I may have asked this question before but if I did, I can't remember the answer. Last week on Thurs, I went tuna fishing out of Neah Bay. It's often a long run out of Neah to get to good tuna water but it can be pretty productive. For me a good tuna trip usually involves the following elements - we run through some fairly green water, as we start getting close to "tuna water" we see lots of whales and a fair number of sharks on the surface. We pass several sunfish, a pod or two of pacific white sided dolphins makes a visit and sometime not too long after that, we are into tuna. Either we see them on the surface or we see birds hitting the water or the troll rods go off without those two signs but typically we find multiple signs of life prior to getting into a good bite.
However, some trips you see very little activity above the surface and last Thursday was one of those trips. We drove out along the S. end of JDF canyon, the temps were around 61F, dropped to 59F and then climbed steadily up to about 65F. There were no sharp temp breaks. The water started out fairly green and then got clearer but we never found gin clear, blue water even 70 miles off shore. We never saw a whale or a dolphin. We saw a couple of sharks and a couple of sunfish. We never saw flocks of birds hitting the water, we never saw jumpers or strong signals on the sounder. After hitting 70 miles out we turned north/NE and eventually decided to go on the troll. We hit two fish total and at each hit, we did clover leafs around the spot with no additional bites. The two fish we got were nice - 32# and 25# but that was it. $400 fuel bill = $200 fish.
So here's the question: in conditions like this - e.g. no obvious signs of life but appropriate temperature and clarity - is it more productive to continue to search at high speed (25-30kts) until you find more obvious signs of fish OR is it better to deploy trolling gear until you get a hit or two? I'm never sure when to keep looking and when to just troll in the hopes of getting a hit. On the one hand, I know I can't catch anything without a line in the water but on the other hand I know if I can find good concentrations of fish, it doesn't take long to plug the boat. So how do you make the decision on when to hunt for tuna and when to fish for them in such circumstances?
However, some trips you see very little activity above the surface and last Thursday was one of those trips. We drove out along the S. end of JDF canyon, the temps were around 61F, dropped to 59F and then climbed steadily up to about 65F. There were no sharp temp breaks. The water started out fairly green and then got clearer but we never found gin clear, blue water even 70 miles off shore. We never saw a whale or a dolphin. We saw a couple of sharks and a couple of sunfish. We never saw flocks of birds hitting the water, we never saw jumpers or strong signals on the sounder. After hitting 70 miles out we turned north/NE and eventually decided to go on the troll. We hit two fish total and at each hit, we did clover leafs around the spot with no additional bites. The two fish we got were nice - 32# and 25# but that was it. $400 fuel bill = $200 fish.
So here's the question: in conditions like this - e.g. no obvious signs of life but appropriate temperature and clarity - is it more productive to continue to search at high speed (25-30kts) until you find more obvious signs of fish OR is it better to deploy trolling gear until you get a hit or two? I'm never sure when to keep looking and when to just troll in the hopes of getting a hit. On the one hand, I know I can't catch anything without a line in the water but on the other hand I know if I can find good concentrations of fish, it doesn't take long to plug the boat. So how do you make the decision on when to hunt for tuna and when to fish for them in such circumstances?
