Here is Kil Song's report of our trip yesterday. I'll post my report below it as we had 2 boats and I was on the other boat.
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12 hardcore fishermen from RI, NY, NJ and PA came down to the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center on Saturday(02-20) driving 9 - 12 hours all night.
We had the same goal in mind: catching bluefin on jigs and poppers.
Due to low tide condition, we had to wait until 6:00 am. Good news was bluefin were located bluefin in between Oregon Inlet. NC and Hatteras, NC on Friday.
When we got to the fishing ground, which is about 40 miles Southeast of Oregon Inlet, we saw about 20 boats trolling and a few boats were fighting. Capt Greg said he marked tuna heavily and asked us to drop jigs. But no taker. @( We tried here and there in the morning, but we couldn't get any hit on jigs. I started to concern we might get skunked because they usualy bites early in the moring and shut off bites until late in the afternoon. All fleet were quiet after flurry of bites early in the morning.
When tide slowed down considerably early in the afternoon, I had a nice hit on my 320g Labo jig while jigging with Japanese style jerk/crank technique. I knew it was a nice bluefin finally as it felt heavy. However I lost the tuna because brand new Varivas Avani PE8, which has 112 lbs breaking point, got broken. 8* The line must be damaged or I might pushed the drag lever to the full by accident.
Within 5 minutes after I lost it, Machael who fished next to me, has a solid hit after he missed one. Judging by taking lines off his JM PE8 reel on 25 lbs drag, I knew this was the right size tuna we were waiting for. After fighting 30 minutes, Machael couldn't take the punishment anymore and gave the rod to me. But whenever I a rod, my misfortune continued. Within 30 yards from the boat, the 100 lbs leader line got broken without any apparent reason when the big tuna charged.
Soon after, John had a nice bluefin on his spinner, but he lost as his knot failed.
We were 0 for three. :x
Michael fighting a nice tuna.
He used Sevenseas TunaMania/JM PE8 and 180g Labo jig.
my unorthodox fighting style.
Soon after, it seemed tuna hit anything moving for a while. However the sizes of tuna were considerablly smaller in 50 - 70 lbs range.
Yong, William and myself fighting tuna. I specifically asked Capt to allow us fishing even one fishermen fighting tuna. Untangling lines when crossed is not difficult and it happens so many times that bites are done after one fights a tuna for a long time.
Yong fighting tuna with a spinning reel.
William's fighting
Christian's fighting. I am glad he had an opportunity to wretsle with a tuna as he had hard time to fight with seasick in the morning. 
John lost a nice tuna and he is fighting a second one with a spinner.
Oregon Inlet Marina
Tackles
This is the first time in my 30 years charter arrangement that we had more spinning gears than conventional gears. Time is changing.
StellaSW dominated. It shows how popular StellaSW in the US. There were only two brand conventional reels on the boat. Ocean Mark's Blue Heaven and JM PE reels.
Black Hole 450g Conventional rod, SevenSeas TunaMania rod, 350g Black Hole spinning rod, Hots One Pitch Slider 56XH, OR 10 Thousand rods were used.
As I expected Labo 180g - 320g, Sevenseas 220g Hooker jigs/250g Revolver jigs were hot jigs.
Nice time at Red Drum restaurant nearby after fishing.
(of course only from forums).
