Dan’s Trip to Tuna Town
BY Dan Diodati
With the warming summer months comes a time when most men get to live out their wildest fantasies. No, not that fantasy. I'm talking about landing the North East angler's dream fish. The elusive Bluefin Tuna.
The 2022 season, North of Stellwagon bank and below the fingers of Northern Jeffery's has been one for the ages. It's like being thrown into a time machine and warping back to 2008. With reports of football tuna ( under 73 inches) coming in more consistently and the bass bite slowing, I felt the need to switch it up!
When we hosted our fishing fair, I scored a couple of Shimano TLD 30's with custom stand-up trolling rods for a smoking price ($130) to help me start my tuna game on my boat. As soon as I bought the reels, I gave them to Martha at Surfland to go through and clean them up. Thank you, Martha!
I picked up an additional set of TLD 30's, and thanks to a great day of tuna fishing with Capt Mike of Manolin Charters, I was inspired to build two custom rods for myself. I assembled two Rainshadow RCTB56H blanks using heavy-duty Fuji saltwater guides and an ALPS size 12 roller tip. With four trolling setups ready for action (on the cheap), it was time to load up on gear to catch these unicorns.
Trolling spreader bars is a long-time tuna tactic that has fallen by the wayside since the disappearance of football tuna in our waters in the past decade. Spreader bars generally work best with outriggers to help put more lures in the water and make a pattern of "baitfish" behind your boat. Sterling Tackle came out with a great product a few years ago called the Wide Tracker Bar. The Sterling Wide Trackers have built-in planer boards that will widen the spreader bars outside your wake, negating the need for outriggers. These have been a massive hit in Cape Cod and south the past few years. I picked up a few colors (Black, White, Zucchini, and Green) of the 9-inch squids to try out.
When you are on the hunt for Tuna fish, things can change in an instant. These fish will blitz on bait balls and surface feed like nothing you've ever seen. I wanted to be prepared for this situation, so I kept two additional rigs on the boat. One is an incredible 30-60 rod from Ledgelife tackle. I say incredible because it has a soft tip but enough backbone to bring up six haddock at once, a halibut, or even a smaller bluefin tuna. For this situation, I slapped on a Seigler LG with 50lb power pro, a 50lb fluoro leader, and a single Mustad 8/0 demon 3x circle hook. My primary focus was to use this combo as a pitch bait set up to toss a mackerel into should I run into an epic feed. The second setup is another rod that I have turned, it's a Blackhole Challenger 7' Heavy blank outfitted with a Shimano Saragosa 18k, 80lb PP w a fluoro leader. For this particular trip, I tied on a Nomad Sinking Riptide in a mackerel pattern. On to fishing!
I left the dock around 2:00 in the afternoon. Later than I wanted, I'm an opportunist, and when the opportunity presents itself, I'm fishing. It was a calm afternoon on the water, and I zipped out to the 180 line with a plan to troll north off of Hampton and double back in shallower water until I found life. Somewhere between Salisbury and Hampton, I began to troll the spreader bars at 5.6-5.8 mph. I trolled north for about an hour until I passed over some structure. With little life to be seen, I decided to take my turn in and head back along the ledge line to see if I could find anything swimming along the depth change. At around 3:30 PM, the white bar started screaming out. Fish on! The lack of visible life in the area proves that a blind squirrel can find a nut.
I kept the boat in gear as the fish dumped the spool down to the backing so my buddy Derek and I could clear the lines. Once the lines were in, I grabbed what I like to call the "dick saver" and started to work the Tuna in. I prefer the "dick saver" with light gear instead of a fighting belt since we use around 10-12 pounds of drag. I don't even own a belt. As I fought the fish, Derek quickly cleared the deck, so we had room to work. Let's face it, my 21 ft boat has excellent deck space, but it's not exactly a dance floor when you are working in a high-pressure situation.
The “Dick Saver” is actually called the “Cush it”
The feeling of that fish pulling line and stretching the 80lb mono is such a rush of adrenaline it can be hard to describe in words. It was a game of give and take for a while. The time seems to fly, but it's incredible how long it can take to bring in one of these fish. The fish tried to get crafty and go under the boat. This was Derek's first experience with Tuna fishing, and he was steering the ship perfectly while I went toe-to-toe with the beast. We had some scares with the fish running towards the engines or under the boat, but Derek is the man. He kept calm and focused and drove the boat like it was his 1000th Tuna. You have to be able to make split decisions and can't let the adrenalin mess with your judgment.
As I gained line, I looked down and saw the bird on the spreader bar. If you've never experienced it, it's in this moment that your life changes forever. Through the dark green water, you start to see the blue, yellow, and silver shimmer and a giant eyeball staring up at you. We have color! It's like seeing a ghost. You hear people talk about them, but you have no idea what it's like until you live it for yourself.
With the fish at the side of the boat, he decided to do one last pull of about 15 feet and pinwheel from the port to starboard. On the final crank, Derek laid a perfect gaff shot right behind its eye and plopped the 50" beast on the deck. The fish estimates to be about 80lbs. After some celebratory banter, we quickly had the bars back in the water, looking for more. Once set, I began to dress the fish.
I removed a gill plate, cut around the anus, then pulled his guts through the gill plate for a fast and effective dressing. With its insides returned to the ocean, I used the raw water wash down to clean the deck and rinse out the fish. We got her on ice and then headed home with a win!
If you have never recreationally fished for Tuna this is the time to start!