Tuna questions for a new guy...

[shocker]

Hey, I'm new to this forum, AND new to tuna fishing. I went out this morning for Tuna and while we saw a lot of them, couldn't hook into any.

We went off the Isles of Shoals (off of Portsmouth, NH) and got out there by 5am, started seeing some action around 6am, with a school of REALLY big fish (much larger than footballs, looked to be 65+inch fish). We'd read in a few fishing reports and spoken to people that the technique is to get near the schools, and cast into them with a marauder or deadly-#^&#^&#^&#^& (using a Shimano 6500 baitcaster with braid and flourocarbon leader) and catch that way. Seems like a decent idea for footballs, but it wouldn't have been able to hold the size of the fish we saw this morning.

Additionally, the jumping action didn't last long, on average 15-20 seconds and then they were gone as quickly as they'd come. We could never get to the action (or close enough to cast) before they'd stop jumping. Is this normal, or do the footballs act differently (again, we don't think these were footballs, looked like pretty big fish when they were outta the water).

We know how hard tuna fishing is and that you'll get skunked MANY times before you finally hookup, but we'd also like to work on our technique, so is trolling the way to go? I spoke with someone on the dock today that said to troll with a big squid rig with about 150 yards of line out and at 6-10 kts.

Thanks, I'd appreciate any info and help!

(ps. the dogfish are HORRIBLE! went to see if we could get some bluefish or stripers and everytime we put a hook down a dogfish came up, even on a sabiki rig while I was catching pollock!)