marking them on the bottom I think I got hit and I think I had missed one everybody changed and went back to the jig Rod I I the reason I so desperately wanted one on a popper was the day before I was out with cheich and he
Caught one on the popper and I hadn’t caught I I’ve never caught a tuna on a popper and I’m like oh I got to get one I got to get one and uh I ended up catching a ton on jigs that day we we both had Drive buys on
Poppers though that day yep yeah boiled right right the first thing I mean I I was actually surprised you guys didn’t get tight on the popper but man I I’ve said this I love The Jig bite so much better than the top water bite I I love because you’re constantly fishing you’ve
Got a line in the water the whole time I I’ll take a jig day of tuna over the top water I I like just St watching the jigs get come up through the water column and watching the electronics and just being able to see the fish as it’s coming up
And know you’re going to get bit I I keep going back and forth and I’ve come to the realization that I just like hooking tuna that’s right right true but but the jig bite is like a car accident you know if you’re speed jigging it’s so aggressive and you feel
It way more than any top water bite whether you’re throwing a stickbait or a popper but there’s something exponentially different about hooking them on a popper and getting that visual treat of it just leaving a hole this or airing out none of us want to choose
Which one we like them both yeah that’s why when you’ve jigged 20 something on a trip with you it’s like I only want to throw a popper now mhm so I get it so early indications now right now it’s the end of February and when we were talking
The other day you were already excited about the prospects for this tuna season can you uh yeah I mean you got lots of things right there that you already got a nice little pack of yellow fin staged off the Carolinas you know the water the
Way it seems to be shaping up it looks like it would be good for Southern New England you know New York Rhode Island you know just watching those Eddies and you know you just got to you got to look at it every day just every day watch
That water you know I mean obviously it’s going to be what it’s going to be when the boat goes in and it’s just I mean we’re three and three and a half months away from the tuna fishing and you’re you’re already looking at the reports looking at the Gulf Stream I
Love that man that’s yeah you got to keep your finger on the pulse as it comes up you know what I mean so have you uh have you ever looked at any of that like um forecasting data that like Ross puts out where it’s like they do a
Very good job they map out the whole upcoming year of what they predict that water to do I have I don’t look at the rough stuff like as of right now but you know if if we’re fishing like a tournament or something like that like I
When I fish the trate you know we’ll utilize some of the rough stuff just just knowing where I mean I came across that for the first time and I didn’t realize that they had models that were predictive yeah I mean this far in advance they have analysts so that are
Are always looking at the water and and looking at the trends and everything I mean you know and then once you get the hang of it I mean you can do a lot of it on your own you know depending on what subscription you apply to but you know
That’s a lot that definitely is indicative of like the the blue water fishery when you’re looking for your yellow Marl and stuff like that cuz it is hard to use the sea- surface temps and the uh chlorop to a degree when it comes to Blue Fin because blue fin
Unlike yellow fin can go wherever they want right so that it there you still can use it and it’s still I I I still apply a lot of stuff to the blue fin Fisher that we have but that being said you know it’s like the blue fin could be
Inshore or offshore in a matter of a day and you know when it comes to water temperature be damned they don’t seem to care they just want to eat eat and eat mhm now the mixing of the Blue Fin and yellow fin that we saw out there last
Year how did that kind of EB and flow throughout the season were there days you only caught yellow fin or were they segregating it all or it depends I mean obviously if you got into like a cooler section of water there would be a down tick in the yellow fin versus the blue
Fin but the water was pretty stable and it was almost like this mush water that came from the edge all the way in you had a mixed bag so they were all kind of congregated together the the one thing I noted on our day was there were two
Double ups and both times it was the same species so we double up once it was uh me and Tristan doubled up on Blue Fish I’m sorry on Blue Fin and then me and Chris doubled up on yellow fin and it did seem to kind of Trend in that
Direction where like you get a couple feather fly together you know I mean I I’m trying to think we did have a handful of fish that we doubled where it was a blue fin and a yellow fin but they actually were way different in the water
Column the blue fin came off the bottom and I know that we had been marking fish directly under the boat at 15 ft and that’s where the elephant came from and the Elephant actually that we got on the were much smaller but they were almost like staying under the boat like alz at
The time now did the elephant leave before the blue fin did or they the same time I think that they probably were still out there I gave up on that bik cuz I transitioned in September to Giants so you know we we had moved the
Boat cuz just to the start of the uh blue fin tournament uh Boston Bluefin classic so we had moved the boat up to the cape to fish that and then from there on out it was Giants until tog you know I put the blinders on to the I mean
They had a great chunk bite for yellow fin and blue fin and you know I know that that was good but we were focused on mostly big game by that point so one one last thing on the smaller tuna so let’s say you weather came in you
Haven’t been out for two or three days when you choose your spot you know you go where it was last good you have no that’s your most recent Intel they’re not there where do you move from there how do you how do you then decide where
To go you know if you haven’t been out for a couple days your most recent Intel’s 3 days old I mean you’re sort of going to look for mammals or something to start on to work I mean it depends so like if I know if the weather was
Consistent right so let’s say that we had like a bunch of days of East Wind and it’s blowing it’s blowing it’s blowing that that could drive the bait you know further to the West so I’ll probably Trend that way and kind of see how it shapes up you know but it also
Helps to obviously in any offshore fishery is working with a group of other captains in or Anglers so you know I got my friend Kevin from Blue Line Charters he’s coming out of Westerly so then you know and you got uh the Bacon Brothers coming out of Point Judith so you know
Me being out of Newport and then sometimes Dom if Dom was working that way you know so we’re coming from all different directions you know so it’s good to check in everybody kind of come from a little bit different way like I will tend to pull around from the East
Sometimes just to cover that stretch for everybody you know just to see that way where you know Dom has the far east Southeast kind of covered that way and normally you know with four of us we can find something to work on within the day yeah remember there was a stretch like
That where I don’t think anybody have been out for a couple days and we were going out and your main advice was you’re going to see a spectacular Marine Mammal show you’re going to see a ton of whales go avoid that you said find the small life yeah because the fish hadn’t
Been on that Big Life they had been on that small life so I mean it’s not that there weren’t fish there but I mean very few and most of the ones that we encountered in that that crazy life show were bigger at at that point you know
And they did the fish small fish did come back into that life so you know check it out but don’t linger you know what I mean if you’re not seeing the signs of Life did you I forget did you linger that day or we lingered so we
That we did the uh where you would have moved so we saw Dom that day he stayed there for a little bit and we we kept trying and then Dom took off to try somewhere else where he eventually found them and we just kind of kept hitting
That area and it did not adjust and that’s that’s the difference between you and Dom and the guys who were out there every day and have to find these I mean if we didn’t find fish it just meant no fresh tuna for us you didn’t find fish
Disappointed clients right um so we not as much at stake but you your guys ability to Pivot I mean the network we had a network out there too but we were way less likely to find the fish like our moves you see how they move after the weather pattern that’s
The the nice thing about being out there and then having the good instincts on top of it but that’s always my main question cuz you you always seem to be on them and and even after a couple days you find them and you piece it back together quickly so that’s why I wanted
To ask like how stringing your days together right it’s like you just at that point you’re fishing in a pond and you know okay I’ve been to this spot every day and you know wind blew this way well the bait’s going to go over there you know you’re just looking
Inside that box cuz I mean in Rihanna you can only cover so much water in a day anyway so you have to keep it within that box and hopefully everything stays there and some I mean that south of the vineyard area that whole dump area is
Kind of unique where you can have boats coming from all the like if you’ve got coming from Falmouth you know covering that whole area from uh the claw all the way down to the dump you’ve got somebody coming out of Newport you got somebody coming out of
Watch Hill that’s a lot of ground you guys can cover to find where they are and then sometimes it feels like that’s not enough because I mean you have you know you can you got good structure in water from basically you know you’re talking Cox’s ledge to the canyon so
There’s your box you know what I mean and it just but once they set up and kind of get staged in an area and you know where the bait is generally most of it sticks around within you know 30 40 miles of that so predominant bait last
Year sandals tons of sandals lots of squid though too cuz you get a big sandal Bloom then you’re going to have squid right because squid are going to feed on it whether it’s going to be lyo or elix we were out and we did catch a
Yellow fin one day in I think it was right when they first showed up so end of June and that fish was full of squid and we were out trolling a couple days before that and our blue fin were all full of sandals um I think it was squid
And butterfish were that the uh yell fin had on it or had in it it it’s it’s super important to be able to fish like multiple days it’s one thing that like in anything you know it’s it’s a it gives you a huge leg up cuz like there
Were days last year where the bite was moving in a very fixed direction from the morning of the day to the end of the day and I could only imagine if like you’re out there working a bite for three days you know that could be a big
Piece of that puzzle if you’re going to go four or five days of of complete blackout cuz no one was able to fish looking back over the last three or four days it’s like all right I found them a little further to the east each day
Might as well start you know four days further run Beyond them to the East and kind of you know look there or I’ll always go back to the scene of the crime first though yeah you don’t want to drive over them and the good thing is
Though we don’t get blacked out for that long the real easy can get through some weather you you must you must push the limits uh in that boat some yeah it has to be rough is one thing if it’s rough but you can be effective in fishing you
Know and you got to know the group too some guys are more seasoned so it’s like a little bit of chop or some rougher weather they’re fine on the boat I don’t have to worry about it but then there’s a point where if it’s too rough and it’s
Going to affect your Technique you know I don’t want to go out and have rough and blank because you just couldn’t even fish yeah there’s there’s whether you can’t even fish him I was talking more about your commercial giant days where it’s like H just me and you know my
Chosen buddy or two and R we pushed it a little a little bit further than that yeah bow and I for sure so how was uh how was the 2023 uh giant tuna fishing very good it’s excellent yeah did did well in the cape did well back at home
So had no complaints how how’s the cape giant fishery differ from your close to home it’s the same I mean it’s same type of structure same giant fishing it’s just I just do it the way I I do it you know I mean it it was nice to come back
To the cape and fish a tournament and I made that decision because we had weather coming so it looked like that during the tournament Rhode Island was going to be blown out for possibly two days so I had to make a call whether okay do the guys on the cape and up
Towards GL I mean the tournament you know you had guys fishing from Gloucester all the way to Rhode Island so do I let them fish for two days well we don’t fish for two days so I looking at the forecast I had to make up my mind
Whether I was going to go or not so then we just said I’m going and of course you know the weather improved once we already had gotten up there and then guys in Rhode Island were able to fish I think they were able to fish the
Afternoon of the first day and then they were to fish the rest of the tournament but um it was nice to come back to the cape and be able to produce fish and you know it was it was just like we left it it was awesome you know and you came
Back into December too right I did yep on that crazy crazy December bite yep that was that was a good time it seemed the season the giant season was closed throughout November the month of November but then a little bit of quota opened up in December and everybody was
Itching to get out there because it had been you knew how many were around there were got lobstermen who were talking about the the tuna following up their pots all throughout the month of November and guys got out there did you got one in December right I did yeah we
Got two fish in December and then when we came up at Fisher tournament we got two fish for the tournament as well although inevitably we lost you know we ended up finishing third and two Rhode Island fish had bumped us out so you know lost by seven lbs now you were out
With Earl in December and you guys hooked a poor beagle and then didn’t the poor beagle have like a giant bite mark out of it yeah something had bit the poor beagle I don’t know what it was but it it wasn’t like it was a small poor
Beagle but he had a good bite chunk missing like a shark bite or like a killer whale bite or what I don’t wouldn’t know the difference you know without really analyzing it it whatever it was was bigger than the poor beagle and hungry there were a lot there were a
Lot of orcas around last year there was old Tom who is the Orca that kind of comes through every year he’s a loner he hangs with a bunch of do dolphins um he eats dolphins he yeah and while eating them it’s kind of a precarious friendship I guess for the Dolphins but
He showed up and he was at the Regal sword at a a bunch of guys saw him this past year old time but then uh which was really interesting I know to the scientists there was a pod like I think they thought a family unit of workus it
Was also spotted that was a little bit further offshore but that’s uh you have you ever seen a killer whale I have not what’s the coolest thing you’ve seen on your offshore trips oh man I don’t know like I mean everything’s cool from mola molas to basking sharks to you know free
Jumping Threshers are always cool when you see those I’ve never that in person man that’s got to be so cool to acres of blue fin blasting beit I mean you there’s always something cool to see you know sometimes it’s just the little things or the big things so one story we
Didn’t really cover last time you were in here was the story of your biggest giant tuna um the one you had with uh lud defusco and yeah the one that had Lou and Ralph and you had an All-Star crew on there and uh I my favorite part of
That story is when you went to Harpoon it man tell us uh tell us that one there so take it from the start I want to hear hear this story I mean look it it was nothing out of the ordinary we were you know on a drift fishing some pogis we
Had had some some decent fishing you know in Cape Cod and uh far floater that had been doing it all year you know kept that bait 40 ft and it was a good the wind was blowing but the tide was blowing against so it was as actually a
Slow drift which was perfect and the fish was just an [ __ ] I mean it was a big fish so we had Ralph and I had been using these prototype rods it’s the deadest blank that Jen world makes so you know and Ralph had wrapped him up and you know
Obviously standard giant fight we’re fighting it for a while and now we have the fish pretty much down and dirty and we’re at like 2 and 1 half hours and this thing just won’t budge so you know I keep turning the drag up every every
10 minutes to see if I can make him come up you know and everyone’s like you know like what are you doing so then I put it just I put the boots to it and then even that wasn’t enough so then Lou got on
The rod and I had to tell Lou I was like you have to start palming the poool we need just a little bit pressure I was like look at connections are good but we got to put more heat on this fish cuz he’s not coming up it’s just you know it
Was no no gain he’d come up a little and and go down it was the same I’m watching the depth finder and I can see him he’s just 80 ft does not want to move from 80 ft oh so when he starts ping the spool I start hearing this weird beeping noise
And I’m like what is this beeping noise so I’m looking at my electronics and then I realize Ralph had this like little watch and it like monitors like your health and your heart well his his old ticker was going through the roof there as we’re bending this thing you
Know we’re putting the heat to it so then finally I I Lou had started to make some gains and then I really told him I was like look every time he comes around you’re gaining here and you’re losing on on this part of the of of the pin wheel
The rotation I was like when it comes to that I want you to stick your hands in the spool and just hold on to that spool and you cannot let any line off the Reel I was like if you let line off the Reel I’m going to take you off the Reel and
Like he melted the gloves cuz he was put it on there but you know you got to trust trust your gear you know that we got the floral carbon’s good it’s strong you know and I didn’t see where he was hooked but I didn’t I felt like if he
Had been gut hooked at that point we had so much heat we would have ripped it out at some point so it’s like you know we got to get him up and then yeah he finally uh finally got the fish up and then I was able to stick him you know
Right close to the boat so and we got him and it was I mean at the time it was a decent Siz fish I think it was a little over 118 in so massive man Angry Angry Fish you know they’re all built a little different it’s wild was that the
Story you wanted to hear or was it the one where the rod broke and I threw it over the rainbow Harpoon shop I will hear whatever story you want to tell man I would love to hear that sounds the one I was thinking of the one you just
Described the one with uh Lou putting his hand on the spool and then you went to go throw the Harpoon initially but the fish was so big that you misjudged how far it was and you kind of did like a check like you held theck check swing yeah cuz I went to
Throw it and as I was pushing down actually you can see it in the video I can send you the video but I realized as I was throwing it and I have it down and I try not to let let go to the last
Second so I have it and I always hold it from the back I don’t I’m not a javelin guy I like to have it right from the back so I can push all the way through and as I was throwing it once the Harpoon entered the water I could see
The tip of the Harpoon and I realized I misjudged the distance and it was too far so I I pulled it out I I I stopped and pulled it back out and I was like look it I could tell at that point I saw the hook right the M’s in the latch it’s
Not going anywhere don’t freak out just get one more turn and then just poke it nice and easy no need to freak out there you know I didn’t if the hook had been you know buried down below I mean I would have been ready to Chuck that
Thing from anywhere but cuz it could have come out any could have come out at any second you know or part the line I mean we’ve had fish another 100 plus 118 inch fish uh when we actually I stuck it this fish was an animal I mean this was
The craziest thing it stayed on the surface the whole fight and this is a different fish so that we had and this is actually a funny story in its own right so the fish stayed on the surface the whole fight it is just will not sound it’s swimming away from us so what
I would do is I would I would come along and I’d back up to it and I could get back get back every time I got within 30 yards of the fish it would actually go all the way towards my starboard side bow Roop around and would charge the
Boat directly black back at the boat did the same exact thing three times so finally I’m like I’m going to take a shot so then I had the Harpoon and I set it up right by right by the helm and I’m doing the same thing and then he veers off and I’m like
He’s going to do the same exact thing again so I just kicked it back a little bit grabbed the Harpoon and he did and he turned and he came black back and I just chucked it got him right in the head fish goes under the boat we were
Able to get it so we didn’t run over the line and then as we came tight to him again he came to the surface and shook his head so violently and just chafed the leader instantly so just had him on the dart line just had him on the dart
Line you know and I think I mean d we we chase this thing to claer and then eventually he just he died on the dart line but like you know he would not did not go down in fact at one point we had gathered the dart line in and I I didn’t
Know how well I got him so we were pretty easy on the dart line and We snuck up next to him and he’s on just just under the water swimming with the Harpoon and his head just like nothing happened and I’m like I don’t think this
Thing’s ever going to die I was like so we started to rig up a second Harpoon and then he slowed down and then we were able to get the fish that’s crazy jum family-owned and operated for over 65 years AFCO represents unparalleled quality performance and reliability when
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Believe been kind of like a an expiration date on a fight like my old man his three hour mark was when he started really getting yeah I’m always watching it you know it depends on what the fish’s behavior is depend if I can Mark him on
The sonar you know if I know where he’s hooked or yeah you just put the boots to him when you think you can earlier the better sometimes sometimes you can’t you know depends on if something happens and you know did my line get wrapped around
A paw now I can’t put pressure till I get past this certain point I mean you know just all by feel I guess it’s just Instinct kind of it happens that way now when it comes to giant tuna bait what’s your hierarchy of baits if you get if
You can’t get this you get this if you can’t get that you get that it’s hard to beat blueish just because when they eat Bluefish it can be spectacular I mean I’ve had cool pogy bites where they come on the surface but a blue fish’s will to
Live is so strong that it will come Airborne with you know a 120 super m in its back and the tuna wants to kill that thing and that will come Airborne I mean we got some of the best bite footage this year where I was more conscious now
To pick up my phone you know or luckily if I had Earl yeah Earl we posted one that Earl shot Earl on board he’s smart about Pi he’s very good about picking up the phone where sometimes I’m in the moment which is good to be in the moment
You know and then and just have everything happened around you but it was nice to look back on that bite and you know and that was a that was a day where the season had been closed so that was a catch and release day but we had
Had all that East Wind and I needed to find fish cuz I had clients the next day and I hadn’t been out so I there was a small window to get out for a few hours after the morning and I was like look at
I got to take this time to scout like I can’t these are good clients I got to burn some fuel for these guys and at least make sure we have the best chance possible and I just you know started Milling around looking for Birds just kind of doing this zigzag pattern from
Where we had had the fish previously Giants previously it ended up taking me about I want to say like 8 and 1 half miles further to the east is where we ended up finding it and it was same thing it was just all of a sudden two
Little subtle slicks I saw pop up and I saw a couple of Seagulls sitting down and the that we had had schools of Bunker is what the was driving the fish so the bunker and the GS were kind of going hand in hand and if you could find
That normally you would find the blue fin and I was like all right you know we don’t have much time let’s just put a bait out and make one drift and it’s all it took one drift found him now do you think that I I know the video you’re
Talking about Earl shot it one of the funniest things Earl said he goes he sent it to me we posted it on on the W’s Instagram um and he said I he’s like I was in the middle of eating a Snickers bar so like when he’s he’s like oh my
God it sounds like you can hear his guy’s mouth but um that that had to be too fish right it depends I don’t know like I’ve watched it and wondered if it was two fish or one fish I mean he misses it and I had actually I bridled the
Bluefish that day because the drift was extremely fast so I didn’t want you know he had to pull him from the nose couldn’t just pull him from the back and he he hits it and it goes flopping out he sends it into the stratosphere but
They can turn so well I mean I really think that that could have been the same fish because when he comes back he has it and he grabs it and I saw the balloon jerk but then he slowed down and it wasn’t like he kept that same momentum
Then the balloon just started going steadily away and I was like we’re already like you could tell we were on like because I think you were asking at some point one of you guys in the video was does he have it like oh he’s got it
And then you hear the real start to click MH but you’re right yeah he did uh it slowed down right after slowed down yeah he smashed it once he caught it then he was like huh I got it all right no reason to keep keep sprinting if you
You get so blueish is the Top bait and and we’ve had a couple good blueish in a row so it’s been uh pretty reliable for you get I mean and pogis are good mackerel’s good I mean look at a lot of it’s going to depend on the area your
Fishing and what Forge is available like when I came up in December I didn’t bring blue fish with me right I just went up on the bank we fish mackerel and Herring cuz that’s that’s what was available so that comes into play um you know I mean sometimes even just
Trolling some Balo I mean it’s amazing how effective that is and we don’t do it as much nobody seems to I don’t want to say nobody but trolling for Giants seems to be a you know there was a season up here on the cape where you know a lot of
Guys were catching fish out east and like this 83 inch Class I’m pretty sure like Colin from capar Dom those guys had all been been on them out out further to the East and then uh had been hanging out with Scott Sinclair who uh you know he worked for castafari and like you
Know he really was like dude let’s troll Balo let’s troll Balo and I was like all right let’s go and we put time in it was effective we caught plenty of John science you know it seemed to for me it was a better approach on the half beak
Fish than trying to run them down because I’m not going to in a Down East boat I mean I I sometimes I’m in the right situation and if they’re feeding in a certain way I can get to them but I was way more effective trolling Bal who
When they were eating half Peaks and we actually were able to put a couple Giants across the deck fishing that way you know and then you go down to the Carolina that’s all they do pull the H you know and they catch so it’s one of
The things maybe I always say I want to experiment and try this and that but sometimes it’s hard to experiment when you know what’s producing and stick to the trid and true even though I know that’s one of the things I was going to ask you are there any kind of Big Rob
Taylor experiments like on the horizon for for 20124 that you’re like you know what I had this idea I want to I want to give this a shter I want to see if I can whatever I really want to utilize live Imaging more in giant fishing and or
Chunking right I mean how cool would it be just to put it and just being able to see my blue fish swimming around and it’s just one of those things where you keep you keep checking it like you’d be glued in it so it gives that little
Added element of excitement you know so I’m working on a mount that I can have it so instead of just off the transm but just have it off to the side um what do you think you could learn from it I mean a one thing is I’m know whether it’s a
Shark or a tuna yeah because you can see that so you know on days when you don’t have a lot of bait then maybe if you see a shark sniffing around your Bluefish you just casually bring them in for a little bit and then um I just want to
Watch how they take it how do they approach it you know what is happening out there I mean you can tell when they smash it on the surface that’s great but sometimes when it’s just a bob or down bite did he swim by it first and then approach from a different angle like
There’s a lot of things I think you could learn from doing that and then how cool would it be I mean you know you know how it is with ice fishing with mega live you can watch your jig how cool would it be to just know with live
Imaging at what depth the chunks are disappearing and when those fish are coming up yeah and then seeing how they react to your hook bait you’ll know you can put your hookbait down if they come up and sniff it and they don’t like it then maybe I
Got to figure something out and change it you know it’d be it’d be pretty cool to see that I mean even with the traditional 2D Imaging you you can dial in enough where you knew the attitude of the tuna on the trip we were out there
You could tell by the angle of the the mark you’re like okay he’s tipped up toward my jig he’s coming at it know he’s that’s an aggressive fish that’s a that’s a fish that’s going up and down fast he’s going to eat or as opposed to
One where he’s just kind of cruising I you you could tell the attitude of that just from those marks but that comes from a lot of experience of watching the uh yeah just staring staring at the Matrix all day long every day all right I’ve got one last question
For che might have a couple more let’s say you’ve got a good clients you’ve been fishing with them for years they’re coming up and they’re like Captain it’s your choice but everything’s good right now the giant tuna fishing is great uh but it’s a catch and release giant tuna
Day I’ll throw that in there jigging for the smaller tuna is very good uh stripe M fishing’s tremendous big togger biting what’s what are you doing what’s your day look like there we’re tune to fishing cuz if it’s Catch and Release Giants and their small fish firing we
Can do both let’s go well we’re going to burn your arms out on on the small fish and then I’ll let you rest up and then we’re going to go hang a big one either and it depends on I mean if they’re not too too big and we have 80in class fish
We can do that on the spinning gear depending on how how that pans out like we were able to do that uh this year or last year 2023 where catch some small ones and then all right let’s go vertical jig some 80in class fish whereas you know if they’re real big
Maybe we’ll try to burn you out in the 130s I think that’s a cool day seeing yeah put a put a tag in a big one and take a small one home to eat and then tag some small ones too that’s a that’s a dream day man I also lied I had one
More question um Shar shark fishing yes you getting a lot of call for that now we still do sharkfish y yeah what’s uh is it is it waning is it more is it getting more popular what are you seeing no I mean I I think it’s staying the
Same you know but it’s one of those things where I mean we’ll go shark fishing and then it could turn into a tuna trip too because it’s it’s very hard to pass up you know when you have tuna around but I mean you know we we try to catch catch and release makos
When we can you know we tag them so there’s there’s a good amount of tagging effort and um you know I mean it it’s still still is popular I mean because we do have Threshers I mean AO is just one of those things and Threshers for that
Matter it’s like the amount of air they get after being hooked is a sight to be hold you know what I mean it’s like if you once you see it you want to see it all the time you know I mean it’s the only fish that I’ve probably you
Know the highest jumping fish ever I’ve ever seen hooked I mean we’ve hooked makos that I swear they they clear 20 feet you know back flipping it’s incredible and it seemed this year there seemed to be a little bit more makos being reported for the first time in a
Long time it feels like guys were running into makos a little bit more and we have had you know the Fisher’s been closed for what a few years now and it is I mean you know and I mean I still haven’t seen it back to you know like
The the hey days of you know when I was you know in in my early years in college and we would make it up sure I felt like there were makos everywhere but you know they if if it Trends in the way it is you know maybe it’ll get opened up
Sometime in the future but I mean it’s one of those fish that even still is fun Catch and Release you know what I mean and it and it does does well as far as releasing it’s a big West Coast thing guys go out there they target them a
Light tackle the pups and even some of the big ones and then they they let them go um it just had that just hasn’t seemed to catch on here I think it’d be tougher a lot tougher to catch one on the Fly here not impossible but I’ve
Earl and Taylor Brown have been out there and done it you you know what I mean it’s just it’s a it’s a sight thing so you know you got to get that fish chummed in but I mean it’s definitely possible I mean look it the one thing is
That’s nice is if we have a tuna trip the day before and we get a blue fin I will you know I’ll take that rack and kind of grind down the rack and make whatever’s left over it makes the ultimate make I mean you you put that in
The water and then the oil slick it’s like they just come marching it’s moos cartwheeling is about as cool as it gets uh for Ariels Threshers however many of the ones that I’ve seen come out of the water they it looks like it’s the first time that fish
Ever jumped it’s almost like just like frozen still um it comes up and back down it’s what am I I can’t believe I’m doing this but one the the coolest one I ever saw was we were um fluking in the shes and it was chasing blue fish and it came
Launching out of the water and it was still swimming in the air and that was the first time a thresher didn’t freeze in the air and that was really cool cuz it just had all that tail just still wagging it was badass well that’s what it looks like on that video that you
Were in where that day that we were giant fishing and we had all Threshers before I I had to make that move and uh yeah he just kind of so cool that was a fun day man I mean I we ended up hooking the Giant and
Losing at the end of the day but the Threshers that was so cool and they were all big ones and uh one gave gave you a little love tap on the yeah that hurt when I was putting the tag in him yeah putting putting the uh satellite tag in
Him whipped you with the tail oh he hit me good yeah my pride didn’t let me show up but I had [Laughter] stung well Rob um thanks for uh thanks for coming on it’s always a pleasure to talk fishing with you it was an awesome weekend learning uh from the master jig
And smalles oh yeah that was a good time and uh more time fishing with Rob Taylor is a good thing so let’s let’s plan the next adventure I’m just glad you haven’t said double or nothing cuz I’m not up for that no I’ve learned my lesson maybe scale it down a little bit
Maybe mix it up give Jim a chance make a pick roll hey I tried to do double or nothing with Tristan on a bet that we had had and it was uh we had gone on a t tagging trip and so he didn’t come on the second trip but the biggest fish on
The second trip was the same fish that we I had tagged and beat him with a couple weeks previous that the game’s r G rigged when he fish against Captain Rob Taylor that’s just the proof right there Rob man thanks for uh thanks for joining us again man all right let’s go
Fishing that’s what I’m saying let’s do It
4 Comments
Watched the entire podcast. Rob is one interesting dude and clearly next level fisherman. Kudos on the content!
As if I wasn’t hungry enough for fishing to come back to NE Mass now you three have me drooling thinking about the bass migration and warmer weather 🤤 Some excellent knowledge here for sure!
Robbie is the best, smart, innovative, humble, world class fisherman.
I SMASHED the stripers this year on the 4th too!!! big boys! cool to hear someone else stuck em!