Belated CR Tuna Report and a Question

[Miss B Haven]

Saturday's trip out of the CR was a great ride, great fishing and not too bad on the catching. either. Miss B Haven put 7 fish on board, Minaki got 4. They were all around 20 except 1 fat jumbo bout 30. We only got 1 fish per boat at the start (hit 59 degrees at about 30 miles). 2 boats from Hammond went out at 2 am and were SW. They had a half dozen or so by the time we got them on the VHF and were headed for the 46 125 line. We trolled to them and didn't touch another fish. They died off too.
We decided to go due west to get some warmed water and found 61 deg about 45 miles out. Hit the last 6 fish in about an hour. Minaki took a while to catch up and got her last 3 there too!
Here's the question. Every fish we got was on rod and reel back behind the 100ft hand lines (150 or so back on the rods). I was running cedars on the rods, Minaki was using feathers on her rods. Can anyone explain why we couldn't get the fish on the hand lines ? [img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img] I saw another post that said they got the fish way back on plugs and rapala's too. It's hard to stay on the fish when you've got to stop and pull the lines to get the rod fish ! We probably would have trippled the count if they would have hit the lines and we could keep the boat moving. I'm kind of thinking that the fish were coming up behind the boat and the rods were jsut the first thing they saw. Maybe if I had pulled them in the fish would have made it to the hand lines. :whazzup:

[OceanBlue]

Interesting. Saturday on the "Puffin" almost all of our fish were on rods, too. Handlines only got bit 3 times. This hasn't been the case when fishing on the "Pilar" where most of the hits are on the handlines. Stand-up gear and handlines were running all the same lures, Zukers, in various colors. But even with the same color on standup and the lines, they'd still hit the standup way back from the boat.

We didn't pull in the handlines to reel in the fish. We did stop, though. When we did tangle, it was with other stand-up gear.

[Popeye]

My experience Fri with 2-100' handlines, 2-60' handlines, 2-rods @ 300 yards, was that they were hitting every one of them! I was running a purple/black Rap on 1 rod, green/chartruese plastic jig on the other. Handlines had a green/chartruese, red/green/yellow, small natural cedar, and a pink/white w/bright head. Go figure I did however troll slower than normal 6.4mph
Bruce

[OceanBlue]

Ah, yes, the meat!

Pilar and I have a theory - I hope we get a chance to test it out. Despite treating all the fish the same way when they get in the boat, some of the fish have mushier flesh than others. Could it be that fighting them with stand-up gear has a negative impact on the quality of the meat? [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img]

[Popeye]

Jen,
I don't know for sure either, however all documents from the universities and elsewhere say that the longer the fight, the higher the body temp when landed [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img]

[fish assassin]

Pilars Mate,

I do believe you may be on to something there! In
actuality, commercial fishermen try to get fish into
the boat ASAP for two reasons ... one, a line with
a fish on it is not fishing and 2, a tuna that has
spent too much time fighting the line developes
histamine in the meat (releases histamine?).

Histamine is responsible the dilation and increased
permeability of blood vessels in an animal. It shows
up as spots in the meat of your fish. It is basicly
caused by the fish being overworked and thus overheated.
You can also get hisamines to form by not cooling your
catch soon enough. As has been discussed here before,
the release of hisamines into the body (meat) of the
fish can have serious and sometimes disasterous side
effects ... such as sickness and even death of some folks.
The release of hisamines into the meat
of the fish will also break down tissue so they will
not be as solid as one that has not had histamines
released into it's flesh.

Tuna are warm blooded to start with. Anything we can
do as fishermen to keep these warm blooded critters
cool before/after we kill 'em, the better! IMHO

-assAssin-

[avid]

Here is an article from an Oregon Sea Grant researcher on the subject of histamine formation. Note that normally occurining bacteria do the conversion from histidine to histamine. The researcher found that eviscerated fish with their gills removed were unlikely to develop much histamine for even up to three weeks on ice. Oregon albacore were unlikely to develop much histamine even when intentionally allowed to warm up.

http://seagrant.orst.edu/makingadiff...lbacoreSoA.pdf

Here is another web page from BC tuna fishermen's association that recommends landing as quickly as possible to avoid reducing quality.

http://www.bctfa.com/handling.htm

I like handlines as much as rods. It's all fishing! :smile:

[seasquid]

I caught probably 6 or 7 on one handline (w/diver 60-feet of cord) last Saturday, and absolutely zero on the other -- the rest of my gear I run on rods....the handline producer was a Mexican Flag, and the zero producer was a pink/purple, which I switched to zucchini....who knows?

Popeye, I'm still bringing you refreshments -- I just can't seem to be driving through Newport at a decent time lately....I may have someone deliver for me during the halibut dates....sorry about the boat, I'm sure the frustration level is high, and I don't blame you.

ss

[Threemuch]

I have a simple question for all you oregon tuna trollers:

Why all the meatlines? Isn't it more fun to get these fish on rod and reel? I will run a couple hand lines if it's slow, but I will always run at least 4 rods. If there is wind, use downrigger releases connected to the rod holders to keep your lines down. Put a 16 oz torpedo sinker in line above your lure or better yet, a foot of chrome chain (lots of smoke).

[Popeye]

Kurt,
You more or less answered your own question, you called them meat lines, I like the meat! I also run the stand-ups for additional sport, albeit a lot of fun with handlines also. When I feel I have plenty of fish for the canner I do things like take other people out that aren't as fortunate as I, and let them keep most of the catch. I believe that it's fun either way, and the catch isn't the only thing ie: THE HUNT
Bruce

[fish assassin]

Avid,

Great article!! Thanks for pointing it out to us.
Another good resource is the Western Fishboat Owners
Association web pages. They can be located at:

http://www.wfoa-tuna.org/main.asp

There is all kinds of good info on this site that
you can glean as long as you ignore the fact that
these guys are (for the most part) commercial
fishermen.

-assAssin-

[Threemuch]

Come on guys. Giant bluefin caught on the east coast on standup gear are sold to the Japanese sushi market for 1000s of dollars. The fight on these fish is pretty long, I would imagine. Haven't done it, YET.

If prolonged fight had a large impact to quality, then Japanese tuna buyers would be paying top dollar for pacific purse seined bluefin, rather than sport caught east coast bluefin. But that's not the case.

1000's of tuna are caught in Southern California on live bait with light tackle, they aren't giving everyone scombroid poisoning. The canneries will trade them for canned tuna. I have bought 3 tuna this year, and the quality was very poor, mostly just soft, but also poor color, compared to the hundreds I have landed on rod and reel in the last 10 years.

Quality is 99% in the handling of the fish after landing. I have shucked 100s of tuna, 90% caught on rod and reel, and there is no way you could have picked out the 10% that was handlined by smell, touch, or taste.

Doesn anyone know of anyone that has had scombroid poisoning, or even heard of someone who has? I think you would have to treat one of these fish pretty badly to get it.

By the way, if any of you want to dispose of your tuna with the yellow spots, call me, I will dispose of them properly.