Tuna Talk

Took in the Seattle show yesterday and the Tuna seminar with Todd. He had to shorten his 2 hr. presentation down to an hour but it was all good stuff.
I met up with Tunadon there, and we got in a few questions after the talk. We were both interested in Todd's opinion on alternatives to live bait if you stopped trolling after hooking up a troll fish.
He was very positive on using swimbaits and 'butterfly' style jigs as options when no live bait was available. He has had good success with dead bait chum and jigging up tuna from up to 100' deep. Once the school comes up, small amount of chum and cast swimbaits could hold the school nearby.
They had one day where the bite went off the live bait and it was only by jigging that they managed to hook up again.
Hope for us BC folks yet..
 
harper44 said:
I had planned to tow down to westport last year but didnt have the chance. Any interest around here for buddy boats? would like to set something up for mid July...
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I would be in. I've got 4 free days from guiding in July 18-21. At the Tuna seminar at the boat show, it starts to light up mid July.
 
This is the diagram of 5 rods and 8 hand lines. Note that 2 of the hand lines are down off the ends of the down riggers and are not on this sketch. Also the pmo's(pour mans outriggers) are on the handlines and rods and are the lines angled out from the boat. on really calm days a guy could run even an extra pair of PMO's outside and out further than the far ones. I have done this but I really do not like to have to many rods in play and you can not run the pmos on long hand lines. The only thing that I may try is a pair of dipsy divers on off each side pulling to the left and right for a total of 4 dive lines. I have played with them a little already and think they will be just fine but the dipsy need to be tweaked a bit to handle the high speed. In total I could run 17lines- 10 handlines(4 divers, 2 PMO's, 4 straight back, ) and 7 rods(3 straight, 4 PMO's) back but the only reason I learned how to do this is from all the long days of being out there getting skunked just playing around with gear. I have been skunked half of my trips but I fish all through july as well and I know that is part of the problem. I certainly do not recommend running 17 lines or 13 for that matter its just that when your out fishing and not getting anything for hours wanting to make sure your giving it every chance to get a bite you have options for trying more colors etc. On my best day fishing last year I only fished 6 lines. Don't forget that every line you have out you have to check for weeds which can be tiresome but I did notice that in july the water had very little weeds and we did not have to check the gear hardly at all which was nice.

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I ran 6-8 lines for much of last year without outriggers, downriggers, PMO's or other side planers. My boat is 8.5' wide and 25.5' long. I ran 4 rapala mag 20's - two on rods angle out from each corner and two on rods off the stern. The X-Rap Mag 20's dig deep and seem to run pretty true. By slightly staggering the length (line counters on the reels), they rarely (if ever got tangled). I ran them about 40' back. I then ran a few clones just slightly behind them (running just below the surface) using two rod holders that are mounted on the aft bulkhead of the cabin and angled outward. To get them out, I had to let the line out slowly while we were going straight to assure I got them past the X-Rap lines. But once they were past, it was easy to spool them out to about 65-80' back. I then ran two more lines straight back about 100' with clones on them. The rods for these went on the roof and I had clones on them too. Once all the lines were set, I could make tangle free turns as long as I didn't crank the wheel over too hard. For the most part, the X-raps were the best producers but I did get several fish on the clones, especially the ones well off the back. When the fishing was hot, we would mostly go with just the X-Raps. In most cases, I didn't need to clear the lines that were way off the back. They kept out of the way and were not a problem. We had many doubles and one quadruple and managed to land all 4 on the quadruple.
 
I just struggle with Xraps. WHat I find is that raps occasionally lunge out of the water and when they do this they seem to get tangled in some other line=birds nest. This on top of them pulling left or right made it really complicated. It would be far easier to run the raps if I was only using 6 to 8 lines. Unfortunately I have invested my cash into clones and zukers. One thing for certain(depending where you buy them) 1 xrap is cheaper than a clone and a commercial noise maker.

What is your ratio of takes to fish landed on the xraps?
 
x raps can be made to run true, they are not the best lure for hauling tonnes of fish all day.......hands down clones are better. What xraps are good for is getting finicky fish that wont come up for clones to bite. Lots of fish will throw them out of tune and then you have to tune them back. Absoloutly the xrap hookup ratio is worse than the clones, I have more fish fall off the two trebles than a big single or double hook.
 
I'd estimate that we landed about 90% of all the fish we had on the X-raps. The X-rap 20's run quite deep so Birdnest, I'm not sure why you've had troubles with them lunging out of the water. Once these went in the water at 6-8kts of troll speed, I had a hard time getting them back out until they were reeled right next to the boat. I'd also estimate that 80% of all our fish were caught on the X-raps last year. Admittedly, we didn't catch a ton of fish - 31 total over about 4 trips but I'm still learning this game and last year was my first year of seriously fishing tuna. I'll get better at it but I anticipate that we'll be fishing the X-raps pretty hard again this year.
 
I was running them tight to the boat. It was the only way to run them while keeping them clear of other lines since a high percentage of our lines are run on the surface. It seemed that if a rap had a tendency to pull to the right it would be pulling right and occasionally make the surface. When this happens the tension is lost from the resistance of the water and they would go flying over other lines etc= birdsnest+2 trebles, nasty. Last years tuna trips saw a fair amount of severe birdsnests and the #1 common denominators were for me xraps and small splash bird chains. Multiple fish-on did see some problems but it was always with xraps and bird chains. This wouldn't be half the adventure if we were all doing the same thing.
 
I noticed on PNT's website they are labelling the Tuna Clone discontinued and replacing them with "Bullet Clones".....can the powers that be fill us in? Will they be selling off the last of the Tuna Clone products entirely or will they still be carrying all the goodies??
 
Well Tuna Clones are Made in Cambodia (not kidding) and the Bullet Clones are Made in China.

They look like a cheap ****** copy of something that's already pretty cheap.

Certainly the Clones don't seem to be discontinued by Sevenstrand otherwise it would be all over the internets.
 
Ya I'm thinking its a knock-off rebranding of sorts...but I could be wrong.

Curious why clones are a cheap product?? Seems to hold up, they look as good as the day we bought em after a dozen fish...
 
Zukers are the only jig i run,Green with a blue skirt,most guys i knorun the sam jig as they are thmost steay thruout the day.we only ue swo diveboards on each corner as we want the fish to come to the suface to bight all the hooks.5.5 knt wn to 5 for the bigger fish as they will pop off when going fast.
 
picked up two of these at the show. Should be interesting to see the action. It can be trolled up to 18knots!! lol
its about 7" Long rigged. Rattles and is about 4oz weighted to the head of the lure. Hard plastic body. Made by Braid Products.

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Something new for this thread ( at least new to me )
Check out this tagging report http://afrf.org/tagging/ - lots of info to sort thru, but some interesting stuff about MLD ( mean living depth? ) and depth behavior at night. Seems that 91% of fish in 'northern area' ( BC and Wash. ) are at the surface at night. Daytime can be anywhere from surface to 50m
 
I can't wait!!! I will be out there as soon as the appropriate conditions present.
 
I can wait awhile, i've got lots of yellowfin in the freezer plus a bit of albie yet
 
I'll admit that I wake up with cold sweats sometimes and find myself checking Terrafin and Buoyweather.
 
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And???????

Does your boat hold enough fuel to get to the temp breaks? LOL!!

Sculpin said:
I'll admit that I wake up with cold sweats sometimes and find myself checking Terrafin and Buoyweather...................
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