Tuna Voodoo......

Salmonator · 09-08-2002, 09:40 PM

After having tuna all around us last week and coming home with only three fish (the best three fish my boat has ever seen :grin: ) what is the one thing that each of you think will cause you to catch less albacore than the next guy. For instance, trolling 9mph with a noisy 150 merc compared to an inboard. How about noise in the boat (high power sonar pinging or a flopping tuna in the box). Leader length or leader diameter (I can see 100lb ultragreen from 50 yards away it seems). Just a starting point for you guys to ponder. I want my next trip out to be a little more successful. The hard part should be safely navigating 50 miles offshore, not boating a fish with the brain the size of a pea... Joe

corrirod · 09-08-2002, 10:22 PM

I wish I had some magic I could share with you but my success has been all over the board. One minute I'm in them, the next minute I'm not. Just when I think I've got all the right stuff they bite on something I don't have.

This last trip I went almost 2 hours without tagging a single fish while Gregotis and Seasquid were reeling them in right and left. Then all of sudden..........BAM...BAM....BAM!! One right after the other while other boats were having no luck.

I'm sure some of the guru's on here can help you.

Pilar · 09-09-2002, 04:37 AM

It's the birds Joe, the fish and the birds .. they go together.

BTW the 50 mile ride is optional. We have found fish pretty consistently at 30 miles out from Depoe.

Try changing your speed. 9 is pretty fast in my boat. Last trip out we did not get a double until we slowed to 6.

Other than that I have noticed a lot of experimenting going on. Fishtraps, live bait and cedar plugs most of all. The feathers seem to work better early in the summer and small baitfish imitations later in the summer. All of the fish 2 weeks ago were crammed full of 2" baitfish I've never seen before. Not candlefish but ???

Don't give up Joe. Run with the pack and together we will hunt Al down and bonk him.

Threemuch · 09-09-2002, 07:14 AM

Pilar-
Were the fish Sauries? They look like little ballyhoo.

Or maybe shortbelly rockfish?

They look like tiny perch. These are the most common feed for late season albies.

Salmonator-
Noise from the engine is not a factor. I run a 225hp O/B and I think we were highliner last thursday when I needed to call it b/c of fuel. I don't think electronics should matter either. We were running 100 pound leader on our 4 stand up rods and 200 pound on the 2 meat lines. Leader length should be 6'.

You just need to keep mucking with your pattern (colors, lengths) until you hit the fish, and listen to those who are having success around you.

When we were out Thursday, I know you had jumpers while puffin and I were banging fish and you weren't coming our way. It's hard to leave fish you can see, but jumping albies can be hard to get to bite. The fish you are targeting on the troll are hanging at 250' and come up for your lures. Fish on the surface can't see your baits at all. The old saying should be never leave BITING fish to find BITING fish. Jumpers frequently won't bite. I would pick up my gear and leave jumpers to go to biting fish every time.

Also, work the cold/warm water edge. It sounds like you overran the fish if you went 50 miles. They stay near the edge of the coldwater. I made the same mistake Thursday, I kept heading out to find the bite, when we overran it to start with.

KB

Ryan Boat · 09-09-2002, 09:25 AM

We use longer leaders (15')and troll slower in colder water 5-6 mph this is with hand lines. when we hook fish we turn away bring it in and then go back around again.

Threemuch · 09-09-2002, 09:59 AM

Good idea on the long leaders for the handlines. I don't do too much with handlines, I prefer to fight the fish on rod and reel. I'll run a couple if it is slow.

KB

fish assassin · 09-09-2002, 10:30 AM

I heard those little bait fish refered to as "Pacific
Shiners" this past weekend.

Now you know everything on this subject that *I* know!

:grin: :grin:

-assAssin-

Salmonator · 09-10-2002, 02:24 PM

Kurt, I would have to agree about over running the fish although we did see small schools of jumpers all the way out to tuna town. Once we got there and shut down, my buddy hooked a fish casting a fish trap lookalike w/out any jumpers around. After we landed that one we saw a small school of jumpers near us and he hooked another casting to it but this one broke him off. As tuna rookies, we were under the impression that if you didn't see jumpers you probably weren't going to catch fish. We probably should have trolled more at TT while we were there, it was 61 degrees and there was some fish around.

Pilar, every group of birds we saw that day had jumping tuna in the middle of it. It was an incredible sight... Joe

Longfin · 09-10-2002, 03:15 PM

Thought I would let you guys know I was in San Diego last weekend tuna fishing and went to three different tackle stores with questions regarding cold water and slow bite. Surprisingly all had basically the same answer. Early in the year when the water is cooler in southern california the guys tend to troll slower and use lighter gear. Some jigs they showed me and which I brought home are only 2 to 3 inches long with a round metal head with 5 holes at the top so they smoke going thru the water and they still use a double hook but much smaller and about twenty pound test. The hot lure this year from beginning to end has been black/purple no matter if visibility is light or dark. Another tip I'm not sure whether it will work here off of smaller boats is a lure call Mega lure. When you get a hookup cast this lure which looks a lot like a crippled herring lure to the side let it drop for 5 to 10 seconds and then jig and retrieve back to the boat. I caught half of my fish on this technique while most of the guys on the boat were fighting to get position with live bait. I think it could work here to because you get the followers who are rising to the top. This technique also outfished the traps who threw in right after the troll fish were hooked. I cant wait to try my new toys up here.

Threemuch · 09-10-2002, 03:31 PM

Fred-
I have a bunch of those little feathers, jetted and non. They work great!
KB

fishwhenican · 09-10-2002, 05:41 PM

Salmonator, On thursday when you saw us (red Koffler/gray top) we only had 5 fish. We trolled further in with no further fish and decided to run back to where Puffin was fishing and we had caught 1 or 2. We were running 8' 180# leaders and running about 7-7.5mph. Then between 3:30 and 5:30 we put 9 fish in the boat. The hot color at that time was a purple/black zuker and a mexican flag tuna clone. We picked up fish 100-400 yds from the jumpers,but never any closer than 100 yds. We also bumped the speed up to 8.2-8.7 mph, it made a cleaner wake. Did we catch more because of a cleaner wake? We tried diff. lengths up to 200' behind the boat earlier. Or was it the speed? The last fish came on pulling the last handline into the boat, my buddy saw a flash behind the jig he was pulling it in and just had time to grab tight. that was 30' behind the boat! I am also running a 4 stroke which is quieter than Threesmuch big 2 stroke, but they obviously did well.
Next time I will: try to clean up the wake by trimming the motor diff. even at slower speeds
stay further away from the jumpers (unless trying to cast to them) and be quicker at trying diff speeds.
who knows? I know it was a blast!