First real yellowfin push hits the Hudson as the canyon edge finally clears

We came off the full moon of June 29th into a stretch of big water and stronger-than-normal current on the canyon edge, and for the first few days of this week it showed. The flood was running hard through the Dip and stacking bait against the wall, but it was moving too fast for the tuna to sit comfortably — you'd mark them on the meter, blow through the school on the drift, and never get a bite window longer than fifteen minutes. That's typical right after a full moon spring tide. Now we're sliding into the waning gibbous and heading toward last quarter around the 7th, which means the tidal swings are backing off. Less current push on the 100-fathom line, more time for bait to hold in one place, and that's exactly what turned the bite around by midweek.

Water-wise, the SST work through late June showed a warm tongue pushing up along the canyon's eastern flank, running into the low-to-mid 70s where it met the cooler green inshore water — that edge sat right along the 39°40' to 39°48' line, roughly from the Dip east past the Claw. Chlorophyll breaks were tight to that same seam, which tells you the bait got squeezed into a narrow band instead of spread across the whole canyon. When that happens this early in July, it usually means good marks but a short list of productive real estate — and that's been the story. Guys running to the wrong side of that edge came home with squid and diesel bills. Guys who found the seam did damage.

Yellowfin are here, and they're not small. Boats working the color change east of the Claw, in that 1900 to 2100-foot range, have been picking off fish in the 40 to 70-pound class on the troll — green machines and Ilanders pulled behind cedar plugs, spreader bars in the shotgun, working 6 to 9 knots early and late when the light's low. Once the sun gets up, the bite shifts to chunking. Butterflied bunker chunks fished on the drift, no weight, letting them flutter down into 100 to 150 feet of water where the fish are holding under the temp break — that's produced some of the better multi-fish stretches this week, especially first light and again right at dusk when the current lays down closer to the turn.

Mahi have been mixed in wherever there's floating structure — lobster trap balls, weed lines, the occasional pallet. Nothing giant, mostly schoolies in the 5 to 12 pound range, but they'll save a slow tuna morning. Small swimming plugs or a bare hook with a chunk of squid tossed at the pot is all it takes once you find one willing fish — they'll usually bring the whole school up.

White marlin have started showing along the edge in ones and twos, mostly on the troll gear meant for tuna, which tells me they're following the same bait the yellowfin are on rather than holding on their own structure yet. If you're rigging specifically for them, small ballyhoo skipping just off the flat lines has drawn a couple of bites, though hookup ratios on circle hooks have been rough — a lot of long-distance releases nobody wanted.

Bluefin have been spotty and mostly a bycatch story right now — a few fish in the 50 to 80-pound range mixed into yellowfin schools on top, nothing that would justify a dedicated bluefin trip yet. Wahoo the same — a couple of fish taken incidentally on high-speed lines run wide of the spread, nothing consistent enough to chase on purpose.

The deep drop crowd has had a good stretch. One boat working the drop east of the canyon proper connected on a swordfish estimated over 200 pounds after working a two-hour fight, and that's not an outlier this time of year — daytime sword marks have been sitting reliably in that 1400 to 1800-foot band along the canyon wall, with the fish tucked tight to bottom structure during daylight and lifting off it as the light fades. Squid strips and whole squid on circle hooks, glow sticks up the leader, fished with the current instead of against it, has been the difference for the boats connecting versus the ones getting cleaned out by current speed alone.

Looking ahead, the tide's only going to get friendlier through the weekend as we settle into last quarter — less current stress on the canyon wall, more time for bait and tuna to hold together on that warm-water seam. If that thermal edge stays put along the 39°40' line instead of sliding east like these things sometimes do in early July, I'd be running straight to the Claw at first light and chunking through the morning bite window before switching to trolling once the sun's high. If it slides, the Dip becomes the fallback — it's held color and bait in past years when the main edge moved off. Either way, this is the kind of early-July setup that usually builds through the month rather than fades, so I wouldn't wait too many more weekends to make the run.