Northeast Tuna Season Highlights

Last year, OTW’s Anthony DeiCicchi and Jimmy Fee, along with Adam LaRosa and Deane Lambros of Canyon Runner, released weekly dispatches on offshore fishing in the Northeast. Over five months, we tracked great fishing from giant tuna just off the beaches to best-in-a-decade billfish action out in the canyons. Here are some of the hottest bites from the 2024 season.

June: Overs on Jigs off Cape Cod

Over the last few seasons, there’s been a good late-June run of bluefin east and north of Cape Cod, where fishermen found them smashing through schools of sand eels on the surface. In 2024, an onslaught of 60- to 70-inch tuna arrived in mid-June and couldn’t resist heavy metal.

As the saying goes, “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” and so it was with this bite. After a week of captains tallying double-digit hook-ups on large recreational-size bluefin, the fish disappeared for parts unknown, and the light-tackle bite east of the Cape became a grind for the remainder of the season.

July to September: School Bluefin Bonanza

Big Jim (left) and Jimmy Fee with a summer bluefin jigged up off Block Island with Newport Sportfishing Charters.

In 2023, fishermen enjoyed great action on yellowfin and bluefin at the Dump for most of the summer. In 2024, the Dump was mostly quiet and midshore yellowfin were few and far between, but with big numbers of fun-size bluefin set up just off Block Island and Montauk, no one was complaining. The fish settled in around mid-July, and by August, hooking 10, 20, or even 40 bluefin in a day was not unheard of. Most fell into a tight range of 32 to 36 inches, though there were larger fish in the mix, and anglers sticking it out could usually count on at least one encounter with a 50-inch or better bluefin. Slender metal sand-eel jigs were the top choice for light-tackle anglers, though there were times when poppers worked as well, if not better.

September: Marlin Mania in the Mid-Atlantic

Elliot Sudal and Stone Fornes with Stone’s new junior world-record white marlin caught off Nantucket. *(Photo courtesy of Elliot Sudal)*

Boats out of Ocean City, Maryland, experienced white-hot fishing for white marlin at the beginning of what ended up being a stormy September. Boats trolling marlin spreads in the Norfolk, Washington, Baltimore, and Wilmington canyons found that double-digit billfish days were the norm rather than the exception. Some boats reported catching as many as 40 white marlin in a single trip. Overall, it was a great year for marlin from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but none of it compared to the crazy early-September bite out of the mid-Atlantic ports.

July and August: Incredible New England Canyon Fishing

While closer New England canyons like Atlantis and Veatch had a slower summer, boats with the range and fuel budgets to reach distant canyons like Munson found downright epic fishing. At times, yellowfin were so abundant that they were a nuisance to crews targeting 200-pound bigeye that were also around in great numbers. Good water sat over those far canyons for a big chunk of the summer before it finally moved west in September, bringing the fishing with it to Veatch and Atlantis for a short window in the fall.

Late August and September: Yellowfin Night Bite

Kyle Tangen of Fishermen’s Supply in New Jersey with a fall yellowfin that fell to a stickbait.

Yellowfin fishing varied for much of the summer, but one of the hot stretches was in late summer when the fish loaded into Hudson Canyon, giving anglers a crack at catching them on chunks and jigs both during the day and at night. September storms disrupted the bite, but by mid-October, it was ramping up again, with headboats reporting full limits into November.

October: Not-So-Ghostly Tuna in New Jersey

Years ago, fishermen called the fall bluefin off New Jersey “ghosts” for their tendency to appear and quickly disappear. In 2024, that wasn’t the case. Bluefin from 40-inchers to giants stacked up on structure from just off the beach to far offshore. Soft plastics, metal jigs, and occasionally stickbaits got the fish to bite, giving New Jersey fishermen a second lights-out fall bluefin bite in a row.