Jumbo Fever – Bluefin — Kelly Hunt

Jumbo Fever

by Kelly Hunt

Yes, here we are again — heading into yet another Tasmanian Bluefin season. It’s funny to use the word season nowadays as Jonah Yick wrote recently he has caught a Southern Bluefin every month of the year in Tasmania. This is an amazing feat for any angler and I doubt there is a line-up of people who have managed to do tick that off. Bluefin seems to be in our waters all year but there is no denying that from the end of March right through to May, the numbers of fish and their size increase. So for all intent and purpose, it’s bluefin season!

Preparation

We need to prepare our fishing gear and our minds for that fish of a lifetime, that 100-kilo fish that happens along and smashes a lure in our spread. If you do not pay attention to a few details then this fish will not only be lost but could cost you some money. A fishing outfit not set up to handle a Jumbo Bluefin tuna can cost you over a hundred dollars pretty quickly. Lures and leader materials are expensive, decent swivels and a wind on leader add up and if you get spooled you have thrown the money away you used to fill the spool with mainline. So what can we do now it is big fish season and we have a case of jumbo fever, is prepare. Prepare and be ready for that big strike and long first run that is unmistakably a “GOOD FISH”

Reels and rods have been debated for this task for a hundred years and will continue to be argued forevermore. The one constant that you need to be aware of and understand is for a fish to be caught you need to stay connected. You can be connected to a Jumbo Blue on an egg beater reel with 15 kg braid and a rod under-gunned for the task. The percentage of probability of staying connected and landing that fish or getting it close enough for a photo is greatly reduced but not impossible.

Ideally, you should fish at this time of year for Bluefin tuna with an overhead combination of some sort that can handle 24kg line in some way shape or form. That’s 50lb in the old vernacular and is a pretty good starting point to raise the probability of success tenfold. You could if you wanted purchase a 50 wide Penn International and a rod to match, fill it with a 37 kg mainline and be just about unbeatable with the right technique. But, you have to stay connected and that comes down to what I call the one-percenters. Line quality and condition is crucial. Also, you must be aware that the knots you use and the way you rig your gear is of paramount importance. You can spend a fortune on a five rod spread to catch Jumbo’s, but if you don’t stay connected you are wasting your time and a lot of money.

Lining Up For Jumbos

STREN monofilament is as good as it gets and is of excellent quality. I have personally put it to work for over 10 years and I would have no qualms to suggest it as a starting point. I don’t like to mention it too much as it haunts me to this day, but some years ago I tortured some 24kg STREN for over 8 hours on a fish. We fought that fish well into the night and at one stage I had backed the drag off and held the drum spool while I increased the drag pre-set on the fly. This was later scaled to be 17kg on sunset position when the lever was pushed right up. That line made noises pinging off the reel drum I will never forget.

Leader material is open to discussion with your fellow anglers, but again I have a favourite of mine and when game fishing I love the products from

Stu Smith with his son Campbell learning all the tricks and techniques early. MOMOI. My favourite for the last 5 years or more is the pink fluorocarbon line HI Catch NEO. It is quite supple and very easy to handle whether knotting or crimping. It also comes in a wide range of breaking strains and spool sizes. While we touch on knots and crimping I will stop now and try and drum this into your minds. In staying connected to a big bluefin tuna “THE” most important thing is the quality of your knots and crimping or terminal tackle. No matter if you have an egg beater reel you use for deep dropping tiger flathead or an expensive flashy overhead. If your knots and crimping are not up to spec you will fail nearly every time. Knots need to be understood and well-practised. Some can be a little confusing and if you are new to the whole game they are all confusing. There is however no excuse because there are hundreds and hundreds of YouTube tutorials that will help you choose what knot is for you and how to tie it. You just need to find someone you can understand and listen to easily and watch it over and over, practising over and over until it is second nature and you can tie them in your sleep. In game fishing, you will need to learn how to tie a leader and in breaking strain over 10 kg there is no other knot than the Aussie Plait. There will be a heap of argument and screams of “what about the Bimini twist” My opinion is that it is not the top of the tree when it comes to line over 10 kg breaking strain and several big names in the game fishing business agree. So find a video and practice it. It’s quite simple, but like all knots, you can be all thumbs when you first

learn, but in no time you will be doing them at will. The next knot you will need to master is the CATS PAW, again, this is very simple but will need to be watched a number of times and practised to get right. You would use this knot to attach a snap swivel to the double you have created or to attach a wind-on leader to that same double. If not using a wind on you can have a much longer double knot in your rigging layout as there are rules in competition game fishing around the total length of double knot, wind on leader and lure leader. If I was recreational fishing with 24kg mono my double would be four metres long and I would use a wind on leader straight out of the packet. You would then have a short lure leader allowing you to play the fish right to the rod tip allowing the fish to be gaffed or handled with ease. Having a long lure leader will have the snap swivel on the wind on leader wound up into the eye of the rod causing damage to both rod eye and leader. Neither will be apparent in the heat of the moment and go unnoticed until that is sometime later when the eye fails on the rod due to the ceramic or roller falling on the deck leaving the metal frame of the eye to torch the mono until it snaps. Leaving everyone wondering “Oh, I wonder what happened there?’’

Crimping

There are some good practices to gain from rigging your own lures and it makes you accountable. While it may be easy to have the store rig them for you and you have always done so. You should teach yourself and have the confidence to do your own. Given time constraints in a tackle store, they may often do what is quick and easy and gets the job done. Doing them yourself and knowing why you do certain things is crucial in learning and gaining more experience and making you a better angler. YouTube is again your friend here as there are countless hours of lure rigging online. Neatness and no tag ends on crimps are crucial as this allows for things to go right when strange little things happen while out on the water hunting. And they will, lines will cross and run over each other and if you have a tag end or messy crimp it will hang up and get cut. This can happen not only if a fish is on the lure, but anytime there is a tangle or issue and you just don’t need this in your life. Hook spacing from the head is also crucial as it allows the lure to perform as it should. There are rules around hook placement for competitions so it pays to keep that in mind. Once you have the line and connections sorted out and your lures are rigged well you can address some other gear. Hooked up and losing line.

Get The Gear Ready

Run your hand over all parts of the rod from the tip down. Check to see all the eyes are free and moving if it is a roller style. A little Innox spray before you pack the rods in the boat and after you pack them away is a good idea. Check them for any damage and with ceramic eyes look for any sharp edges. The slightest knick or sharp edge will sever the line under pressure. Make sure your drag is free from grit and is smooth as it can be. Depending on the make and style of reel each drag is different but the overarching thing here is smoothness as it pays line out. Not much of an issue if the fish you normally catch are well under the breaking strain of your mainline. However, get close to the breaking strain of your line with a grabbing drag and you will have trouble. Even if you don’t break the mainline there is also the opportunity to snatch the hook out of a fish that has only just been hooked or have a bit softer mouth. The key to happy angling is also having an idea of where your drag is set. This is the whole point of the lever style drag systems of the overhead game reels. You can set the drag pressure using some scales and pre-set it for any given position. They also have inside a cam arrangement in the drag mechanism that increases the drag incrementally as you push the lever forward to a numbered position or the three positions of indent. Most reels of quality have a static click at trolling position, strike drag and what is known as sunset. This is a very old term that comes from having to decide to push that lever as far forward as it can go. This is the maximum drag pressure for the line class while still having a safety margin built-in. This would always be done on a big record fish as the sun started to go down and it was time to get real serious.

On a 50 wide overhead, like the Penn International series set up with 24 kg STREN, you would set the strike drag to 1/3 of the breaking strain of the line. That is eight kilograms and so the drag cam would come into play when the reel was on maximum drag or “sunset” This is a machined part inside the reel that ramps the drag tension to two-thirds of the line breaking strain and on 24 kg that is 16 kg. So even on maximum tension on the drag lever you still have a few things up your sleeve to help you win the battle. You have the eight kilograms of breaking strain up your sleeve and you have some stretch in the line if you are using monofilament. This is like a shock absorber if the fish goes for another big lunging run or you do something hand fisted at your end. Be mindful though. Once on maximum tension, you have taken a lot of the stretch out of the line due to having 16kg of drag pressure on the rod. So, conversely, on the fight or strike drag position at eight kilograms of pre-set drag pressure you have heaps of stretch and elasticity still in the line. Of course the more line you have out the more stretch you have as well. We have played with mono fishing line over the years trying to work out the ideal top shot for fishing 24 and 36-kilogram braid with mono top shots on top. We found that mono can stretch up to 25% but most were around 10 – 15%. So in a hundred metres, there could be between 25 and 10 metres of stretch.

If you can follow a few ideas I have over years of fishing and make sure you have a few of the onepercenters covered you should be in good stead to stay connected. Staying connected is the single most important thing to take into account. If you have tension and are tight on a jumbo bluefin on a 6500 PENN Slammer eggbeater and 15kg fully eyed rod or a Flashy Gold PENN Inter with all the rollers and fruit, you are still in the hunt. It doesn’t matter as it is all just a matter of time and how calm you can stay. If you are running out of line and the spool is emptying decide to move on the fish or chase it early. This means getting the boat ready so the angler can move from one side of the boat at ease. Clear everything off the deck that may cause an issue and even have a practice. If you are not used to fighting big fish it is best to have the angler in the port or starboard rear quarter. This gives the angler the most control and can fight the fish out the corner of the vessel. This allows a safety margin if the fish tries to go around the boat or back across the outboard. You will find a tuna will more often than not fight deep and be reasonably easy to control. If the fish gets too up and down on you and the line is too close to the boat, drive off. This is a term we use when fighting a fish and it lets the skipper know to circle about as the conditions allow and gets the line away from the boat. The other golden tip I can give you in fighting a big tuna is technique. You must have some idea of the mechanics of angling. It is easy to see that many do not when watching Facebook. This is no problem as it just comes down to experience. I can wind and cast both hands no problem and like to think I can put some good heat on a fish with good technique. However, shooting for a basket in basketball or kicking a football with my left foot is a mess. This all comes down to practice and starting with a good technique. Jumbo tuna are found in some incredible places.

Lift and Wind Down!

Game fishing has big reels that look strong and powerful so people think they are a winch. If not told or shown otherwise they think they just have to wind as fast and as often as they can and the fish will come in, this is not the case. Angling is about tiring the fish. It’s a competition between fish and angler and who gives in first. I may be a bit blunt here but it’s how I am at times. When a big tuna hits the lure and you get a sense it’s a good one take up the rod and wait it out. You see people trying to wind when the drag is screaming and this is futile. The fish is already paying line out and broken the rag tension point so placing more tension on is a complete waste of time. Stand up straight get some air in and get ready to battle.

If the deck is full of eskys and tackle boxes and any other clutter, start barking orders to someone to get it out from under your feet. Then once you are in the corner of the boat and have asked the skipper to keep the line off the rear quarter of choice, wait.

Wait for the fish to stop its initial run and as soon as it does wind on the handle and take up a bit of the slack. There will be some slack as the line will curve in the water and there will be line stretch when the fish stops or slows, so you must take that up and get some of the stretch out of the line. This is important if you do not want the lure to come out of the fish. A big fish can hit a lure hard enough on the strike, or during the fight, wear a hole in its mouth. Keeping tight will keep you connected and not allow that lure to fall out.

Now you have tension you are in an arm wrestle with the big tuna. When the fish is running and pulling tension you don’t need to wind and fight.

You are wasting energy. Much like in an arm wrestle against a bigger stronger opponent. It is better to hold the big man’s arm at a certain point over the centre than try to force them back over the centre. You are in a battle of body and wits here with the fish and you need to stay in the game and have some heart. All the while you must have a bend in the rod. If you have a bend in the rod when the fish has stopped running that is the name of the game. I tell my kids that having a bend in the rod is like making a fish run up hill. You must never let that fish rest. If you have a rest and the rod is not bent you are giving the fish a break and he is having a rest on you. Always have the idea in your head that you must make the fish run up hill and have the biggest bend in that rod while ever the drag is not paying out. When the fish is pulling drag and you are losing line. Stand up straight fill your lungs and get a rest. That fish is pulling between 8 -16kg of drag depending on your drag lever position so go for its life I reckon. Soon as it stops, get the line tight and work that fish back to you inch by inch. Foot by foot.

That is another misconception with big game angling. People think that when they wind they have to get metres and metres back at a time. Unless the fish turns and runs to you that simply won’t happen. You must PUMP and WIND DOWN. Pump the rod up to just past 45 degrees and with quick hand speed on the wind handle recover line as you drop the rod down to 15 degrees and repeat. You may only be getting a quarter to half turn on the handle, but they all add up. This is a good technique and you will be tiring that fish out as best you can. You will need to change your technique a little depending on the gimbal style or harness you have. Fingers crossed you have a good harness as they make life a damn sight easier on a big fish. Kelly ‘Hooch’ Hunt