It’s crunch time. I start a new job in a week that will severely curtail my time on the water for the foreseeable future. It’s been a good spring for bass, but I’ve got a hankering for a tussle with a bluefin and five more days to satiate it. Looking at the forecast, there’s going to be a lot of swell, but the wind will be manageable before the sea breeze kicks up in the afternoon. Thankfully, I’m friends with two of the best tuna captains in the Garden State, so I ask Rob Radlof and Gerry Faccone if they think I can get it done. Both agree that there is ample time.
Monday is a bust. Engine trouble keeps us from reaching the grounds with enough time to find, hook, and land what we’re after. We come up empty on Tuesday, too. We were surrounded by whales, sand eels, slicks, and tuna chicks. We could smell the fish oil in the air, a telltale sign that tuna were recently feeding. Radio chatter confirms they’re there, but we eventually head home without our card being punched.
Wednesday is a day I’d sooner forget. The swell is 4 feet at 5 seconds with a touch of southeast wind. Captain Rob and I make it to the grounds, but we take a beating along the way. He asks if I’m okay, but I am not. I feel a bit of uneasiness in my stomach that I have not known in many years as we stop on the grounds to search for life. An hour later, we find tuna chicks in a tight formation over a slick and make a quick 180 to check it out. The seasickness gods have not struck me down in 15 years, and in that moment, I realize I can no longer hold it back.
Rob would have enjoyed filming my moment of weakness to show to our buddies, but the gods return to our side as a tuna slams his jig at the exact time I’m releasing my breakfast sandwich and Gatorade into the drink. The adrenaline kicks in and without so much as wiping my mouth, I grab the wheel so Rob can fight the fish from the bow. What can I say? I’m a team player.
After a half hour or so, the fish gets the best of us and spits the hook. We make a few more drifts, hammering the sea floor with jigs as we mark pancakes of tuna stacked 10 feet thick on the bottom. Another hour passes and the adrenaline is wearing off. Rob can see the green in my face and calls it a day. I don’t say thanks out loud, but my face surely conveys gratitude. We make it back to the dock and I joke that he’s a sissy for calling a trip early. I do not come away from the day unscathed, though. That night is filled with texts from other fishy friends busting my chops with texts of “Get well soon.”
Thursday’s forecast is much of the same: short period southeast swell. I dig some Dramamine out of the medicine cabinet. There’s no room for repeat performances—tomorrow we return to what will now forever be known to me as Puke Point. The crew for Thursday is an all-star cast. I’m on Capt. Gerry’s boat with Rob and Mike Gleason, one of the co-owners and founders of TAK Waterman. The three of them have tangled with and landed more large inshore bluefin than just about any other crew in New Jersey. Rounding out the five is Kyle Arcamano, an ace behind the camera. Years ago, we’d leave the dock long before daybreak, but with half a dozen kids between us who need to get off to school, our “Dad’s Trip” starts after 8 a.m. By that time, word has already reached us that the bite is on.
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Luckily, our destination is within sight of land, so there’s no long-range run that eats up a ton of time. Gerry’s boat, a 33-foot Conch, will be able to make short work of the ride ahead of us. We meet at Twin Lights Marina in Highlands and load the boat for the day as quickly as we can. Fishing for these large, bruiser inshore bluefin is simple and complicated at the same time. There’s no bait required, but we all bring multiple rods with several presentations. Perhaps today they’ll be on topwater or down deep on a vertical jig. Or, is today the day they want a big Ron-Z or a straight-tailed NLBN? Best to bring one rod with each at the ready. A customer on a charter boat in a neighboring slip sarcastically asks us if we’ve brought enough rods. He’s answered with a resounding “probably not.”
We push off from the dock and make the trip around Sandy Hook. Our destination is 20 miles as the crow flies, but there’s a 7-mile-long sand spit we need to get around before we can head in the right direction. Gerry and I discuss the pros and cons of what an inlet at the base of the National Park would be like to avoid the roundabout. He voices his concern about the fictitious inlet, the amount of moving water, and the dangers of leaving there in the dark. He laughs in my face when I suggest he let me take the wheel.
Once outside Sandy Hook Bay, we trudge along the False Hook, an expansive sandbar created by the meeting of several currents where swells get amplified by moving water and shallow depth. Once we’re past the bar, Gerry gets more aggressive on the throttles and we’re really on our way. A few short minutes into our southeast run, the reports keep coming. The fish are really chewing today, and several people have landed fish, dropped fish, or are currently fighting fish. The boat’s collective heart rate increases because Puke Point is roughly a 30-minute ride from there. We lunge over swells and make the best time we can. With a smirk on his face, Gerry turns to me and asks if I feel okay.
When the Conch arrives at our destination, several familiar boats are already on the numbers we found the previous day. Our friends Jerry Malanga and Jesse Wynn are running their own boats nearby and both have already tangled with fish that morning. Captain Gerry takes his time to figure out how we will drift among the small fleet. Before we come to a full stop, both Malanga and Wynn’s boats are tight again. We’re precariously close to Captain Malanga, but he insists we’re fine where we are. We’ve already heard that most fish are on straight-tail NLBNs and RonZs.
Unsurprisingly, we send four soft plastics to the depths. Almost immediately, I hear cheering. I scan the horizon for the nearby boats to see who has hooked up before realizing it’s one of our own. Mike Gleason is tight in the stern. Despite how excited he gets about fishing, Mike sure knows how to get into the zone when he’s hooked up. He’s ninja quiet and ready for battle. It’s the hoots and hollers from surrounding boats that draw my attention to our own comrade. Mike had dropped his NLBN straight-tail to the bottom and was, as he put it, “fluking it.” No retrieve, no jigging, nothing fancy. Many fish that morning had been caught on a “dead-sticked” soft plastic, meaning the bait was dropped to the bottom and the rod put into the holder to let the rocking boat impart any action. Mike took that information and used it to his advantage, subtly “fluking” a fish no more than a few minutes after our arrival.
Mike is standing on the edge of the transom in an uncomfortable amount of swell. For most, this would be a problem, but Mike is one of the most athletic fishermen you’ll meet. Years spent as a pro surfer and countless hours on boats have honed his sea legs to levels unrivaled by anyone I know. While balance-beaming on the transom, he slams the hook home with several hard hooksets to make sure the jig has pierced the tuna’s bony mouth. Fishing may be expensive, but hooksets are free.
As he comes tight, his line is straight down between the outboards. He does his best to keep the braid away from any sharp edges while sidestepping back and forth on the small ledge of the transom to keep himself upright. After a few tense moments, the fish realizes it’s been hooked and takes off on its first run. Bringing the line away from the propellers allows Mike to step down and fight the fish from the deck. Rob and I leave our baits down for a moment, looking for a double hookup, but quickly realize that with one fish on in our boat and several hooked around us, there’s plenty of action. We reel up our jigs and happily take a backseat while the battle rages on.
Most fish in the previous week ranged from 50 inches all the way up to 90-inch bruisers. In the first few moments of a bluefin fight, it’s difficult to figure out exactly what size is on the end of the line. Mike’s fish sounds deep and shoots out diagonally, making some quick turns and hard runs, but it then appears to quickly lose steam, making me think it’s a smaller one. Fifteen minutes into the fight, it appears he’s almost to the endgame. We scramble to get the gaffs out of the holds while Mike dances around the perimeter of the Conch. The fish then makes what we call a “drive-by,” a quick turn toward the boat. As Mike scrambles to pick up the slack in the line, it makes another turn, a hard right off our port bow, and we get our first glimpse of it. Two things are clear: it’s certainly not a 50-inch fish, and this fight is far from over. It takes off on another run, dumping more than half the spool on Mike’s 14k Stella. Twenty minutes later, Mike asks Capt. Gerry for relief on the rod, so Gerry puts on his belt and goes to work while Rob takes the wheel.
The crew has enough experience with big fish to know that if you are going to pass the rod, you’re better off doing it long before you’ve reached full exhaustion. There needs to be some gas in the tank if/when the rod comes back to you, so I join the rotation once Gerry tires and I eventually pass it back to Mike. And so goes the rotation: one man on the rod, one behind him ready to relieve, one on the harpoon, and Rob on the wheel. The fish settles into a depth of about 40 feet and begins doing circles, unwilling to be lifted for roughly 45 minutes. Even though we’re passing the rod, we’re all feeling some pain. Rob eventually leans out from the wheelhouse and coyly asks if we need Mariano Rivera. We all know what he means: the closer.
The crew doesn’t want to allow such hubris and no one wants Rob’s head to get any bigger, but we could certainly use some help. Rob has a quiet bravado about him while tuna fishing, refusing to don a fighting belt and opting to take the pain of the rod butt against his waistline with absolutely no complaints. He grabs the rod and gets after it. While he comes short on fully closing, he breaks the fish’s spirit and finally lifts it up in the water column to where we can get eyes on it again. He passes the rod back to Mike for another full rotation through the crew until Mariano steps out of the bullpen again. Rob grabs the rod one final time and muscles the fish in range of Capt. Gerry’s harpoon. A clean dart shot just behind the gills, two well-placed gaffs, and a tail rope bring a beautiful 70-inch bluefin to heel. We cleat her off to the starboard rail and bleed her before a round of high-fives circles the crew.
Before we can decide if we’re going to run up for another drift or just head back to the barn, a call comes over the radio: “We need the Sandman.” The call for the closer comes from Capt. Jesse Wynn, who’s still tight to his fish just a few hundred yards to our north. Rob’s hat size is going up by the minute. Jesse has been on this bluefin for well over an hour and has only his father on board for relief. They’ve already tangled with about a half dozen bluefin this morning and it’s clear they’re both on their last legs. We motor over to their Downeast boat to decide what to do next.
There’s a little too much swell to safely pull up alongside and hop on, so Mike suggests a quick swim as the answer. We notice the high gunwales on the Downeast that will require climbing and come to the easy realization that this isn’t a task for Rob and me. Mike and Gerry are thin, nimble, and athletic. Rob and I are… not. After a quick check for any valuables in their pockets, they dive off the boat to relieve our friends while we move the Conch to a safe distance. After a few short minutes, the fish pulls the hooks and the line goes limp. We can hear the disappointed sighs from a hundred yards away, but that’s part of tuna fishing.
The boys make it back to the Conch and we get our fish into the boat for a couple of quick photos, then clean up the mess on the deck. All the boats in the area with friends and acquaintances pull into a tight circle to recount the stories of the day. After shooting the breeze for a bit, we break away from the group. It’s still a little early, so we decide to run back up to Puke Point to see if we can find some more action before turning in.
The effort is somewhat half-hearted. The job has been done; we have meat in the boat. We figure there’s no need to press the time limits today, plus coming home a little early might help pick up brownie points with the wives for when we go into extra innings in the future (wishful thinking). After a single short, fishless drift, we call it and head home. Following seas make the run home far more pleasant than the trip out, and we make it back to the dock with smiles on our faces.
Looking back on that week, I didn’t fulfill my goal of hooking and landing a big bluefin by myself. I did, however, get to spend a week doing what I love. Being able to pass the rod between good friends and get a big fish to the boat is about as good as any tuna angler can ask for. We’ll never know if I actually needed the Dramamine, but I will be forever grateful for its service. It will be a week I’ll remember for a long time to come—the week I got a little bit of redemption at Puke Point.
