Merry Christmas From Fat Tuna Guides

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. We hope that you all find joy and happiness this holiday season along with your friends and loved ones. We would also like to personally thank everyone that made our season out on the water one to remember, and to our wonderful clients; thank you for fishing with us here at Fat Tuna Guide Service. We look forward to hearing from you all again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

- Captains Bob Cook and Matt Kelleher

Cadillac Deval Signs Law Requiring Saltwater Fishing Licenses

They say it is to monitor non-commercial fishing trends.  Is the state is looking for yet another way to make a buck off of its citizens while increasing control over every aspect of their lives?   We will be interested to see what kind of personal information the state will require when applying for the license and where this information will be stored. 

You be the judge.

Read the Boston Herald article here and fish on!

 

 

Chicks Fishing- Thank You Barstool Sports!

If you dont go on Barstool Sports well… you should. Besides awsome daily news in the world of sports you get to see things like this.   Genius.

http://boston.barstoolsports.com/hot-gallery/wake-up-with-chicks-fishing/

Report: Fishing Body Agrees to Cut in Atlantic Tuna Quota

ABC News has the story:

RECIFE, Brazil (Reuters) – Fishing nations agreed on Sunday to cut by about a third the quota for Atlantic bluefin tuna, a giant fish prized by sushi lovers, numbers of which have been decimated by commercial catches.

The move was denounced as inadequate by environmental groups who had called on the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to agree to a zero quota and list the fish as an endangered species.

ICCAT, an intergovernmental body of 48 nations that environmentalists say has consistently failed to protect bluefin, said the annual quota for bluefin next year would be 13,500 tonnes, down from 19,950 tonnes.

“I think it’s quite an achievement and in full conformity with the scientific advice,” ICCAT chairman Fabio Hazin told Reuters after a week-long meeting in Recife, northeastern Brazil.

He said the cut and further measures agreed upon on Sunday — including a cut in the tuna-fishing season to one month and a recovery plan — gave a 60 percent probability that the bluefin stock would recover in 15 years.

Click here to continue reading.

SEPT-OCT NEWS

Well,  We apologize for the lack of posting. Just wanted to put up a brief summary of things so everyone knows we are still here. The last few months have been wonderful for Tuna Fishing and this season has been outstanding. August we wrapped up with pretty much the same results. We managed hookups on a regular basis and released most of the fish. As September rolled around things continued through the month with good fishing on Jeffreys and Stellwagen. We got a little busy toward the end of the month; as one of us (Matty) got married and went on a honeymoon, and the other spent time filming television segments and catching giant rainbow trout in Alaska. (Bob’s Going National). There has been good fishing right up until this storm came in. We went out last week and got some and had a buddy trip this week and produced one as recent as yesterday (1 for 2).  As far a stripers.. well thats all we got to say about that to be honest. This weekend looks like rain and wind rain and wind, and Capt. Cooka is in FLA with the TV people catching snook, redfish and Tarpon.  We want to thank Bob’s Brother in law Mike for keeping the website looking good and putting up a really cool photo gallery.  Check it out!  We have some great stuff in the camera and we’ll put it on as soon as we can.  We hope to get a few more trips in before the barn door closes.  Good luck to everyone. And we thank you.

Way to Go Pete!

Good friend of ours caught a beauty last Friday!  Thanks for the pics Pedro!  Way to go.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOSH!

We had the pleasure of fishing with a long time friends Mike and Marc Moschella, Mike’s lovely gal Lisa Allen who was kind enough to take Mike out for his Birthday, and Mike and Marc’s Father.  Headed out to the “fishy” spot, and low and behold FISH ON!  We put Mike in the harness and away he went.  A fine fish for the grill !!  It was a bit sporty out there for the early am, but Charlie took care of it.  Way to go guys, and Gal.  Let’s do it again soon!

Here are some pics.. more pics to come.

Captain’s Turn Thursday 8/6/09

Bob got a chance to reel one in.  Along with Jeff C. and Tim the Tuna action once again is great heading into August.  Hey Tim Send the Pics to JoePa at Happy Valley… Fight on State!

A beautiful day on the water and a steady bite continues. Get out there!  Nice Job Guys. Nice fish Capt.

Big Day For the Wilson Crew 3 for 3

Rob Wilson and his friends John and Matt had an excellent day on the water recently.  The day was a great one going 3 for 3.  The hook-up was a quick one setting out and getting tight in about 5 minutes. Rob was  amazed at the sight of jumping tuna which was great to see.  Dialed in once again Bob and Jeff had their hands full on a few more releases during the day.  Way to go gents! Here are the pics.

Trev Gowdy and Crew reel one in!

Friday, Trev Gowdy, a true outdoorsman, and host of the acclaimed television series Monster Fish and Quest for the One;  along with his good friends and associates Jeff and Rob graced Fat Tuna Guides with their presence. We steamed out to the bank, put out a line, and in 5 minutes…FISH ON!  Jeff got it to the boat in about 30min with basically one arm.(bad shoulder) Trev and Co. not only showed us they sure can fish; they also demonstrated how to properly make a lunchtime meal. The best grub on the vessel yet!  Thanks guys. Fantastic time!

3 for 4 on wednesday 7/22

We went out with Dan, Mikey, Mason and Rick last wednesday and had a remarkable day. We went 3 for 4 with one for the dinner table and two quick releases.  The boys were kind enough to make a video for us and a huge thank you goes out to them for that.  A great time had by all with some spectacular fishing.  

Dan-O’s Family Dandy!

Dan Arsenault, his lovely wife Thiona and son Luke thought Monday would be a great day to take a ride to Stellwagen and catch a nice whale show or two. Well after the theater slowed down a little, they couldn’t resist putting some lines in the water. “Daddy try this one”..the young lad said to his father. Well, well, well,.. Not to miss the party, Charlie accepted the young mans offering and decided to crash it. With rod and reel; good old Dad decided to show his dearest what he was made of. After a nice fight, Sir Charles became the guest of honor at the dinner table! It couldn’t of been written any better.   Fabulous.

Mid-July Report

Well the past few weeks have been up and down in terms of Tuna.. Last Friday 7/10 was a terrific scene out on the bank. Plenty of Tuna up on top however they were extremely picky, but at least the weather is cooperating.  The new boat is running incredible. Comfortable and dry. Not a bad way to get back to port after a long day out there.  As far as inshore action, We have been working the incoming tides in Salem Harbor, and Outside the Islands.  Early morning stripers along the rocks are producing with tube and worm toward Manchester and Magnolia. Salem Harbor is working with a slow chunk style toward high.  For the Fly guys- stick with the go to black/ purple EP  and if its overcast the chartruse seems to be the bug of choice.  Still plenty of fish around.. Thank you to all the folks who have fished with us. We hope you had as good of a time as we did.

Hope to see you out there!  More to Come.   FTGS

Making it look E-Sea

Buddy of ours Eric Collins grabbed this one on the June 20-21 weekend.  63″, 153 lbs.

Way to go Eric!!  Thanks for the Pics!

Gracefully Done!

We had the pleasure of Fishing with The Grace Boys  friday morning.  They came all the way from Kansas for a wedding and decided to try some luck in the salt before the festivities later on that evening. We got into some really nice fish and Matt, Ben and Dad  got a fresh taste of North Shore Striper Fishing.  Best of luck gents!  We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.  Go Wildcats!!

Great White Caught in Net off Narragansett

A ten foot Great white was caught off the coast of Narragansett. http://tiny.cc/r0bT0 for the story.

http://tiny.cc/lCfrZ for the pics.

Thanks to Capt. Todd MacGregor for the update.

Ty Rushton..the Natural

Well as you can see Fat Tuna Guide Service has found our new Captain for the future. Ty wants any of  the K-3rd graders in the area to book now for the  2023-2024 charter season.

Stellwagen 6/17

We took a run out to the bank for a bit today.  Bait and bass but charlie was elusive. The new ride is outstanding. Got some reports of some goings on a bit earlier in the am from Jeff H. and Smitty.  They saw some jumpers and marked a few as well.

More to come-

Fat Tuna Guides

Stickboats land some giants

looks like these guys did well.

6/8 Stripers

Some good action just outside the islands today on live macs. Filling the live well with bait was no trouble  and we were rewarded with some nice bass to the boat in the 32-38 range.  All released to fight another day.

Tight Lines-

Fat Tuna Guides.

saturday striper

Fished around the islands sat am with pops and Jeff H.  Bite was a bit off but the cheif managed his first keeper of the year. Exactly 30in. Nice

We’re Back

So this will once again be our fishing discussion blog.  It is now linked with www.fattunaguides.com  so feel free to check out the site and post whatever you like on here.   Thanks so much.  Stripers are in and the fishing has been great.   It wont be long now: Charlie will soon show his pretty face!

Site is Up!!

Hello and Spring is finally here!  We just want to remind everyone about the new site. www.fattunaguides.com

 

Check it out !

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from all of us at Fat Tuna Guide Service. May your ornaments dangle off the tree as fine as your tackle dangles off the boat!!!

2008 Fattuna Stellwagen Fishing Video

Well the “fattuna” is singing on this years fishing season.. As we close out October and put away the gear and the boats, We decided to capture some of the highlights with a little montage.. a great year all around … plenty of hookups out on the bank with some outstanding fights with the Tuna. We are all looking forward to next year already, and hope that with the efforts of our fellow fisherman the tuna will arrive in good numbers and healthy for the following year.  Congrats to all of those who got to experience such a fine season.. and my the winter be a short one.. Thanks to all who have commented on this site and visit..and stay tuned.. we will post plenty of things on a regular basis.. updates on tackle, fishing info and the like.. and remember if you want to post please feel free we would love to hear what you have to say!!!  thanks again hope you like the video..

Redemption of the Gaffman

The title will become evident shortly, but Bob and I headed out for another day on the bank at about 5:30am on Tuesday. This time I made a checklist, at least a mental one, so I would not forget some of the essentials I forgot the week prior.

Today, we were fortunate enough to have a partner boat with Merrill and his brother. We got onto the bank at about 6:30 and we were freezing, but knew only one thing would warm us up…Tuna! The were an incredible amount of birds and whales on the corner and we quickly set out the gear. A few minutes later, we got a call from Merrill’s brother that they were hooked up. That’s all we needed to hear and we hauled in and headed in their direction.

When we arrived, we set the troll out again and worked an area about two miles from their position. A few minutes after we arrived Merrill called us to say they landed the fish and also had to land their dog that jumped in the water to help them catch their fish (Congrats Merrill!). Once we stopped laughing, we went back to work.

Not long after, one of our lines went off and I grabbed the rod and began the fight, while Bob drove the boat to get us in a better position to land the fish. The fight lasted about 30 minutes and the fish was coming to the side of the boat. Bob jumped up, grabbed the gaff and readied himself for the perfect moment to sink the dinner hook. OK… the moment came, the fish was on its side looking up at us to almost say “here I am”, then Bob lunged the gaff into the water and … whoops missed. Bye fishy…

So, we set the troll back out and Bob was still kind of a pale green color that I haven’t seen since college. I saw him trying to keep his blueberry muffin in his stomach, but things happen in this crazy game. He gave me his permission to give him a little crap about it after what happened next, otherwise, that would have been our little secret.

About 30 minutes later, on again! Knowing Bob, I knew if I did my job on the reel, this one would not get away. This tuna was a fighter and kept me at a standoff for about half of the 50 minute fight. He wouldn’t let me get any line and I tried my hardest not to let him have any either, even though he had the upper hand in the beginning. Once the fish started to tire out, Bob started making port side turns and within a few minutes, the fish surfaced. Once again, the moment came, the fish was on its side looking up at us to almost say “here I am”, then Bob lunged the gaff into the water and … Got it!! 57″ and about 125lbs, thus the “Redemption of the Gaffman”.

Not done yet though… We prepped the fish, put it on ice and Bob dropped a jig in the water. He must of bounced it right on the tuna’s head because his reel started to scream within seconds. I took the wheel and Bob ran to the bow to start his fight. Knowing the pressure was off since we had dinner on ice, Bob tried a few different techniques to land the fish. Everything was working and he was getting the fish close to the boat. We knew we had the fish within about 15-20 feet of the boat after about a 40 minute fight, but also knew that we were going to have to release it. At this point, Bob decided to try to get the jig head out of the tuna’s mouth and within a few minutes…success… the fish was off to live another day and we were headed back to the barn. 2.75 out of 3 fish hooked!!

Jeff

Bob and Jeff: 1 for 3 Thursday

First off all the warmest sympathy to all the families who lost loved ones on Sept 11th.  May we never forget.

What a day…sun was just coming up, large Dunkin coffees, the water was glass and I forgot my sunglasses!

We decided to head out to the bank early to catch the morning feed. As we got to the bank, we had to recheck what day it was because I thought we had left on a Thursday, but the bank looked liked the NorthShore Mall on Christmas Eve which is typical for a weekend. Our original location to start fishing was scrapped, since there were already about 100 boats there looking for their dinner.

Bob and I decided to stay away from the boats and began the day with a slow troll until we came upon an area we thought seemed fishy or at least away from the traffic jam. We dropped the lines and jigged for a few minutes until my reel started to scream. 5 minutes later the fish spit the hook and we were off the the races again. Since there was quite a drift, we slow trolled back to our original spot and as we approached our mark… the line on the spinning rod we were trolling went off. Two fish in about 20 minutes! This time the hook was set, the belt went on and the fight began. This fish was hot! We fought the fish for about 30 minutes until it snapped the braid… 0 for 2 was not the way I wanted it go, but then Bob turned to me and said not 0 for 2…  1 for 3… He may be psychic after all.

We set out the conventional gear to troll with 80lb braid this time to give us a little more luck. We made our way over to where the party was since it looked too appetizing to pass up. The water looked like a washing machine with all the tuna boiling under the surface. Only problem was that every other boat had the same idea and we couldn’t get close, nor did we want to be that close if we hooked up again beacuse there is no polite way to ask 50 boats to move.

As we came to rest about 100 yds from the feeding frenzy we left the troll lines out to float the gear and started to jig again. This time the port side reel started screaming and Bob jumped on it and quickly settled into his fight. Luckily the fish decided to swim away from the pack and we were able to make fairly quick work getting everything under control, except for the 18 ft Bayliner that kept circling us to see what we were doing. Hmmm?

Bob put the hammer down on the fish and started taking back some of his line. After about 25 minutes the fish surfaced and Bob reluctantly had to switch from his lucky port side to starboard. I got the gaff and Bob made a final lift on the rod to give me the perfect angle for the shot. We got the fish on the deck and cracked our first beer of the day at 8:30am. Not a bad start to a weekday with a 59″ 150+lb fish on board and the rest of the day to kill, so to speak.

Good thing Bob called 1 for 3!

Jeff

More pics

Stellwagen Report 8/10

The tuna got the best of us again.. we felt kind of like Clay Bucholz in the fourth inning yesterday.  An early early moring run saw us right in the thick of it with busting tuna jumping port and starboard to the boat.  The only result was few “hits” with no significant hook-ups.  A frustrating but beautiful day on the water none the less.  The tuna won this time.  It’s great to know they are here.  Hopefully the gaff wont be clean for long.

Tuna 1 Matty 0

Fun while it lasted…. enough said..  Fu*#$!

Stellwagen Report 7/26

Bob Eric and I went out on Eric’s 25FTCC saturday. Besides what looked to be a day where it might finally explode we marked a few but didnt catch one. Bob rasied a nice striper a little smaller than a VW bug but it was quickly released as we all should know.  Tons of whales doing their thing, hopefully we can get the tuna to start doing theirs. A georgeous day out on the bank however.

Stellwagen Report 7/2/08 and Happy 4th!!

A 4:15am exit from Beverly Harbor and off we went.  The day started off looking really “tunaish” but we did not hook up unfortunately. Besides some pretty decent whale-shows and the enormous amount of bait the tuna evaded our diligent efforts. A beautiful day on the water but…  Better Luck next time..

 

Happy 4th of July everyone.

Welcome to Our Fishing Blog!!!

Welcome to Our Fishing Blog. We are just a few guys who love to Fish. We are proud to announce that we are in the early stages of launching a charter service. With over 30 years of combined experience fishing areas mostly on the North Shore of Massachusetts we hope to share our experiences with you. Both of us hold our USCG Licensed Masters. We love the striper fishing and we really love to chase the Tuna out on the Bank.   We want to hear from you!!  Your ideas, stories, pictures ect.  Let us know how it is out there and we will do the same.  We hope everyone has a great summer…see you out on the water..

 

- Bob and Matt     Fat Tuna Guide Service    http://fattuna.wordpress.com/