Wanchese offshore trip lands citation yellowfin tuna and mixed bag

A Wanchese crew ran offshore June 25 and came back with a citation yellowfin tuna, plus mahi, amberjack and tilefish. The catch put a clean marker on the current Outer Banks bite: tuna were reachable, and the trip produced enough mixed action to keep the spread busy from start to finish.

That single report fit a much broader June pattern out of the Outer Banks. FishingBooker’s daily reports for the region said most captains were going out in search of Yellowfin Tuna, Wahoo, Mahi, Sailfish and Marlin, which matches the kind of bluewater window that keeps Wanchese, Oregon Inlet and nearby ports on the radar when the summer offshore run settles in. Oregon Inlet Fishing Center had already noted an active yellowfin bite on June 8, while Pirate’s Cove Marina said on June 11 that Yellowfin Tuna were “practically jumping in the boats.”

The infrastructure around those catches matters because it shows how quickly a good weather window can turn into a tuna trip. Pirate’s Cove Marina describes itself as a protected, deep-water, full-service marina with 195 slips and a charter fleet of 21 sport-fish boats. Oregon Inlet Fishing Center says it has the largest and most modern charter boat fishing fleet on the eastern seaboard. In practice, that means anglers leaving Wanchese and the surrounding stretch of North Carolina had the boats, fuel access and charter support to make offshore tuna runs realistic during the late-June bite.

The bite was not uniform, though. Carolina Sportsman’s Outer Banks report on June 22 said blackfin tuna fishing had been very strong, with some charter boats bringing in 40-plus blackfin a day. That same report said yellowfin had slowed to scattered fish and a few bigeye tuna were being caught around the 630, while rough seas and unseasonably cool weather cut into turnout without shutting the offshore action down.

That is what gives the June 25 Wanchese catch its weight. It was not just another box-fish trip. It showed a citation yellowfin sitting inside a productive offshore mix, with enough tuna presence to make a weekend go-no-go call look a lot better for boats willing to make the run out of Wanchese.