Tuna Fishing - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

Capt.dan · 07-11-2009, 08:19 PM

I was lucky enough to have two days back to back of tuna fishing. Boy was it fun. Friday I went Giant hunting with one of my friends who fishes commercially for them, and we didn't catch any tuna but we found tuna, but they weren't hungy i guess. We did manage some cod and some unwanted dog fish.
Today I went out to the SWC in my buddies maritime patriot. We left the plymouth boat lunch around 530am and headed east. It was another great day but no Tuna. We did however, find them. busting the surface. Wow! is that cool to watch. would of been better to have hooked up but so be it. We trolled slugos, Ronz,X-raps and jigged butterfly jigs. The swc was covered with boats. I guess this is normal for the weekend. It got rough out there around 12pm and we stuck it out till 230 and then headed home.
For me this was the first two times tuna fishing and I'm still trying to figure out the hows and two's. So, I ask, how fast should you troll x-raps and slugos? We were trolling between 2.5 and 4mph is that good? should we troll slower with slugos? Also, how far back should we put our baits behind the boat? And do people really catch fish on the squid bars? If the fish are down 30-60ft? And which works better squid bars or x-raps/slugos? Are down riggers a should have? And is Pink a good color to have? Pink?
Thanks Dan

clcharette · 07-12-2009, 10:44 AM

Thats alot of questions Dan.

First off, I don't think there is any specific speed that is the magic number for any of the baits you are talking about, every boat trolls different. That being said, I would fish the sluggos back 200-400 ft and go as slow as the boat would allow. It takes a lot of patience to fish them effectively.

X-raps need to run a little quicker say 3 to 5 mph. They just won't dive to the appropriate depths at slower speeds.

Bars work great on rough days and pink, black, rainbow, orange etc etc all work and it is easier to run x-raps with the bars.

I've never used down riggers for tuna but outriggers sure help keeping the lines apart and will allow you to fish bars more effectively.

Try fishing around slack water and keep going as often as possible to try and determine some sort of feeding behavior. You may have to fish a 12 hour day for that one bite.

Capt.dan · 07-12-2009, 07:35 PM

Thanks for the advice. Yeah it's going to take awhile to figure it out. What kind of knots should I use for braid to fluro? Will a uni to uni work? I'm using 65lbs braid and 60lbs fluro.

fishsmith · 07-13-2009, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capt.dan

Thanks for the advice. Yeah it's going to take awhile to figure it out. What kind of knots should I use for braid to fluro? Will a uni to uni work? I'm using 65lbs braid and 60lbs fluro.

uni to uni works for me, I use 80lb braid and 80lb floro and palomar to lure.