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How to catch Atlantic bluefin tuna
Atlantic bluefin tuna feed in 50–76°F water and bite best at 58–70°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 9 waters; in October they are at their peak in The Jersey Shore, Long Island & the Sound, Southern New England and 1 more.
About
The giant: the biggest tuna in the sea, a thousand pounds on Stellwagen Bank and off Cape Cod in the fall, with school fish on every inshore lump from Virginia to Maine. A lifetime fish, and the most tightly managed one.
How to fish it
School fish: troll spreader bars or chunk butterfish on the lumps, cast stickbaits into the blitz. Giants: a live mackerel or herring on the ledges, kite or balloon, and the heaviest stand-up gear you own.
What it eats
Live bait for it
Menhaden (pogies)Nose-hooked on a circle hook and free-lined or slow-trolled; cut in chunks for the bottom.
SquidStrips on a bottom rig for snapper, grunts and porgies; whole on a deep-drop rig.What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itThe rule
not confirmed hereRules differ by state — check NOAA HMS (a federal HMS permit is required; size categories and quotas close in season) before you keep one.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
Western Atlantic bluefin spawn in the Gulf of Mexico from April into June, then spend the rest of the year on the move. Juveniles and mediums feed off the Mid-Atlantic in summer; the giants run north to the Gulf of Maine, Cape Cod Bay and on to Canada for the summer and fall, gorging on herring and mackerel. In winter many come back down the coast — the Outer Banks off Hatteras and Morehead City from December into March is the famous winter giant fishery. In the Pacific it's a different stock: they spawn off Japan, and young fish cross the whole ocean to feed off southern California and Baja, where summer and fall bring them within range of San Diego boats. Federal permits and size categories apply — check NOAA before you fish them.