Get The Point – ‘The Point’ off North Carolina’s Outer Banks is a bigeye tuna hotspot in May

Bigeye tuna can dive as deep as 3,000 feet but will also feed at the surface and warm themselves in the sun.

Big tuna have unusual ability to feed super-deep and super at the surface.

Bigeye tuna occupy the offshore waters off North Carolina’s Outer Banks from spring through the summer, but most of the action is from the second week in May through June. About once every 10 years, large numbers of bigeyes show up all in the same place, with every boat for miles fishing for them and every boat having frequent hook-ups.

The numbers are enormous.

Bigeyes are bigger than yellowfin tuna and smaller than bluefins. They will school with other tunas including yellowfin, true albacore and skipjack, and with non-tunas like wahoo. Although bigeyes average 100 pounds — twice the size of yellowfins — you can quickly tell the stubby, fat bigeyes during a multi-strike blitz; they charge off straight away on the surface rather than diving.

If you get into an area of bigeye action, they’ll usually be of the same size class. The large, 200-pound-class bigeyes are less common, and usually hit as singles.

In North Carolina waters, bigeye are caught mostly north of “The Point” where the Gulf Stream collides with the Labrador Current, but occasionally they can be hooked elsewhere. Charterboat skippers from Pirates Cove, Broad Creek, and Oregon Inlet catch bigeyes from The Point northward four to 20 miles and sometimes three miles south.

The best time to try for bigeye is when the wind is out of anywhere except the southeast and when somebody caught them yesterday.

Why are bigeyes almost all caught at The Point? Long-liners get them elsewhere, probably because they drop bait over deeper water. North Carolina boats get them at The Point because that’s where the bottom drops suddenly to 400 fathoms (2,400 feet). Bigeyes feed largely on deepwater prey below the “deep scattering layer,” where the temperature is cold all the time, and not enough dissolved oxygen for more predators and, in fact, most fish.

Capt. Benjie Stansky of the Sea Note out of Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, targets bigeyes from The Point at the “585 line” to seven miles north of The Point.

“The best time has been the week of the Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament at Morehead City, around the week of May 20,” Stansky said. “We’ll average three to five bigeyes that week. A few years ago on May 25, every boat there caught four or five.”

Stansky looks for bigeye in blended water inshore of the Gulf Stream when the water is 75 degrees or cooler and the blended area has expanded to three or four miles wide. Later on, the water is usually too warm, and bigeyes leave — adult bigeyes don’t like hot water except when spawning.

“It’s important to arrive early in the day,” Stansky said. “If there’s no bite, we can run another five miles to find grass. Maybe six or eight times in all these years we’ve found bigeyes two or three miles south of The Point.”

Stansky said he’s caught bigeyes at the 280 Rocks off Hatteras on two or three occasions.

If water conditions are good, you can target them all summer and find some good days.

“About six or seven years ago during the Pirates Cove tournament in August, we found them four to seven miles north of The Point,” said Stansky, who said most fish are in the 100-pound class, but that he’s been seeing many fish lately between 150 and 220 pounds. “That happened every August for four or five years in a row.

“They grow faster than bluefin tuna or yellowfin, and yellowfin grow fast. I tagged an 8-pound yellowfin that was caught two years later and weighed 62 pounds.”

Stansky trolls a mix of baits, including Ilanders, Hawaiian Eyes, and skirted large ballyhoo. He doesn’t use planers but sometimes employs a beefed up yellowfin spread with a heavier leader and bigger hook.

Jay Watson, captain of the Reliance out of Broad Creek Fishing Center in Wanchese has trolled for bigeye tuna from The Point north to the 630 line and 680 line 10 miles away, but he’s also fished the Triple Zeros and to the edge of the Norfolk Canyon some 42 miles away.

“The long-liners go farther and deeper, fishing above 500- fathom water,” he said.

Watson fishes for bigeyes only one week a year because they are hard to target. He trolls on top with planers, live baits, or jigs, whatever works.

“They are tricky fish,” he said, admitting he often marks them swimming at 30 fathoms, too deep to get to them — they show up on his scope as a blood-red spot the size of a thumbnail. If he could get them to come to 15 fathoms, he might entice a bite with a surface bait.

“They’ll also bite a spreader bar in the middle of the array or way back. Sometimes a Hawaiian Eye in the center of the spread will get them,” said Watson, who uses 130- to 200-pound fluorocarbon leaders.

Bigeyes are unusual, he said: He might catch one in the morning and go back that afternoon for another in the same spot.

“They’ll go down into deep, cold water, and then come up to sun themselves,” he said. “They swim on the surface for a couple of hundred yards before they sound.”

Watson never knows what size a bigeye will be until he gets hit. The schoolies of 110 to 115 pounds often hit every rig at once, with simultaneous hookups on all baits, but 180- to 220-pound fish are loners that often hit a bait on a planer or a long rigger.

Capt. Jamie Reibel, who docks the Phideaux at Broad Creek, said that if you’re not familiar with offshore areas, let your GPS get you there and back, but make sure you have heavy enough tackle to battle these fish.

“We generally fish for yellowfins of 30 to 70 pounds on 50W reels, but a bigeye of 125 pounds will take half the spool of a 50W on the first run,” he said. “They eventually dive deep and eventually come up. At the very end, they’ll circle the boat repeatedly before you can reach them with the gaff.

Reible said bigeyes’ initial appearance around the point usually takes place from May 5 to May 11. The majority of bites are in still water that runs deep,inshore of the Gulf Stream’s northern edge where there is less current; bigeyes avoid a current as slow as 2 to 3 mph.

Reibel said he finds them from The Point to 15 miles north. He searches in blended water two to four miles wide, ideally at 68 to 70 degrees or lower, but “definitely on the cool side.” Sometimes he’ll use a spreader bar, sometimes adding a 1-pound in-line weight 20 feet ahead of the trolled bait that lowers it two or three feet deep. The commercial long-liners, he said, fish at night in at least 500 fathoms and put their baits 40 to 50 feet down.

Dennis Endee, skipper of the A-Salt Weapon out of Pirates Cove Fishing Center in Manteo, trolls dark-colored sea witches for bigeyes.

“When you get hit, you get hit hard,” he said. “If you get a flat-line bite (near the boat), more bites are likely to follow. Multiples often hit first nearest the boat, and then every other bait in rapid order.”

Endee’s largest bigeye, 265 pounds, hit a blue-and-white daisy chain fished off a short rigger.

DESTINATION INFORMATION

WHEN TO GO/HOW TO GET THERE — May and June are prime time to find bigeye tuna at and just north of The Point east of Cape Hatteras and southeast of the Oregon Inlet Sea Buoy. If you have your own boat, leave it home. The Point is 34 to 42 miles southeast of the Oregon Inlet sea buoy, a long run, even for a big boat, and May can have rough days. If the wind is from the southeast, don’t go. Most boats that head to The Point are based in Wanchese, Manteo or at Oregon Inlet. The area is accessed from most of North Carolina via US 64 or US 264.

TACKLE/TECHNIQUES — Charter captains have individual ways of doing things and often differ. One may fish 80- or 130-pound, sit-down tackle with a fighting chair — or something lighter. Heavy tackle is reliable, and the fight will be long, often more than 40 minutes. Most skippers fish a full spread from flatlines to inrigger and outrigger lines of hard lures, skirted large ballyhoo, or even a plain rigged fish, plus spreaders using multiple plastic squids with a central hooked bait. Hooks are large, extra-strong circle hooks, and leaders are in the 200-pound range. The minimum keeper size is 27 inches (fork length) and there’s no limit per person or per boat.

GUIDES/FISHING INFO — Capt. Benjie Stansky, Sea Note, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, 252-441-3927; Capt. Jay Watson, Reliance, Broad Creek Fishing Center, Wanchese, 252-216-6203; Capt. Dennis Endee, A Salt Weapon, Pirates Cove Marina, 252-475-4088; Capt. Jamie Ruebel, Phideaux, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, 252-473-8051. Pirates Cove Marina, 800-367-4728, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, 252-441-6301, and Broad Creek Marina, 252-473-9991 all have multiple boats for bluewater charters. An all-day charter takes up to six passengers and leaves the docks mighty early.

ACCOMMODATIONS — Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, Manteo, 877-629-4386. For fishing out of Broad Creek or Pirates Cove, get a motel in Manteo. For fishing out of Oregon Inlet, get a room in Nags Head. Leave early and arrive early the day before. Do not plan to save a night’s motel cost by getting up long before dawn and driving to the coast in time to board the boat. That’s a recipe for seasickness, as is eating a greasy breakfast or drinking hard the night before.

MAPS — Sealake Fishing; Guides, 800-411-0185, www.thegoodspots.com; Maps Unique, 910-458-9923, www.mapsunique.com; Grease Charts/Nautical Publications, Kinston, 800-326-3567, www.greasechart.com.