Unsolved Mysteries
“It’s a big unknown,”
admits Dr. Jeff Kneebone, a
research scientist at the New
England Aquarium, and
part of a team led by Dr. Walt
Golet of the University of
Maine tracking yellow-
fi n tuna with satellite tags
attached to fi sh caught on
recreational fi shing gear—
and released—in the north-
west Atlantic. Yet data
transmitted by the tags has
provided some answers.
For starters, tags revealed
some of the released fi sh
hugged the continental shelf,
some headed off shore, and a
couple bounced around be-
tween Atlantis and Veatch
canyons, making a loop out
to 150 miles off shore. Data
also showed yellowfi ns gen-
erally spend nights near the
surface, then dive as deep as
3,000 feet during the day;
they swim up to 35 miles
per hour and prefer water
around 70 degrees, but with-
stand temperatures as low as
44 degrees for brief periods.
Clues and Deductions
For anecdotal evidence,
I headed to Oregon Inlet,
North Carolina, to fi sh on
Tuna Fever with Capt. Billy
Maxwell, a 30-year veteran
of the region’s tuna fi shery.
He explained that a spring
migration once brought
schools of yellowfi ns from
South Carolina to Hatteras,
then around the corner to
the Point off Oregon Inlet.
But today the fi sh seem
to just magically appear
off Oregon Inlet. “I think
they come from the east,”
Maxwell says, backing up
his theory with reports from
commercial longliners.
It was early April when
Maxwell and I went trolling
for tuna, pulling Sea Witches
along the edge of the Gulf
Stream, which was laden
with fl oating grass. We
caught a number of 20- to
30-pounders, with most
of the action concentrated
around the 100-fathom drop.
To fi nd the fi sh, Maxwell
looked for a temperature
change overlying struc-
ture. The main stem of the
Gulf Stream is a good place
to start, but the fi sh could
hang on the edge of an eddy
spinning up the coast.
The Outer Banks veteran
starts the season trolling
skirted ballyhoo, but if the
tuna are joined by pods
of pilot whales, he adds a
spreader bar to the center of
the spread. Maxwell admits,
however, that he hasn’t seen
the whales in a few years.
Once the water tempera-
ture reaches 80 degrees, the
fi sh key on fl ying fi sh, so he
switches to kite-fi shing orrubber squid dangling from
a greenstick, a tall boom
that keeps the artifi cial baits
skipping on the surface.
Maxwell expects the
abundance of sargassum
will require dropping baits
from the sky to stay out ofthe rough. He says the thick
mats of grass could also at-
tract huge schools of dolphin
and, in turn, blue marlin.
“When there are lots of dol-
phin, we see plenty of marlin
and fewer tuna,” Maxwell
explains, citing that dolphin
and marlin fi shing were slow
in 2018, and they had a great
fall tuna bite.Bold Predictions
Based on his experience,
Maxwell predicts that a
larger class of fi sh would
arrive in early summer, and
the fall tuna run would be in
full swing by mid-October.
That’s when the fl eet
switches back to trolling56 SALTWATERSPORTSMAN.COM SEPTEMBER 2019
JESSICA^
HAYDAHL^ RICHARDSON^
(A
BOVE);^TOM^
SPENCER^ (OPPOSITET
OP);^JASON^
STEMPLE^ (2 )WHAT
Yellow fi n tuna
WHEN
Mid-Atlantic to New England
WHERE
Spring through fall
WHO
These experienced captains
can predict where yellowfi ns
will move along the coast:
Capt. Billy Maxwell
252-473-1097
tunafever.com
Capt. Mark DeCabia
516-428-7541Mid-Atlantic
Yellow fi n Tuna RunSWS
PlannerWELL-ENDOWED: Large tails
and muscular bodies make big
yellowfi ns a tough quarry.
IN YOU GO: Gaffers get busy
when the yellowfi n tuna
action heats up, opposite, top.
POP ’N’ STOP: Plugs are
deadly on schoolies, opposite,
bottom left.
TIRELESS: Yellowfi ns battle
till the end, opposite, bottom
right.FOLLOW THE YELLOWFIN ROAD