Golden Explosion WITHOUT doubt one of the world s most iconic sportfish, yellowfin tuna invoke frenzied excitement in many anglers and for good reason. These are one of the hardest fighting fish you ll ever encounter. What s more, they reach serious sizes and can be caught via a wide variety of techniques, making them accessible to most sportfishermen.
If you want yellowfin, you either cube or troll, right? Not anymore. New gear and lures now allow keen sportfishermen to target tuna on top! DAMON OLSEN reports. MAIN: Yellowfin really like stickbaits, especially when trolled. In fact, they like them so much two at once try to eat them! INSET: Yellowfin, big or small, are great sportfish. Rat fin, like this litup little beauty, deserve the chance to grow up and become jumbos! IMAGE: DAMON OLSEN, NOMAD. IMAGE: ROSS HOUSBY, SPORTFISH VANUATU.
fishingworld.com.au May 2013 16 Having been fortunate over recent years to spend significant amounts of time in remote areas with prolific numbers of yellowfin, I ve been able to try a variety of non conventional methods for targeting these great sportfish. Catching quality yellowfin by casting poppers and stickbaits, trolling divers and skirts and jigging has proved extremely popular and effective while also providing a whole lot of fun along the way. Just imagine an oily calm day on your favourite seamount or trench, purple water, great conditions, but the tuna are hanging deep. You can see them on your sounder, but they just aren t coming up to feed on anything you re trolling. You don t really want to spend half the day setting up a cube trail what do you do? Easy! It s time to get the biggest popper you can find and start casting! The first time you see a 40kg yellowfin explode on your popper, you re immediately addicted there s simply no way to describe that golden explosion and the powerful charging run that follows. Popper fishing and other techniques we ve seen prove effective on yellowfin IMAGE: CHRIS YU. ABOVE RIGHT: Casting big poppers in deep water seems like a crazy way to target tuna, especially if they re down deep, but it definitely works. ABOVE: Casting stickbaits into surface feeding schools of yellowfin just about guarantees a hook up. LEFT: Laura Tolmay with a solid school fish caught during a troll session in Fiji. tuna in the Coral Sea are equally applicable to any seamount, trench or coastal drop off where yellowfin are known to frequent. Some of these methods are a little counter intuitive, and when first tried may leave you wondering as to the condition of your mental health. Casting poppers in 200m+ for yellowfin really? Oh yes! IMAGE: RILEY TOLMAY. Popping So why bother casting poppers for yellowfin when you could troll for them, or cube them up? Aside from the fact that it s ridiculously good fun, it is actually a very effective method. There s something about yellowfin and poppers, they just seem to love the noise and commotion created by a popper on the surface, and it can draw
17 Surface Fishing For Fin IMAGE: NOMAD SPORTFISHING ADVENTURES. them up from great depths. It s worth discussing what to look for and the when, where and why of popping for yellowfin. Yellowfin tuna move fast, and they feed throughout the water column throughout the day. Most fishos who troll for marlin will notice that certain areas around seamounts, trenches and other oceanic structures that cause upwellings will have tuna, and particularly birds, hanging around that general area. The tuna won t actually come up and feed on top all day; they only come up at certain times. The birds, your eyes in the sky, will be hanging in the areas where the fish regularly bust up. Use this fact to your advantage when popping. As with all tuna, the birds are generally the key. Use your sounder to find the fish once the birds have told you where to look. Once you know the tuna are in the area, you can start popping. We first started popping for yellowfin kind of by accident, and this method is pretty much standard practice now for us to catch big yellowfin. Using the following approach at your local seamount will work just as well as it did the first time for us at Frederick Reef out in the Coral Sea. We ll generally start trolling around the edge of the drop off or seamount with a mixture of skirted lures, large stickbaits and a deep diving minnow. You want to target the concentrated areas of upwellings, which depend on the current. These up-wellings can be on the up-current edge of a seamount, along the side walls, or on a kink on a drop-off. Use the birds to find these locations, they ll often sit on the surface, or be hanging around a general area of up-wellings and food. If you find a few smaller fish hitting the trolled lures, then stop and start popping and casting straight away. You ll often find that the bigger yellowfin that were hanging deeper will come up and smash the popper. You need to keep an eye on the sounder when trolling, and mark any mid water shows of fish or bait, because if the trolling doesn t work, then these areas, along with where the birds are hanging, are where you come back and start poppering. On a calm day, a yellowfin will have no problem charging up from depths of 100m+ to demolish a popper, so don t be worried about
fishingworld.com.au May 2013 18 fin hotspots Tuna Specialists AS mentioned in the main article, popping and stickbaiting will work anywhere yellowfin are prevalent. Along the east coast, known tuna locations include Mooloolaba, Coffs Harbour, Sydney, Jervis Bay and Bemagui. Each of these areas, and many other tuna ports, boast professional charter services which, depending on season, can put you onto fish. Further afield, the Coral Sea and Pacific islands can provide superlative tuna fishing. Contact Nomad at nomadsportfishing.com. au or 1800 021 014 for details on options available at remote reef systems east of Queensland. Overseas, Ross Housby and Samantha Vale operate Sportfish Vanuatu out of the Wahoo Bar in Havannah Harbour. Vanuatu is well known for producing excellent tuna fishing. Check out sportfishvanuatu.com.vu for details. And in Fiji, another fin hotspot, Adrenalin Fiji offers sport and gamefish charters targeting tuna and a host of other prestige species. See www.adrenalinfiji.com for details. By Fisho editors. seeing them down deep on the sounder. We would usually work any part of a drop off for maybe 10-15 minutes drifting and see what happens. If no fish come up, then keep moving around. We often position ourselves along the edge of a seamount, just on the really deep side so you are kind of casting over the drop off, and then just do a drift, with the often 2kn+ of ocean current, along the edge of the seamount. This can prove very effective, and often with no birds in sight, and no bait or fish on the sounder you ll often find a cruising 40kg yellowfin just appears from nowhere and demolishes your popper. The key to popping for yellowfin, in terms of location, is to put yourself in a position where you think the fish are hanging, even if it s really deep down, the popper will bring them up. Then it s just a matter of drifting around that area until it happens. Of course, casting poppers into schools of surface feeding fish is going to work wonderfully well, and be heaps of fun, but the point of what we re discussing here is that you don t need to see the fish on the surface, or even near the surface to catch them on poppers! Stickbaits Cast or trolled, large stickbaits are absolutely deadly for yellowfin tuna. In terms of trolling lures, there are not many lures they like better than a big 200-250mm long stickbait swimming and skipping along behind the boat. Big stickbaits, such as the 150 and 200 Dogtooth and Ulua timber stickbaits we use, will outfish most other lures for yellowfin, because of the erratic action they have on the surface. The right stickbait, when trolled, will swim a little under the surface, then skip along the surface in a crazy erratic S shaped manner, then duck back under the surface and swim again. It looks like a fleeing flying fish, and this is why it s so effective. All you need to do is troll these stickbaits just far enough behind the boat, usually 50-60m so that they get this erratic action. If there s only one thing you remember from this article it should be to use a stickbait, and the right one, when If conditions are right, and you know there are fish around, there s no need to invest time cubing for yellowfin. Big poppers will get them up from the deep.
19 Surface Fishing For Fin RIGHT; A sickle finned barrel! As well as being top sportfish, yellowfin make outstanding eating. Ensure you bleed and ice down any tuna you keep. FAR RIGHT: A classic shot of a happy fisho with a decent fin. If you hook up on the troll, belt a popper or stickbait out you might be surprised at the results. IMAGE: DEAN BUTLER. IMAGE: DAMON OLSEN, NOMAD. The first time you see a 40kg yellowfin explode on your popper, you re immediately addicted there s simply no way to describe that golden explosion and the powerful charging run that follows. IMAGE: DAMON OLSEN, NOMAD. IMAGE: DEAN BUTLER. Stickbaits and deep divers are well worth adding to your troll spread. Note the innovative hook arrangements? Trebles just don t cut it with big yellowfin trolling for yellowfin. Just one stickbait in the spread makes all the difference some days, and we certainly never troll without one. They just catch fish. Casting stickbaits for yellowfin tuna, and for big bluefin tuna, is something that is very popular with many anglers right now, however, it does generally involve finding schools of feeding fish on the surface and casting at, or in front, of the fish. This can prove a challenge on some days! Yellowfin love a stickbait cast at them when feeding, and it s a sure fire way to get a bite. The advantages of stickbaits are that you can use longer rods and lighter lines than you can with poppers, and you can therefore cast a stickbait a lot further, in theory, than a popper. Also, they are easier to retrieve. I don t think there s any doubt that for bluefin tuna, a stickbait works best, but certainly for yellowfin I d have my money on a popper casting at feeding surface fish every day. That is not to say that stickbaits don t work, it s just that yellowfin seem to really love a popper. Divers & Jigs Deep diving minnows such as Rapala X-Raps and the River2Sea Downsider 200 minnows are great lures to troll in a mixed spread for yellowfin. Sometimes that extra depth does make all the difference, and as part of a spread of lures that you troll when looking for fish, something that dives down 20-30 feet should be standard. We d certainly never troll a spread of deep diving minnows only, but they re definitely worthwhile in the mix. And you never know what else you ll catch on these minnows. One of the most amazing catches I ve ever been involved in was a 900lb+ black marlin that ate the deep diving minnow on our 50lb stand-up rod. I have no idea how, but we tagged and released that fish, although we were never really in control. But it demonstrates the value of a deep diving minnow in the spread. Deepwater jigging for yellowfin tuna can be extremely effective, but you have to know where the fish are, and be jigging right on them. There are times when this is incredibly effective, but jigs simply cover the least amount of water of any of the techniques we ve discussed here. If you can see a school of fish on the sounder, then get the jigs into them and see what happens, but if you suspect the fish are moving around then a combination of trolling and casting poppers is a great way to go. Tackle & Rigs We ve found the best way to rig poppers for tuna is either a #10 or #11 split ring with something like a 9/0 Jobu off the tail and the belly, or with a swinging assist hook off the head of the popper and a large single on
fishingworld.com.au May 2013 20 Surface Fishing For Fin the tail. This method will ensure solid hook-ups and you ll rarely, if ever, have a large single hook pull on a big yellowfin with this rig. When casting stickbaits we ll often use a similar rig to the poppers, but without the assist hook on the head. Sometimes an assist cord on the tail hook is really effective, with no hooks on the belly at all. The assist cord just allows total movement, separate from the lure, and means there s no way that the lure might get in the way and twist or turn and dislodge the hook. Trebles for big yellowfin are simply a waste of time, and not worth the heartache of watching as hooks pull out on big fish under the boat. Not much more you need to know about trebles and yellowfin really The ideal popper rod for yellowfin is something very similar to a GT popper outfit, but loaded with lighter braid to allow more line capacity, and with a slower geared reel. When popping for fin the fights can be longer than with GTs, so having a slow-geared reel, such as a Stella 20,000SW, or even the as yet unreleased 30,000, is ideal. This is because you might have to spend a long time fighting the fish. A rod around 8ft in length with a fairly stiff tip is ideal, and matched with good quality 80lb braid you ll be able to get a good compromise between casting distance and fish fighting ability. We ve found something like a Ripple Fisher 79R as an ideal yellowfin popping rod as it is a good compromise between fighting and casting ability. There s also a school of thought that says a rod around 7 0-7 5 is ideal for this because the shorter rod makes fighting the fish much easier. This is a decision for each angler to make: longer rod means longer casts and harder fights, while a shorter rod makes fighting easier and distance casting a little harder. Where? There are endless options around the world in terms of locations for yellowfin, however, some of the biggest consistently seem to come from waters around Mexico. The scenarios we ve discussed here will work anywhere yellowfin live. Any seamount on Australia s coastline will generally hold yellowfin at certain times of year and the above-mentioned techniques will work equally as well here as they will in places like PNG, Frederick Reef in the Coral Sea Yellowfin and trebles don t usually mix but you can occasionally luck it. If you are targeting tuna with stickbaits or poppers, singles are generally best. and various seamounts in Vanuatu or Fiji. It s just a case of getting out there with a plan and having a go at something new, but, be warned, the first time you see a big fin explode on your surface lure you are going to be well and truly addicted! Damon Olsen is well known in sportfishing circles as the owner of Nomad Sportfishing Adventures, a premium charter operation which specialises in remote Coral Sea expeditions. IMAGE: ROSS HOUSBY, SPORTFISH VANUATU