Pacific Blue Fin Tuna NZ

[Lionel Korach]

Well it's almost time to start thinking about having a shot a Blue monster !! as most readers of the forums will be aware there is a new spot on the world gamefishing front. It harbours giant Bluefin Tuna some estimated at over 400kg with the biggest landed to date a small fish of around 280kg. The place is Greymouth in New Zealands south Island on the west coast, Greymouth is a small coastal port with access to the sea through a river bar, a very dangerous bar on it's day, however last year especially, put this tiny place well and truly on the map. The smallest fish I heard of landed was 168kg that sort of puts things into perspective. These massive Bluefin congregate to feed off the offerings of the Hoki Trawlers which work the area at this time of the year. The most common method of capture is trolling lures in beside these trawlers with squid immitations. Other methods have been tried with varying degrees of success. A good friend of mine was cubing one night into the early hours of the morning with the hope of raising some of the Blue monsters to the boat. At daybreak he fair crapped himself to see at least a dozen monsters accepting his cubes. He promptly placed a hook in a cube and feed it over the back, while some of the fish took an interest, the old mate surmised that the water was to clear and the fish were spotting the trace, this is something that can be rectified so I expect this method to be successful in the future. Most of the caught Fin battled on for between 3-6 hours sometimes 8 on 37kg gear, thats quite a serious battle. I understand that most of the charter boats are already fully booked for this year but with that sort of action I'm sure more boats will move into the area during the fin run. A good place to look would be with Captain Orchard at e-mail fvkoru@ihug.co.nz he will be able to advise firstly on the state of the fishery and availability of charters, conversly if anyone wants more information I am only to happy to help
Tight lines indeed....
Lionel

..........................
fish don't make mistakes !!

[PanamaJack]

Many Thanks for submitting that update Lionel. There's also a great article on that fishery in the Feb/March edition of the Australian Bluewater Boats & Sportsfishing. It sounds an incredible fishery. And the fish are real brutes - there's one tale of a fish estimated at over 14' long that two anglers fought for 11 hours in total only to lose it when, with the crew holding the leader it snapped at the crimp!

In the North West Atlantic they still catch 'granders' - the biggest is still a 1496 pounder - but most of them are in relatively shallow water. The fish closes its mouth and zooms off. And they back the boat fast and, whilst it's recovering, with the boat on top of it, force it to run again. And that's repeated. They tire those fish quickly, often in less than an hour.

Bluefin in deep water though are a completely different proposition! I remember one of our members playing one on 80lb class tackle for 8 hours off the Azores before the line finally failed. And he made no impression on that at all. It just seemed to be swimming along with presumably the rest of the school.

But your point about their keeness of vision. The only Bluefin I've personally encountered was again off the Azores. We were 46 miles off shore where, on a bank, we came across a pinnacle 'topping' out in 19 fathoms (114 feet). Trolling Marlin lures around it a Bluefin, estimated at about 700lbs, came up and swam just to one side of my lure fished on the left flat line. After a while it lost interest and sank down.

We trolled around the pinnacle again and this time two came up. Competition! Suddenly one 'lit up' - and for anyone else reading this it's literally like turning on a light bulb, they're a vivid electric blue - and charged that lure. I was so convinced we'd get a hook up, but it 'missed' it by 2'. I'm sure though that was quite deliberate. Perhaps it was looking for a response from something it had never encountered before?

After all the excitement though I have to admit there was an element of relief - we were only 200 yards from very deep water, 2400' plus.

When I've chunked for Yellowfin off Ascension Island, and friends have similarly fish for Bluefin off Italy in the Mediterranean, we always use relatively light flurocarbon leaders and, for the size of the fish, small - albeit triple strength - hooks.

And I remember one occasion when we had a singleton around the boat, mopping up every chunk, we were forced to 'dap' the bait on the surface - no leader in the water - and just a single piece of chum next to it. That 70lb Yellowfin came from under the boat and took both bits - his downfall!

But even with competition from several fish they do seem, on occasions, to be able to detect the difference between the free falling chunks and the ones with hooks in. They obviously fall at a different rate and are 'avoided like the plague'.

It's challenges like that though I guess that keep us fishing?
Dave

[Lionel Korach]

To true Dave !! during the Yellowfin season when conditions are right we do a heck of a lot of cubing and livebaiting, cubing in particular is a very effective method of capture, we don't generally use a trace just tie hooks directly onto the mainline for yellowfin, obviously this negates the need for other terminal tackle such as swivels and heaveir mono trace line. While we do get bust of occassionally it is a bit of a rarity. The biggest challenge I see with adopting the same method for Bluefin is the sheer size of those beasts I can't see this method working although I know there is quite a bit of tackle available now which will help ie. the invisible trace lines etc. the next issue will be getting the cubes to drift naturaly. We have experimented with different sized cubes and indeed drifting whole skip jack fillets here in lies the answer me thinks...
all the best Lionel

[PanamaJack]

Hi Lionel
At times, when the unbelievably huge shoals of Scad fry - 'google eyes' - are off Ascension the Yellowfin are there in real numbers. And they even catch them drifting a deadbait, under a balloon, off the beach.

Whilst they tend to shoal in similar sizes ranges though once in a while the unexpected happens. One evening, whilst anchored on a drop off, we were catching small fish in the 25 to 40lb range. OK they pull, but no real fun on the boat's 50lb gear. So I put out my 16lb outfit and something, slightly bigger, took!

It probably rejoined the school and, despite maximum drag pressure, it got dangerously close to the anchor rope. So we had to cast off, leaving our chum trail and the other fish, and chase it. An hour and three quarters later, and I'd forgotten all about the pre-sets. Once those fast runs have stopped, and you're just slugging it out, I just wind the drag up until the line sings, then back off a fraction. You just have to be very quick it another run develops.

Any rate I'd finally, by short pumping, started to make a limited impression on it. In fact Marty, the Kiwi crewman, had even broken out one of the gaffs. But then, of course, the inevitable, the line gave up!

I don't think it was overly large. But whereas 5 to 1 on a light tackle Tuna is about right - sporting - 10 to 1 is next to impossible - although once in a while someone succeeds.

They do get 300lb plus fish off Ascension. But, further up the West African coast - the same run of fish - they've had them up to 385lbs. And there're stories of fish way more than 400lbs being hooked up.

We've also, on Marlin lures, once had abortive strikes from what we were convinced were Bluefin. But a friend of mine, who has access to commercial records, felt certain that they were huge Bigeye Tuna. He reckonned that commercially they'd had fish in the 5 to 600lb range - way over the line caught world record.

Unfortunately now, in the Gulf of Guinea, particularly the smaller fish are being targeted with drifting FADs. And, of course, it's not just local boats.

Still back to the Bluefin. It really is a challenge, trying to fool them. The Skipjack fillet's an interesting approach. I'd be interested to see if it works. Sometimes they just appear pre-occupied on one food source - the chunks - just like Trout. It's odd because with their fast metabolism you'd think they'd eat anything.

I remember my friends' frustration when they had a big Bluefin come into their chum trail off Italy, in the Mediterranean. They were free-lining sardines and had floating baits out as well. But he'd eat all of the 'free' offerings of sardines - two box fulls - without ever being tempted by one of the baits. They'd even tried adding polystryrene into the bait's mouth to make them to slow down their rate of fall, and make them sink more naturally. No fooling this fish though!
Dave

[Lionel Korach]

Iteresting stuff Dave it's comforting to know that regardless of the territory the challenge remains the same and why I think these types of forums are very useful.
The first time I ever tried drifting a whole skip jack fillet was out of sheer frustration, I had been trying to cube but was getting cleaned out by the resident sooty shearwater birds. So consequently from a tip I had recieved by a good friend of mine , we increased the size of the cube thus making it harder for the birds to swallow, and it worked, fillet sized baits were getting nailed !! by what were quite good sized fin up to 50 odd kgs s. The other thing is drifting a larger bait will decrease the effect of the drag from the line , and it will appear more natural, if you get my drift

[Ravelling Tangler]

wonder if skipjack fillets would work off Donegal (Ireland) ?