tunafreak

A couple more points.

The bait fisho's don't have to miss out on these great sport fish either, a shore fire method to get them on bait is to drift single hook rigged unweighted/lightly weighted pilchards through the feeing zone and you'll pick up fish as they travel through the area.

Lobbing livies into the feeding schools will yield plenty of fish too, it's probably the easiest way to get them, I haven't done this for years but can remember even if you fudge up a cast the fish would happily travel 10-20 metres away from the school to nail a well presented live pike and being such a big bait they would absolutely smash it. You have to make sure your terminals are up to scratch here as the tuna will pop you on the hit if your knots and hooks aren't top notch.

Last point is etiquette. Please practice good etiquette, basically this means have respect for your fellow anglers and give them space, if you see someone tracking/stalking fish leave them alone and go and find your own school to track......all you will achieve if you try and muscle in on other peoples action is to spook the fish and ruin it for both parties and you may find yourself on the receiving end of a bit of bay rage....

There is no need to follow the same school as someone else, there are plenty to go around, when the fish are on there will be multiple schools about and they will be spread over a large area..

Ok I just remembered another important point, fuel.....you can tend to burn quite a bit of fuel when chasing choons so make sure if you don't have a big tank in your boat to take extra. I usually burn 25-30 litres for the day (40 hp Etec, 4.2 tinny) but there are days that I could use up to twice that, I have a 50 litre underfloor tank and carry a 10 litre jerry for just in case. Try to remember to keep an eye on the gauge as in all the excitement it can be an easy thing to forget about.

Cheers,

Al

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