66 Keith Allen Drive, Sulphur Point Marina, Tauranga 3110.
Ph: 07 578 6203
www.tsfc.co.nz
WORDS AND PHOTOS:
PETE MCGREGOR, BONZE LURES
GRAPHIC:
GLENN KIPLING
fea ture
It’s time to get ready. If those pesky southern bluefin tuna turn up off the East Cape again round June this year, you will need to be ready at the drop of a hat to head off to Waihau Bay to tackle them. 2018 was a bit of a flop after the outrageously successful and exciting 2017, but who knows, they may be back close in again in 2019. So, let’s look at preparation of both your boat and your tuna set up, so you can take full advantage. I have enlisted the help of Graeme Fleet from Bonze Lures to assist me in preparing these plans.
Bluefin tuna are an exciting prospect for big game anglers. Not least because they were, until recently, something that trailer boat anglers were unlikely to come across or catch. They are a deep water, fast current migratory fish which have very small stomachs in comparison to their size. Consequently, they need to feed constantly. Their relatively short bodies create immense speed and power. They travel in packs, so the likelihood of multiple hook-ups is high, but more about that later.
BOAT PREPARATION
Cape Runaway is the closest point at which deep
water comes to New Zealand’s North Island shores. Commercial fishermen have known of this hotspot for tuna for years, but only recently have trailer boat anglers cottoned on. There is a trench there about 11 nm off the cape where the water depth drops to 1000 metres, and it continues on down, so that a further 10 nm out it reaches 2000 m. This is tough territory with tremendous currents and potentially strong winds, so fishing there is not for the faint-hearted.
While weather conditions were relatively benign for us in 2017, I spent two days there in the (so- called) 2018 season, and each day returning to base at Waihau Bay was tough, especially our
www.bayfisher.co.nz | 29 second day when it took two hours with large
standing pressure waves creating seas that regularly crashed up over the boat windscreen to the cabin top, all the way in to Waihau Bay. You need a hardtop. It was a relief when the Surtees finally pulled in to the Waihau Bay Sport Fishing Club haven.
Preparation of your boat is essential. It goes without saying that you need to have a very reliable motor, lifejackets and VHF radio. An EPIRB is also a good option. I carry two, one fitted to the boat and another fitted to me.
Fuel is also an issue. There is a 24 hr pay-by- card bowser at Waihau Bay, but it is very close to the launching ramp, and getting to it can therefore be a problem as you have to wait in the launching queue for access. The first day we were there in 2018, there were 188 boats out! You will need lots of fuel on the boat. If you find the fish are at 1800 m depth, it’s a long way to that point — you may even find yourself alternating between 1000 m and 1800 m and then there is the long slog back — so take heaps. I have just fitted an auxiliary fuel tank in to the underfloor wet locker in the Surtees to augment my main tank, especially for trips like this, but I will still be taking an extra can on board as well. You could look at driving the half hour winding trip back
along the Coast to the next closest
service station, but just be aware -- the Waihau Bay fuel bowser actually ran out on the day of 188 boats.
Launching fees are $5.00 payable either on line (https://waihaubayfishingclub.co.nz) or at the ramp, or join the Waihau Bay Sport Fishing Club for $83.00 per year. They provide a tremendous service and a top-class launching ramp.
Make sure you have adequate food and water on board, along with warm clothing, heaps of warm clothing; it can get very cold.
Speaking of cold, it will also be very cold in your accommodation as well. Some guys sleep on their boats overnight to get an early start.
As with a lot of game fishing, the change of light is a good bite time, so be prepared to get on the water early. It will be pitch dark and with so many boats around you, it may be quite stressful. If you use a spotlight on your boat, do so sparingly and please be aware that you will not be popular shining bright lights about, as it effectively wipes out night vision for others and they will not be happy. Better to station guys on the boat to act as your guides or lash out on a FLIR scope.
Invest in a wash-down pump or a good bucket.
ABOVE: The author hooked up to a lively tuna.
BELOW: Last years pink squid teaser lure rig easily seen here.
In working with your tuna, you will find they discharge a huge amount of blood.
Buy heaps of salt ice and put it in the boat the night before departure. The pub at Waihau Bay sells salt ice, and serves very good meals.
DREDGES AND TEASERS
Tuna love top water splashy things. Graeme says a dredge is not essential, but he likes to run one nevertheless. It cannot hurt and may be that extra added ingredient for your boat. You are not losing any lure positions by running one as long as you use a dredge pole. I ran one in 2017 along with a Volcano teaser chain plus a floppy, squiddy thing with two birds on it as well. This last teaser made a huge surface splash, and we hooked a double shortly after it was deployed.
If you are running a dredge, consider putting a bypass safety leader round the dredge weight.
Graeme suggests that everything you run should have a rigged lure on it, except for the dredge. His reasoning is:
• Tuna are very shy of leaders and running a teaser / lure combination effectively disguises the leaders.
• Nothing is wasted. Tuna will probably attack in a pack and will attack everything they see, so the more lures in the water the better.
• There is nothing worse than losing a lure head from the end of a teaser chain because it had no hooks in it as a fail-safe line stop.
Graeme doesn’t advocate using a Volcano teaser for tuna, again because it has no rigged lure attached.
LURES
Now the fun part begins. Bear in mind Graeme’s suggestion of combining a lure with a teaser.
This is not to say that you will not catch tuna just running lures alone. We certainly did in 2017.
But let’s look at some of Graeme’s suggested alternatives, all of which are designed so you can fight the fish with the teaser in place.
BIRD TEASER
This is a pretty robust gadget that creates a lot of splash. Combine it with a bigger angle-face lure (creating even more splash) and run it in the short shotgun position. While the Bonze one has been designed with inbuilt strength to cope with fighting a fish, most of the other ones on the market will need a backup bypass leader in case of failure. Run the lure round one metre maximum behind the bird.
THUNNUS SQUID CHAIN
This is a great option to run a lure from. Multiple in-line brightly-coloured squid create a lot of surface commotion, and a lure is added close to the last squid. So again, only a very short leader to the lure — about the same length as the gap between the squid elements. Use a bullet or cut- face lure. Run the rig in the short corner position THUNNUS PRO SPREADER BAR
Run this fellow either on long corner outside the Volcano (if you are using one) or swap positions with the Bird teaser rig so this one runs in a short shotgun position right in the middle, relatively close behind the boat. It’s a bit of an awkward beast to handle, with so many elements to get tangled up on the boat, but once it’s running, it creates the most amazing effect and surface commotion, and it hides the leader. If you buy this rig already fitted with a DLB Bullet lure, don’t forget to remove the hook guards from the hooks. (I caused some amusement for my fishing buddies on the second day when these little plastic bits were noticed still attached to the hooks.) I can also advise that it pays to unwrap and remove all twisty ties from the rig before you get anywhere near the boat. It was a good twenty minute exercise to get it ready to deploy because I hadn’t attended to that previously.
Graeme told me that the spreader bar is the most effective rig for tuna when he fishes in the States where the tuna don’t normally take lures.
Over there, they tend to get two bite times a day when the tuna school up to feed. When the spreader bar is deployed, they get more multiple strikes, with fish taking not only the spreader bar lure, but others as well, when they are deployed.
It definitely seems to excite a more committed and aggressive strike. Hopefully that will apply here as well.
For the balance of your spread, run small splashy lures like the Bonze Merlin or D Shackle on the short and long riggers. Don’t be afraid to run a full spread of five, or even six, lures if you have the ability to do so. Run your short and long corner lures via the close-in position on your outriggers, that is, all four rods running from the outriggers (see diagram). This gets the lures out away from your wake, and creates a gap behind the boat to run a close-in teaser / lure shotgun, and maybe a second shotgun lure way out the back.
Graeme suggests that as another option you could look at running a lure with a paravane to
Pete’s tuna spread.
Bonze Thunnus Pro DLB Spreader Bar.
Bonze - Thunnus Squid teaser rig - note lure has similar colours to teaser.
Bonze Thunnus Pro Bird Teaser.
www.bayfisher.co.nz | 31 The author with a stunning
bluefin tuna.
Both teaser lure combos can be seen in this shot.
Note the green spreader lure running behind the volcano on left of photo.
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create a diving lure on the short corner
Fit your lures with a pair of size 8 or 9 stainless closed-gap steel
hooks for holding power, with only a short gap between the hooks. Shorter than is normal for marlin. This gives more chance of hook-ups. Use a 300 lb leader for lure / teaser combinations with 200 lb being normal for unaccompanied lures.
Run your drag at 8 kg and troll at between 6.5 and 7.5 knots. You cannot troll the lure / teaser combinations too fast, or they will continually pop out of the rigger clips and even pull line off the reel. Graeme recommends establishing a motor speed (revs) that give you 6.5 knots, and leave the motor at this speed even when running against a tidal rip. While your speed over ground (SOG) will drop, the speed relative to water remains the same. Most strikes will come from fish swimming with the current. They are chasing baitfish that cannot swim against the current.
The best bite will be at the change of light early or late in the day.
Remember, tuna are not like marlin. When they take a lure, they will go down. They will not go racing off towards the horizon chewing up metres of line. They will not dash away on the surface towards the bow of the boat. You are in control. If only one lure is taken, just keep trolling for a wee while — tuna attack in packs, so chances are, you will hook more if you keep going a while. Though I would suggest that with three hooked up, it might be a good time to slow down.
You don’t need to turn the boat after you have fish on. Just keep moving at reduced speed until you get the gear in. Then stop the boat and fight the fish. It’s easy enough to fight multiple
fish at one time because they will be below you.
Obviously, you must still watch carefully for crossed lines.
Once you have fish to the surface, you can leader and gaff the one you want to keep. Get a good fixed-head gaff like the one pictured and you might also like to get a hook remover (as pictured). These are great for tuna, but also good to keep on the boat for marlin and pesky sharks during the rest of the year. Note that the Waihau Club will only weigh one fish per boat. Releasing excess fish is a must.
These fish release a lot of blood, both in the water when gaffed, and in the boat after landing.
Some anglers use a plastic cover on the boat deck to catch the worst of this.
You should immediately bleed your fish. There is an excellent online video on the best method for doing this (https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=spBt-kNpfCw). Unless you are weighing the fish, consider cutting it up right there and then and getting it into the chilly bin on ice.
Certainly that’s what we will be doing unless we think we have a super-sized trophy fish.
You need to get your fish on ice as soon as possible to get the body temperature down. I cannot stress too much how important this is. I have had a large insulated fish bag made similar to those offered by Precision Pak for marlin. But I have had it made deeper than the marlin bag, specifically to accommodate tuna which have much deeper bodies. I have had pockets sewn in to the inner sides to contain ice. I also throw loose ice directly in with the fish. While I haven’t yet tried this bag on tuna, it certainly works well on marlin, even without ice. Dispose of carcases well out to sea.
I hope this gives you some ideas, and sparks your enthusiasm to get in amongst these great fighting fish. Let’s hope there is a run this year.
Please remember to be respectful of the local community while you are in their wonderful part of New Zealand.
TOP TO BOTTOM:
An early start is imperative.
A sea of boat lights in Waihau Bay at 5am.
A fixed head gaff is important.
Hook remover - Tuna sized!
You can end up a long way from shore but there is pretty much always company.
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