How do u chase tuna?

[Lukey]

Hey guys, we went over towards moreton island last sunday to jig the 4 beacons but ended up high-tailing it straight to Tangalooma when a storm came through with 25 knot winds. Once it settled down about 10am we got a call from my mate who works at the resort saying there were tuna smashing stuff everywhere a couple of k's south. We headed down there and sure enough there were 10-15kg longtails busting up all around us, but we couldn't get close enough to have a pin.:pinch: Does anyone know the tactics involved in getting close without spooking them??

[Feral]

Never done tuna but I would assume its the same as any surface schooling fish.

2 methods.

1st - Trolling

Let out a swag of line so your lures are trailing a good distance behind you, maybe 75 to 100m or further if the school is big and you eyesight is great. Then slowly circle around the school on the surface, so that as the lures cut across the angle of the circle you are travelling they go through the school of fish

2nd - drifting

Get 100 - 150 upwind / upcurrent of the school, and very quietly let the boat drift down through the school.

[Red]

[Feral]

Well there you go great minds think alike, and a picture is worth a thousand words!

[Lukey]

cheers for that, we should have just trolled, but we were trying to cast at em.:pinch:

Apart from being frustrated by some tuna, we actually managed to have some fun on poppers with a school of trevally around the wrecks. Went snorkelling around the wrecks and saw some monster bream, worth trying for at night with baits i reckon.

[Red]

You can use any daisy-chain .. these work for me.

[Oztrav]

grab a shopping trolley:P

[jeff f]

long tail tuna can be the most finicky, frustrating things to target, they have a habit of locking onto the prey they are feeding on and if your lure is not the exact same size and colour as the prey they will not even look at it. they sometimes feed exclusively on a little tiny baitfish called \"eyes\" they are about 1cm long and see through except for the eye hence the name. when this happens we have occasionally enticed a strike with a popper or a gold spinner.

you really need to try and see what they are feeding on and match your spinners to they size of the baitfish and wind like all hell the faster you can move the lure the better otherwise they'll just follow it to the boat and peel off leavingyou with nothing but a sore arm and blistered fingers from all that winding.

this is the reason the dunphys got shimano to make the tss spinning reels

[Angus]

Nice pics Red!

Lukey: What sort of Trevs mate? Did you get any pics?

Angus

[Red]

Lukey, you might get them to hit a short daisy-chain with a small popper up front, it wouldn't cost much.

You have that right jeff f, they can be finicky at times. We don't have long tail tuna here but they're all the same. If they're feeding on little squid or baitfish like your \"eyes\" (we call them glass minnows)..frustrating.

100m - 100 fathoms at different times of the year here .. surface,deep lures,jigs and live bait, it varies.

We catch a lot of tuna on poppers.

Post edited by: Red, at: 2007/04/23 04:35