Southern Bluefin Tuna on Fly Ten Years in the Making! Tim ‘Tunny’ Johnson
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s you progress in fishing inevitably we start looking for more challenges. Most of us start off soaking a bait, then progress on to hard body and soft plastic lures or move on to the fly rod where hunting the fish is more of the thing as opposed to the sit and wait mentality. For me one of the biggest challenges is chasing big saltwater fish on a fly rod. If you really want to take the challenge from the sublime to the ridiculous, try catching big saltwater fish on a fly rod under the International Game fishing Association (IGFA) rules. Fishing News - Page 26
Fly Rod and IGFA - A tough gig Everything is in the fishes favour when fishing IGFA rules, from using a rod that resembles a big noodle, a reel that is only 1:1 retrieve, having a leader that’s only 30cm long to stop the fish biting or wearing you off, and a maximum tippet breaking strain of 10kg. Everything gives the fish the advantage, and that’s even before you find a fish! The boat must be out of gear when the fly is presented (so no trolling of the fly) and a harness cannot be attached to the rod while fighting the fish. When you finally get it alongside the boat after
surviving the battle, you must use a fixed head gaff to try and land it. With all these restriction as you can imagine success is a rare commodity, but that’s what makes it so worthwhile “If it was easy everyone would do it.” I’ve had a goal to land a southern bluefin tuna on IGFA fly tackle for about 10 years. Whenever we go out the fly rod is rigged, locked and loaded at the front of the boat much to my brother (the captains) disgust, as he’s not a fan of the wand. In my defence, I have had some success with hooking and landing tuna on the fly rod, but none of them were IGFA legal. I’ve come
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