Tuna!!!

[Hook-up]

We headed out of Depoe bay about 5 am Mondy 7/8 on the Serious Fun. We had also heard the 40 mile tuna rumor. After looking over the temp charts we decided to start about 30 miles out and troll towards 40 (unless we noted any really fishy temp changes, bait, birds, jumping fish, rip lines, etc..) The water was a bit rough out to 10 miles or so with some choppy wind waves. We had some pretty good gusts (sustained wind was about 15 knots with gusts over 20 a few times). Then about 10 miles out it started to get nicer. By the time we dropped our lines in around 30 miles out it was just beautiful. I wish we would have heard about Pilar's trip before we left, we may have tried in a little closer. When we left the bay it was 47 degrees and when we got back it was 62 degrees right up to the beach (confirmed by a couple of charter boats). It was like glass, blue sky became the norm. The sun was doing some unbelievable things through and around the clouds as it broke out. We fish 5 stand up rods and two hand lines. First fish on and Serious Fun's first time for tuna brother lost it right at the boat. It was around 20lbs. So we knew there were fish around. About 10 minutes later we hooked up with a quad. We landed all 4 and went from 0-4 in about 5-6 minutes. They were small about 8-10 lbs. But we had our first tuna of the year in the boat. We found some more fish, had several triples and tons of doubles. The hot color was black/purple, it caught about half the fish. The outside lines that were way back also caught almost half the fish (we did not catch a single fish on the hand lines). We have been experimenting with fish traps and caught a few on them. I was letting out a fish trap when a fish hit the rod next to me. I picked up the rod with my left hand and set the hook. Just then one hit the rod I had been putting out. It was still in my right hand. A double, one in each hand! Is tuna fishing awesome or what? We had several fish "blow up" on our lures. It is so spectacular to see the water explode around the lure just as the rod slams down and starts peeling line off. Size really varied this time out with fish between 8-25 lbs with average 15-20lbs. We ended up with 31 albies, what a day.
We almost went out the next day but we were two beat (about 3 hrs sleep Sun night then up late cleaning tuna) so we settled for some coho. Boy was it slow around Depoe Bay. The weather was way to rough Wed. and Thur. for tuna and even to rough for coho on Thurs. (charters all cancelled trips out of Depoe on Thur.) On Wed. we started coho around 0530. No fish for 3 hours. Then we found some 5 miles out. The next 5 were all wild (can you say frustrated, especially after our previous tuna success). We finally moved around enough that we got our 6 fish (one was a nice Chinook and we lost 2 others). Only two of the fish had any bait in their stomachs.
Crabbing was horrible in the ocean. Soaked traps about 8 hours with fresh tuna and only got 1 keeper (about 4 total crabs, females/juvies). Next day loaded traps with fresh salmon and tried a new area, no keepers only about 3 crabs total. Do not waste your time crabbing Depoe Bay area for a while.
Nice job Pilar and Puffin and great posts/pics. You guys really slayed them.
Can't wait to get out again. Like Pilar and crew said, the tuna are there, go get them!

[Pilar]

Show me the pictures, baby!

Way to go. You didn't need my help to find the fish. I'm curious about something .... How long are your handlines and how do you know when they are bit?

When I first started using them I missed alot of fish. They would hit and we would be oblivious to it. If you drag them around long enough they shake off. Now I watch them all of the time. No need to watch the standup po's cause they scream when the bend is your friend.

Tell us more about fishtraps.

Did you see any billfish? We are on the path of knowledge regarding billfish. I'd love to bag a Marlin or Swordfish.

Whooo hooooo!

Pilar,
Try putting bells on the bungee cords of your handlines. :smile:

[avid]

Pilar,

In another thread you asked about estimating billfish weight. Here are two web pages that have formulas.

http://www.marlinmag.com/MAR_Main/1,...17-0-0,00.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~craigbanks/fishweight.html

avid

[Booja 1]

Pilar,,,Keta has a great idea..also just rig up yer bungie line to a small air horn cannister..Believe me you,ll never miss a bite.. fishtraps are plastic baits that 4 to 5 inches long that you can put on a 2 or 3 oz leadhead..they work great trolled but if you can stand it and say only 1 or 2 troll rods go off drop it off immediately after the jig bite and freespool back,,watch as not to tangle with other lines..Some times you get bit on the freespool back,,keep your thumb with light pressure so you don,t backlash,,when bit the line will just start smokin out or else when your out maybe 60 or 70 feet throw into gear and start slowly retrieving back.if you get bit on the retrieve if you can just keep on grinding the reel until you can't anymore..that will set the hook for ya...also if you haven't tried em big rapalas size CD 14 or 18 in purple or green mackerel pattern work too..rapalas work better a little slower maybe 5 to 6 knots..at faster speeds they sometimes tend to spin..

[Marty]

Pilar

The hand lines that I use have a yozuri K-90 diver on them and when a fish hits, it trips the diver and the diver then floats or is pulled by the fish to the top. They work really well as they work the clear water under the boat turbulence. We trolled with some hand lines off of pangas in Mexico and the commercial guys would put beer cans under the line, and when a fish hits, the can would crumble up and make a noise. My job was to keep up with the beer consumption to provide the empty beer cans..............it was tough work but very good fishing.

Marty

[Salmonator]

That last post brings up some big questions I've been wondering about. Do the tuna always hit at a certain depth? Sometimes deep? Also, if I want to try hoochies or sassy shads would I troll them on say a 1oz. leadhead or maybe a trolling sinker inline? Will they hit a lure tied straight to tuff line or should I go with a 30lb mono leader? I'm gonna try like heck to get my halibut then have time to try for the tuners and want to have a good idea of what I'm doing. Thanks in advance...

[Marty]

Tuna are found pretty much on top of the water eating anchovies, candlefish and sauries, but sometimes if you use a trolling diver (yozuri K-90) or diving rapalas.....it helps, but you don't really need them. They are found in deeper water when the water gets colder in Oct. and even Nov.. The California guys are using downriggers or weighs to get down to the feeding zone.

I troll with straight 25lb on my salmon gear and a 1 1/2oz. leadhead with a fish trap on it. I generally fish that 100 feet back. The rest of my gear is basically halibut type setups with 40 to 60 lb. The commercial guys use 300 lb. leaders, so you know the fish are not leader shy. Since I fish with rods and reels (not handlines), and a fish hits, I generally drag that fish for a full 10 count or more in hopes that others from the school will climb on and I will get more than just one fish per stop. Sometimes if you let your jig caught fish hang, the school will hang with it and you can catch more fish by casting or jigging. But then again you may have 5 or 6 jigs in the water and they all get bit and you have to do the tuna crazy fire drill.

Marty

[Hook-up]

Hey sorry about not getting back to you Pilar. It looks like others have answered the questions about the fist traps and explained them well. They can sometimes add another fish (hookup) like explained if you drop them back, cast or troll with them. Here are a couple of other observations we have found. They can get shredded on one hit (a single fish). At about one dollar each it can get expensive. So if your feathers and jigs are working you may not need them. Here is where you can benefit from adding them. Like others we often keep throttled up when we first hook up to see if we can hook up a few more fish in the school. For those who are a bit new to this, if you keep your speed up your jigs keep "fleeing" from the tuna and they may entice more bites. If you instantly chop the thottle the jigs stop and either go very slow or sink (slowly) and the tuna are usually not interested. So if you troll a few fish traps, you can still stop right away when you first hook up but the fish traps sink with more wiggle (fish swimming like action) than the jigs and thus can still get bit at a stand still or slow idle. The other thing you can do is chop back to about salmon trolling speed (1-2 knots or less, even your slowest idle works sometimes). This keeps your first hook ups from ending up a mile behind your boat as they scream off line and your fish traps can still catch fish at the slower speeds. This works really good if you get hit on a hand line as you can still pull it in at a slow troll. The other thing you can do like some one mentioned above, you can grab a rod that did not hook up with a fish trap on it and free spool them back a bit at time to see if you can catch any lurking tuna that are still following along. This works a bit better than trying let out or cast after your hook up as it is quicker and less likely to tangle. All of this only works if you have enough hands. Obviously if you have a double, triple, quad, etc... you already have your hands full depending on how many mates you have on board. One other fish trap trick. Last year we were chasing tuna on a choppy day. We were catching the odd fish but not like the hot action we lust for. I dug out the fish traps and started to experiment. I took a standard 6 oz lead head bottom jig and put one of the fish traps on it. We ran it out quite a ways. Then we started to wak some tuna on the traps. It still was not red hot but we ended up with about 17 instead of the 5-6 we were headed for. The traps caught over half. We are pretty sure the hook up on the traps (they hooked up first most of the time) brought other hook ups to the jigs. I think the extra weight of the heavier jig head brought the fish traps under the chop just enough for the tuna to see better or maybe we just matched the hatch better that day? Anyway it worked.
About our hand lines: I think they are about 50 feet long. We troll them shorter than some people, just along and sometime in the prop wash. We usually put one of the divers (tuna boards) on one hand line. This takes one line deep to cover a different area. This also allows us to run another rod over the top, inline with the hand line(further out) without tangling. It also keeps the tuna from diving, thus bringing it to the surface so we can see it.
Sorry about the pictures. I have a ton of really cool pictures but I have been able to figure out how to post them (I am a bit computer challenged). I think it may take someone physically showing me (rather than trying to explain it over the computer).
No we did not see any Marlin, but we have fished them in Mexico. I have some thoughts about catching them, but will have to try posting more about that later.

[RJ]

how about someone postin a pic of a fishtrap just curious as to what we are talkin about ..thanks RJ

Fish Trap Lures

[Salmonator]

I found these at fishermans warehouse after checking out the fishtrap website.



They're made by storm and are called "wildeye swim baits shad".The weight is molded into the jig. Similar to what was said about the fishtrap, in addition to the tail wag these have a real nice side to side body wiggle even at slow speeds. At 7 mph, they hold under the surface then occasionally dart back and forth across the top before going back under. They looked extremely realistic. The best part is the price. If I remember right, a rigged 4 pack was just over 3 bucks...

[ 08-25-2002, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: Salmonator ]