Long tail tuna on soft-plastics

[The BeaR]

Well here goes our first fishing report.

Up early to be at boat ramp by 5:00am.
Headed out to the close reefs off caloundra for a spot of reef fishing with soft-plastics.
A truly magic day, no swell, no wind, couldn't ask for a better day.
Got to our destination, travelled around for about 8 miles and found no bait and no fish It was turning out to be a good day on the water instead of a good day fishing.
Seeing as there was a lack of activity we decided to head back into the main shipping channel off Bribie as on the way out we noticed a few birds working the area.
To our delight when we got back in there were a lot more birds working and......under those birds......Long tail tuna
This is a report for those who enjoy chasing these terrific fish as they were everywhere today.
We fish solely soft plastics for these fish as we personally have found it more successful.
Here are photos of three fish out of eight ranging from 7kg to 15kg taken on The BeaR S10-H.


Eric&Deb

[ActiveAnglerCrew]

Hi Eric,

Those are some hefty long tail tuna mate.

Glad the tuna liked the pink man :P

Great photos Eric and thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Active Angler Crew.

[Beevor]

Eric and Deb.......

That's flippin awesome

Solid fish, and snaring 'em on Placcies is kewl as

[adidaspeteman]

NICE!

[Rob Pirie]

Well done Bear great pics , were you trolling or casting for them. Can you give me a bit more info on the actual technique you used .

Rob

[tagnbrag]

Those are serious Stick Baits !

What brand are they ?

I am figuring the technique is cast, let it sink a while then crank like mad?

Cheers

Wayne

[Stu]

I'm guessing cranking them back hard would entice the strike. Tuna get fired up by what looks like fleeing and/or wounded baitfish

[TinarooTriumph]

Some great shots there mate! Top work!

Theo

[The BeaR]

Hey Rob....
I only cast and retrieve for these fish.
There is two techniques:
The first one involves the bubblegum lure, which by the way I find to be the best colour. It is a 6" Gene Larew Salty Slugger and has an excellent action in the water. You can use them unweighted but I choose to put 3/8oz 5/0 jigheads with them. For the most part, if the fish are feeding in a school, all you have to do is cast into the school, it generates enough tail wobble with the weight to attract the fish almost instantly. We were getting hook-ups as soon as it hit the water. If the Tuna are actively feeding on the surface, there is no need to let your lure sink, just wind it back at a medium pace.
We use daiwa certate reels that have 4.7:1 ratio, this will give you an indication that we are not winding these back very quickly at all. This lure is also a great lure for off-shore reefs and Snapper.

The second technique:
Using the same jighead, we put on a 3" atomic jerk minnow in a pearl white/light blue, code "PWL". This is a translucent bluey colur lure that actually lights up in the water which in my opinion looks very much like the little flying fish that Tuna absolutely love. This is the only reason I can think of that makes this lure work as well as it does. The technique for this one is quite slow. All you need to do is jerk the rod tip 8-10" at a time and wind the slack out at the same time, this creates a very erradic action in the water which long tail and other species of tuna seemingly can't resist.
I do not high speed spin Tuna anymore because the effort outweighs the reward. In my opinion, the effortless style of soft-plastics fishing with its increased catch rate, my high speed spin tackle won't be coming fishing with me again.

Wayne... I hope the above answers your query also.


Eric&Deb

[yellafella]

great fish bear

cheers chris