Note: Offshore reports are becoming scarce, typical for the time of year. But some of the boats continued to sail to the grounds. So this report will continue probably another week before ending for the year.

<b>Sandy Hook</b>

Anglers from the docks no longer sailed offshore for tuna and big game, said Wayne from <b>Twin Lights Marina</b> in Highlands. He talked with one well-known captain from Point Pleasant who ran a charter offshore early this week, on Tuesday, if Wayne remembered, and the captain said he could find no warm waters. The captain fished far offshore, and heard longliners complain about landing a few swordfish and a couple of bluefin tuna on 20 miles of line. The trip with the charter bagged a bluefin tuna and a 150-pound mako shark, and lost a yellowfin at the boat, or something like that. Twin Lights stocks the full supply of bait for offshore and inshore fishing.

<b>Manasquan Inlet</>

The crew from the <b>Canyon Runner</b> from Point Pleasant Beach will extend their tuna-fishing season one more week, because the fishing was so good, a report on the boat’s Web site said. An open-boat trip on Wednesday chunked 17 yellowfin tuna and one longfin tuna at Hudson Canyon during the daytime. The trip arrived an hour after dark, and began fishing in the fleet, and the other boaters talked about a bite that had just occurred. Fishing at night was slow on the Canyon Runner, and two small swords bit, and one got off, and the other was landed and released. A few of the boaters among many of the vessels in the fleet got into busy catches either at night or in the morning, but most did not. In the morning the trip on the Canyon Runner made a move, setting up for daytime chunking. Catches began slowly, and a yellowfin was boated here and there, and the longfin was bagged. But some of the best chunking the captain ever saw got going from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mad dog bites slammed the baits frequently, and some of the tuna were lost, because the anglers fished with light leaders. But the 17 tuna were totaled by the end of the trip, and numerous blue sharks were battled. Penn’s new Torque, a light, star-drag reel, was tested on the trip, and the reel was “impressive, super-light, very smooth,” the report said. “(The) great drag (is) going to make this little reel a 200-pound bluefin’s worst nightmare this spring,” it said. “It’s seen many 50- to 80-pound yellowfin over the last few weeks, and has not skipped a beat.” The next trips will test Penn’s new International 12’s, another lightweight reel. Two open-boat trips were set up for next week from Tuesday to Wednesday and Friday to Saturday, and space is available. 

<b>Beach Haven Inlet</b>

An overnight tuna trip to the canyons on the <b>June Bug</b> from Beach Haven during the weekend had to be postponed to today to Saturday because of weather, Capt. Lindsay said. Tuna were boated from Hudson Canyon to Carteret Canyon before then. Some vessels banged them up, and others brought back one or two. But tuna were out there.

<b>Townsend’s Inlet</b>

Two reps from Penn jumped aboard an open-boat trip to Toms Canyon with <b>Over Under Adventures</b> from Avalon during the window of great weather last week, a report on Over Under’s Web site said. They aimed to put to the test Penn’s new International 12 VS and VSX reels and Torque star-drag jigging reels. Put them to the test they did! the report said. Eight yellowfin tuna 60 to 75 pounds and a 200-plus-pound swordfish were bagged, and a couple of swords were released, and lots of sharks bit. Other tuna were broken off at the boat when extra pressure was put on the fish to keep them away from the sword. So that was a lot of fish, and the only drawback was that the sword bit at 3:45 a.m., and the tuna showed up thick under the boat at 4:30 a.m. The sword was fought 3 hours, and no tuna lines could be placed in the waters for 2 hours then, because the sword kept tangling lines. Many more tuna could’ve been landed. “But, oh well,” the report said, “no one was complaining when that thing came over the rail finally!” Over Under found the International 12’s “to be prefect, honestly … with plenty of smooth drag, and nice and light,” the report said. Over Under also enjoyed the Torque reels, a smaller, lighter, improved version of the Torque, with plenty of line capacity for the 50- and 80-pound braid that was on the spools. “In retrospect,” the report said, “we’re re-evaluating the need for 50’s and 70’s for the type of dead boat fishing we do as we move forward. Has the time come to go completely light tackle? Sort of seems so.” Charters and   <a href=" http://overundercharters.com/index.php?page=opendates" target="_blank">open-boat trips</a> are fishing offshore.

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