Now of those 38 tuna, 8 were yellowfin which would be what my crew would want. The other 30 were small bluefin which Dr. Graves would want. There are a number of studies concerning small bluefin and you can help out. There is a "Tag a Tiny" program where you tag these fish before you let them go. I distributed a number of these tag kits last year. They are still looking for volunteers: http://www.tunalab.unh.edu/Tagatiny.htm
With Dr. Graves' study, all he requires is a single finlet from each small bluefin, whether or not it is a "keeper" or one which you let go. Just record the fork length of the fish. Over the past several years, I have distributed little sample tubes for these finlets. The preservative in those tubes is still good so use them. If you catch a little bluefin and do not have the little sample tubes, just take a finlet and put it in a little zip-lock back or something, record the fork length, and keep it cold. If you would like to help with this study, you can contact Dr. John Graves at: graves@vims.edu or contact me and I will get a hold of Dr. Graves for you.
While fighting croaker with one hand (difficult) I was holding my cell phone in the other seeing who wanted to catch a tuna. Bob Manus, Jorj Head, Steve Martin, Charles Southall, and Matt Rinck all could go. Early Monday morning, we headed out to the temperature break at the 41350 expecting to be covered up with a variety of tuna. Instead, what we heard on the radio were reports of very few tuna and everyone wondering where they had gone in such a short time. Some yellowfins were caught by a couple of boats. We were busy. As soon as we put out the lines, we were covered up with gaffer dolphin. It was a very good morning of dolphin fishing. Despite jumping them off, pulling them off and losing them any other way, we ended up with 22 gaffer dolphin and a full cooler. We did stop and bail a few but we were trolling for tuna (and a possible early blue marlin-another study). We did manage to catch one little tuna but it was a yellowfin which brings up another tagging program.
Just this past week, I received a letter from NOAA. It seems that their Cooperative Tagging Program has not been getting many yellowfin tuna tagged. In fact, there were only 20 tagged all of last year. They sent me the letter because at one time, I was a leading tagger of yellowfin tuna and won some award for tagging the most tuna in the country one year. I have not played tag and release with yellowfins for a while because we eat those things. They wanted to know if I'd tag some more for them. Well, I tagged this one because it was too small to keep and even that was a challenge. The crew was talking sushi. NOAA is looking for volunteers to tag yellowfin tuna and other pelagic fish: http://www.sefsc.noaa.gov/ctsprogram.jsp
We were fishing on the warm side of the break in about 500 fathoms. I left the dolphin and moved to the cold side to see if I could find those little bluefins and never did. We did get close to a new spot which I have been wanting to try for grouper so we broke out the bottom fishing gear and gave it a try. We have a new grouper spot. We caught our 6 fish grouper limit in short order: 1 yellowedge (our 2nd ever), 4 snowy grouper, and a wreckfish. We had plenty of meat in the box so we did not try for tilefish though we caught a couple of nice ones at the grouper spot. We also caught some hake and some blackbelly rosefish.
Everybody Hooked Up-Actually 5 but I could only get 4 in the frame:
