I've been thinking about how I've been fishing tuna. To date, my usual mode of operation has been to drive to "good water" (e.g. warm enough and hopefully blue) and then to deploy gear and troll. I deploy gear regardless of whether I see birds, tuna jumping or stuff on the finder and I hope that I will find fish on the troll. Of course, if I do see birds or jumpers, I go there but in the absence of obvious signs of fish, I just start trolling.
This is similar to how I used to fish for rockfish - e.g. I'd go to the appropriate habitat (rocky water) and start fishing. Over time, I learned that I could do far better if I drove around a bit looking for schools and then position myself up drift of the school and fish. E.g., I converted my plan from fishing the habitat to "hunting" for fish and then fishing them. So I'm wondering if the same idea applies to tuna. E.g. would I be better off if I just spent more time searching for fish or flocks of birds prior to deploying gear or is it more efficient to just start trolling? The potential advantage of "hunting" is that I can hunt at higher speed (20-30kts) than I can troll (6-8kts). The down side is that I'm not fishing while I'm hunting. What do you think is more efficient?
This is similar to how I used to fish for rockfish - e.g. I'd go to the appropriate habitat (rocky water) and start fishing. Over time, I learned that I could do far better if I drove around a bit looking for schools and then position myself up drift of the school and fish. E.g., I converted my plan from fishing the habitat to "hunting" for fish and then fishing them. So I'm wondering if the same idea applies to tuna. E.g. would I be better off if I just spent more time searching for fish or flocks of birds prior to deploying gear or is it more efficient to just start trolling? The potential advantage of "hunting" is that I can hunt at higher speed (20-30kts) than I can troll (6-8kts). The down side is that I'm not fishing while I'm hunting. What do you think is more efficient?