AngryAnus

Righto here's my 2 cents worth.

Catching Lt's has been an obsession of mine for the last 20 years, all my experience has been in Northern Moreton Bay, I have never fished for them anywhere else as I love catching them on my home grounds.

My first tip for regular success is to be obsessed.
If you want to catch your first or improve your catch rate you need to go out with only longtail on the mind and fish for them till you catch one or donut, then go out and do it all again till you crack the pattern.....don't give up.

Learn what they look like on your sounder, you don't need bust ups to catch them, locate them on your sounder and send your plastics down and hold on...

You can catch them all year round in the bay but there are times when they are more prolific, generally from March/April till September/October is the best time, some years they are thick all year round other years like last year they can be a bit sporadic..

They can be caught on light line but I prefer to go heavy, my reason for this is to shorten the fight and keep the fish in the best condition possible so it has the best chance at survival upon release.......I use 7'-7'6" 6-10 kg spin rods (custom built by me), Stella 4-5000 loaded with 30-50 lb braid tied to a 6 ft length of 60 lb mono. Don't go thinking the heavy line makes things easy though, they still peel 50 lb off a heavy set drag like it hasn't been set, the fight is usually sub 10 minutes (more like 5) but it's brutal and you really get to feel the power of these fish with the heavy line.

I mainly use 5" plastics rigged on 1/2 oz 5 0 jig heads, my favourites are bubblegum snap backs and power bait hollow belly split tails, both are discontinued but luckily I still have more than ten packs of each in my stash. I don't mind the z-man streakz but there are other plastics that I'll tie on before them, I don't really like how they rig....

Sometimes if I'm in the mood I'll use sinking stick baits, I've had success on Yozuri Adagios, Smith Sarunas and Maria Blues codes to name a few, I still find plastics more reliable though.

Slugs also have their place occasionally but again plastics rein supreme.

I'm not going to give away spots but they can be found through out the bay, just drive around till you find them and once you do stay in the area as there will usually be more than one or two schools about.

Best tides and times are whenever the weather lets you get out there, they will eat all day and any tide though there are periods of higher activity but this can vary daily, you just need to stick with the schools till all hell breaks lose.

I only fish from a small boat and this is how it has always been, my current rig is a 4.2 Renegade and it has gets me anywhere I want to go in any conditions I'd care to be out in. For years I fished the bay out of a 4.0 Hornet and it was a great boat too, so if you have a small boat don't let that deter you from chasing these awesome sport fish just watch the weather get familiar with local conditions and know your limits as a skipper and you'll have a fun safe time.

At the moment there are plenty of Lt,s in the bay ( we boated 10 or so each yesterday ) so get out there while the getting is good, there are also plenty of spottie macks out there which are just as fun to catch and allot of the time they shadow ( or vice versa) the tuna schools so it makes for a fun day.....lots of mack tuna in the bay also, my advice with these guys is to use chrome slugs, 40 gram raiders are my most successful on these fish, if don't hook up after a few casts though drive away, they can be the easiest fish to catch or the hardest fussiest fish to catch, there's no in between and if you get them in a fussy mood all you'll be doing is wasting fishing time...

Cheers,
Al

Lures:
I have switched to plastics of late - 5" plastics work a treat spun along the surface. Not too fast, not too slow, just the speed to keep them on the surface (or just under) with the tails doing a seductive wiggle.

Slugs, I only use Gillies Pillies (25g) or Sea Rock 25gs - they're almost identical slugs. Not the long thin gillies. Why do I use these? I do most of my fishing at Caloundra and these two slugs match the hatch. They're not close, they're identical. The only thing with these slugs are they can't be cranked in at high speed as they'll do nothing but a helicopter - and helicopters dont catch fish. You also need to upgrade the trebles, as the stock ones are very thin wire and will bend easily.


As others have mentioned, don't drive into a school. You can do that on a kayak, but not in a boat. We never turn the motor off, we always leave it idling. As others have suggested, the biggest thing for Tuna I have found is a change in noise. Run a long side the tuna, if they're a little flighty try keeping them near your max casting range.

Most of the longtails I've caught are not in big schools. Sure, you get schools of them occasionally, in which case I've found they're usually the ones that don't stay up on the surface for long, so you really need to pay attention to moving with the school and preempting where they will appear. Others have nailed it on the head regarding predicting which way the tuna will move.

As for the schools, most schools you will see are Mac Tuna, however dont let this put you off. Casing to the edges is the key around these, as I have found most schools of mac tuna, particularly the bigger schools will have longtails around the fringes. Cast ahead of the school or around the sides. Casting into the middle can be a great way to get something on the scoreboard, but it will probably be a Mac Tuna. I'm not going to write off big mac tuna though - I almost landed one mac tuna that would have been just over a metre (definitely over 90), and I must say - For their size, Mac tuna are much stronger and harder fighters. Why did I not land this one? Most Longtails I land on 20lbs are 15-25 minutes. This thing fought me for over 30-35 minutes. Unfortunatelly the slug was hooked a little deeper than normal, and instead of the metal slug rubbing on the tuna teeth my leader was... I eventually just got worn through

Most longtails I have caught have not been in the schools, but have been more isolated fish. You will find schools spread out over vast distances, with a few tuna poping up all over the place. Apparently they do this at Bribie a fair bit as well, and the tuna are more pushing the bait up against the island and then charging up and down picking off any stray fish. Brays Rock is another location you will see this. Trolling is one easy way to pick them up here, but

As Tugger pointed out, there are no secret spots really. Tuna will almost always hold in the same areas though - I assume its to do with bait.

Just inside Rooney Point in Hervey bay, The bay around Mooloolaba, Just south of point cartwright, around Brays rock at Caloundra and just off Bribie are a few common spots.

As for casting - another thing I have noted on the plastics (more so than slugs) is even after a school stops, or you think a school has passed, or as Tugger said - just before the school pops up, you are still in with a good chance on the plastics. Nothing better than casting out, watch the school drop, thinking you've missed them and having the rod damn near ripped out of your hand while getting blasted on the surface.

I have found plastics provide a lot more entertainment than the slugs - slugs never seem to get much of a surface strike, maybe a bit of a swoosh, but nothing compared to watching three longtails hack and slash their way through the water before erupting once hooked.