“We received em’ boiling within the nook. Change your baits. Contemporary one!” I may hear the sound of heavy braid getting ripped off a standard so quick that I used to be positive the man to my left was going to get spooled. “Coming all the way down to your proper!” My neighbor’s fish instantly darted to the portside nook of the transom of the 75-foot sportfishing boat, The San Diego. This fish moved so quick that the angler was stumbling and tripping as he adopted his line across the rail of the boat. 5 to 10 minutes later, I heard him name, “Gaff on the bow,” adopted by a celebratory, “Let’s go!”
(Be aware: On The Water is reader-supported. Once you purchase by way of hyperlinks on our web site, we could earn an affiliate fee.)
I wound in my sardine, flicked it off my dimension 1 J-hook, and ran as much as the bow, the place a 40-pound yellowfin tuna was tail thumping and spraying blood all around the deck. A deckhand rushed over with an outsized stapler.
“What quantity?”
“Thirty-two,” the angler replied, and the tuna received a brand new eyebrow piercing with the angler’s tag quantity.
I seen the sardine guts and tuna blood all around the angler’s Xtratuf deck boots as he walked again to the bait tank, grabbed his Starbucks espresso, took a sip, and located a contemporary sardine to toss again into the fray. After the chaos ended, we tallied up our kill. Seven tuna landed, a minimum of twice that many hooked.
Over an hour later, the captain all of the sudden reduce the engines as we slid into a faculty of a lot larger fish. Over the PA system, the captain screamed, “Enormous foamer! Get the 50-pound setups out!”
Just a few anglers dared to forged a sardine at this bigger grade of fish. These have been bluefin tuna starting from 50 to 170 kilos. Proper off the bat, 5 or 6 guys instantly attached off starboard, their rods bent to the butt. The deckhand handed me a cumbersome rod, saying, “Use this, and also you’ll truly get him to the boat.” I smirked after I noticed it was a Penn Worldwide 30 on a thick trolling rod. The braided line felt like paracord. I rapidly baited a wholesome sardine and pitched it off the facet, then instantly backlashed.
Casting a 2-ounce sardine on a standard trolling rod is not any simple job. Inside seconds, my backlash was pulled out and cleared—not by me, however by the 126-pound bluefin tuna that slurped the sardine simply 10 yards off the starboard facet. Forty minutes later, I had my tuna glory.
That’s tuna fishing in Southern California. It’s uncooked, unpredictable, chaotic, and thrilling. SoCal’s tuna sport revolves round its huge party-boat fleet. These boats are able to holding as much as 50 anglers and are geared up with bait tanks the scale of automobiles. They live-chum colleges of tuna into casting vary, permitting anglers to pitch stay baits into the fray.
On the journey I used to be on, the boat returned to the dock with 50-plus tuna, a mixture of yellowfin and bluefin, in sizes starting from 12 to 126 kilos.
Following my days in Southern California, I made the transition to East Coast saltwater fishing. With the unimaginable inshore fishery right here, I spent the majority of my time focusing on striped bass, bluefish, and false albacore. Whereas they’re enjoyable to go after all through the season, I needed to present East Coast tuna fishing a go. I knew it could be fairly completely different than its West Coast counterpart as a result of the fish are typically larger, plus I didn’t have entry to an enormous party-boat fleet. This meant I would wish to make use of my household’s boat with out assist from the salty party-boat captains from San Diego.
Tuna fishing on the East Coast appeared way more cutthroat and intimidating, which held me again from trying it for a number of years. Nevertheless, with some tuna grounds on Cape Cod accessible to small boaters beneath the best circumstances, my father and I, together with buddy, determined to present it a go.
We have been trolling off Chatham, Massachusetts, on a late-June day. I had given the port fowl bar a fast pop to free it of the weeds being pushed in by the southwest breeze when one thing caught my eye. Was {that a} whale breaking the floor? Instantly a flock of birds appeared about 200 yards off the bow—shearwaters, and so they have been working bait. I commented to my buddy, “We’d hook up right here subsequent to those working birds.” No sooner had I mentioned that, the sound of braided line completely flying off a standard reel erupted. “We’re on!” I screamed.
I jumped up from the console and spilled my giant Dunkin iced espresso all around the deck of the boat. I had forgotten to activate the “fish alarm” on the Outdated Avet reel from California that I had repurposed as a trolling setup. This fish had dumped half of my reel’s spool in simply 30 seconds. Concurrently, I instructed my buddy to wind within the different trolling traces. Fifteen minutes later, an 80-pound bluefin tuna hit the deck of the boat after our second gaff nearly snapped. This fish did the identical pulsating tail beat on the deck of the boat that I used to be all too acquainted with, however hadn’t heard in too a few years. As we iced the fish down, we realized that tuna blood combined with iced espresso makes for an fascinating clean-up course of.
Tuna fishing within the Northeast is often not as quick paced as in Southern California, however based mostly on my experiences, there are a lot of similarities between the 2, in addition to some large variations. Many individuals affiliate tuna fishing within the Northeast with the Nationwide Geographic present, Depraved Tuna—huge 80- to 130-class reels, thick bent butt rods, and bluefin tuna in extra of 500 kilos. Whereas that actually is a draw, focusing on smaller recreational-sized bluefin and yellowfin is extra corresponding to what one would possibly expertise in Southern California.
Whereas Southern California doesn’t have the enormous bluefin tuna the Northeast is understood for, it does have some unimaginable nearshore, accessible tuna motion. This entry is because of SoCal’s huge sport-boat fleet, the place leisure anglers with out their very own boats will pay comparatively quick cash to have an opportunity at tuna on gentle sort out. It provides anglers who would in any other case by no means be capable to go tuna fishing the possibility to exit and catch dozens of them in a season.
Coast-to-Coast Trolling Techniques
Within the Northeast, when anglers hook up on the troll, the captain usually retains operating the boat on the similar pace for 20 to 30 seconds to entice further fish into grabbing different choices within the unfold. This can be a very efficient tactic, usually leading to double or triple hookups. Generally, little issues like this may make or break a tuna-fishing journey. Tuna are a education fish and are sometimes aggressive, giving anglers the next probability of a number of hookups occurring concurrently on the troll.
In distinction, in Southern Californian, a sport boat usually trolls between spots, so when there’s a knockdown, the opposite anglers drop a jig or a stay bait again into the wash whereas the boat slows. It’s an analogous mindset, with the aim being to attract in and choose off different fish within the faculty seemingly following the tuna that has taken the trolled providing. That is referred to as getting bitten on the “slide” because the boat slides to a cease. Deckhands additionally usually toss dozens of items of stay chum into the wash to attract the entire faculty to the boat, giving different anglers possibilities at hooking up. I’ve witnessed this, and it’s astonishing that one fish biting a trolling feather can rapidly flip right into a hundred-plus tuna fish boiling on chum across the boat. A majority of these techniques capitalize on the handful of alternatives at catching fish so commonplace on offshore journey—making an attempt to profit from these possibilities and turning them into placing tuna on the deck, however this additionally fuels the notion that tuna fishing is usually “hours of boredom adopted by 10 minutes of chaos” amongst fishermen on each coasts.
If East Coast tuna fisherman employed comparable techniques, similar to dumping stay or useless chum into the wash when getting bit on the troll, they’d seemingly have much more profitable outcomes and actually capitalize on these valuable 10 minutes of chaos.
West Coast Tuna Techniques
Fly-Lining
Probably the most primary means an angler fishes for tuna is with a stay sardine (4 to 7 inches) or anchovy (3 to five inches) “fly lined” with no weight on a straight J or circle hook. Most individuals begin out with a 30-pound setup on a dimension 16 to twenty Shimano or 20 to 25 Penn reel matched with a 7- to 8-foot bait rod rated for 20- to 50-pound take a look at line. Generally, a 1/0 to three/0 J or circle hook is used to nose-hook the sardine. For smaller anchovies, most anglers use dimension 2/0 hooks. West Coast tuna may be extremely finicky, generally requiring an final finesse “fly line” setup to get any bites in any respect. This implies utilizing a hook as small as a dimension 2/0 or 4/0 on 20-pound-test fluorocarbon chief. Nevertheless, that is solely possible when the fish are about 35 kilos or much less.
Floor Irons
If the tuna are “chewing” good, anglers in SoCal usually throw artificials at them. Other than the world-renowned cupped-face floor popper for tuna, many West Coast anglers select to make use of the “floor iron,” a metallic jig designed to swim erratically close to the floor on medium to quick retrieves.
Floor irons, poppers, and different topwater lures are sometimes fished on 9- to 10-foot standard rods with a tender tip that may forged a lighter lure removed from the boat.
Jigging: East vs. West
Whereas anglers on each coasts jig for tuna, there are a number of stark variations. First, the retrieves are fairly completely different. West Coast anglers typically drop their jigs to the underside or desired depth, and do a fast straight wind of their jig, then drop it again down in the event that they don’t get a chew. The approach is known as yo-yo-style jigging. Anglers within the Northeast are inclined to pump the rod and wind up the slack—not often do you see a straight speedy jig retrieve within the Atlantic’s waters. Based mostly on my experiences, each strategies are equally efficient at placing tuna of the identical species on the deck, making me query how and why every coast’s techniques developed the best way they did.
On the West Coast, anglers are inclined to gravitate towards a wider-bodied jig such because the Shimano Flat Fall or Tady AA, whereas within the Northeast, anglers usually choose a slimmer-profile jig to mimic sand eels.
Along with the differing approach, the jigging sort out anglers use on every coast is sort of completely different. Whereas Northeast anglers want quick however stout spinning rods rated for heavy braided traces and jigs generally as much as 10 ounces, West Coast anglers fish yo-yo jigs or heavy irons on the identical 8- to 9-foot standard “jig sticks” they use for topwater floor iron and popper fishing. West Coast anglers not often use spinning reels, which many confer with as “espresso grinders.”
In my expertise, standard gear has the benefit over spinning gear when pulling on giant tuna fish. Subsequently, my jigging desire, whether or not I’m within the Northeast or on the West Coast, is a standard setup on account of its energy and talent to “rail rod,” if wanted, which is utilizing the rail of the boat as leverage when combating a fish. When the boat drops with the swell, an angler can take a crank or two on the tuna under.
That is an especially popula tactic for West Coast anglers, who usually use standard gear and have landed giant fish on lighter gear in comparison with spinning sort out. For my East Coast tuna fishing, I’ve used the identical gear I utilized in SoCal. This previous season, I used to be capable of land East Coast bluefin into the low 100-pound vary on reels extra suited to striped-bass fishing by rail-rodding the fish. This system is unimaginable to make use of with spinning sort out as a result of the reel sits beneath the rod.
Whereas the sort out and techniques differ, the love of tuna fishing is similar for anglers on each coasts, and maybe including a few of these West Coast tuna techniques to the arsenal may also help hook a number of extra East Coast tuna this season.
Associated Content material
Monitoring Atlantic Yellowfin Tuna
Topwater Popping for Tuna
Large Bluefin Tuna Habits
