Since my last write up drew a pretty good amount of interest, I’ve decided to do a few more tutorials and will have them completed hopefully by the time the tuna show back up. If you haven’t read my first write up, Norcal Bluefin Tuna Fishing 101, I recommend you skim through that one first, as I go through how I set up my gear. This write up will cover what I’ve experienced is the best way to get a Northern California Bluefin Tuna and Bigeye Tuna into the boat once you gotten your bite. Once again there’s many ways of doing this, but this has proven to be the most effective way for me.

The Bite

For those of you who salmon fish regularly, having the natural instinct to run to the rod instantly after a bite is ingrained into your blood. With bluefin there’s not a huge hurry to get to the reel until the boat stops. If your driving the boat when you hear that reel start to scream, smoothly back off the throttle to an idle to allow your drag to keep steady tension on the line, just remember a good reel operating within its normal range should produce a similar amount of drag on the line if your hooked up with the boat going 14 knots or stopped. If your closer line gets bit and your feeling lucky, keep the boat rolling for another 30 seconds and shoot for a double hook up, just watch your line capacity since its amazing how fast it can peel off at trolling speed. Typically you can just leave the rod in your rod holder until you need to go to the rail, which I go over later in this tutorial.

Since I have yet to get video of a bite, here’s a great video from some locals Dustin and Devin at D&D fishing who have a ton of killer videos. Notice how they slow the boat down in nice and steady. If you watch this video to where they gaff it, this its also a great example of how quickly things can get crazy for even experienced guys. I will go over why I now keep the boat moving later to help reduce the craziness, but you always need to be prepared for it when fighting a fish of this caliber and remaining calm and collected will go a long ways.

Getting the Fish Turned Around

This will be the first test of your gear. Tuna are incredibly hydrodynamic, allowing them to move through the water at high speed with little effort. A tuna will use this for their advantage if you let them, but you can also use it to your advantage if you have their head pointed toward you. Once you have your bite and the boat slowed down to just idling in gear, slowly start applying some drag, usually I troll my madmac at about 25lbs of drag, after I get a bite I will get situated on the rod and add 2lbs and wait about 15 seconds with my right hand on the handle ready to crank the second that fish stops. If the fish doesn’t stop after 15 seconds, Ill creep toward 28 to 30 lbs. Its going to feel and look like your running out of line, but in reality if you have the right gear you should have hundreds of yards left to work with, so be patient and most importantly be smooth. Just remember that your drag on the line increases as your spool size decreases so don’t cross that 30lb mark if your using 130lb line and your spool is half empty because you’ll actually be making closer to 50 or 60lbs. The test strength of braid is tested under perfect conditions, most will find if you put braid between knots or splices and pull in an uncontrolled environment that 50 to 80% of the stated line strength is realistic. There’s plenty of info online, but you really shouldn’t need to cross the 30lb mark on a half empty spool to even on a big fish if you have enough line capacity, so I don’t worry about those issues to much and run a little over geared. One of the reason I prefer to use 50s is that It gives you a massive amount of buffer without the need to forced the drag up on a running fish. Typically I am well under the 30lb mark when the fish turn and start swimming toward the boat, but in the case of the 250lb bigeye we hooked into, I was at 35lbs since we hooked it 50 feet from the boat so there was a lot of line left on the spool so you use your best judgement and don’t go to crazy at first.

Working Them Toward the Boat

This is the simplest yet the most tedious part of the fight. The fish is turned toward the boat, the excitement of actually being hooked up starts settling in and it will feel like your hooked up for hours. If your on the reel, You have one job, keep the line tight. I say it non stop to every client on the boat the entire time we are hooked up, and often people get so caught up in the moment the forgot the job. If your on the wheel, you can kick it into neutral temporarily for 5 or 10 seconds at a time if you want to gain some line make sure to let the guy on the rod know to get ready to reel, if you see the line getting loose make sure to get the boat back in gear instantly to prevent any slack in the line. You can keep it simple and leave the boat at idle especially if you have outboards that idle slow. Staying in gear might take a few minutes longer, but makes it easier to land the fish and most of the 6 packs down south stay in gear on kite fish, and I typically do unless I have the wind to my back pushing me extra.

Keep It Tight

Whatever happens on the boat, do not let any slack in the line for 3 main reasons.

1. The first and most important reason is that the hook can easily fall out, The longer the tuna is on the hook, the bigger the hole gets in its mouth, once this hole gets big enough, barbs don’t do much so if you let slack on that line the hook will slip right out of the hole. It can be amazing sometimes how easily the hook falls out when you gaff them, other times you need a saw to get it out but you don’t know until the end so its best to play it safe.
2. Reason number two and this applies to all tuna. You just went through all that work to get the tuna swimming toward the boat, he has a lot of fight left in him and is not tired because he’s just holding on for the ride as he’s gliding toward the boat at that point and actually replenishing his oxygen. The only thing stopping him from diving is his head is being forced in the direction of the boat. Think of it like pulling a big dog by a leash on hardwood floor vs a dog running away from you on a leash, on the hardwood floor they just scoot along smoothly with no traction, but if they get a chance to start running away from you they can use their strength to get traction onto the floor with their paws there’s not a lot you can do until they stop pulling. If you give the fish slack, he can easily get the second of freedom he needs to get his head pointed away from the boat and use that strong tail to pull another hundred yards off the reel.
3. Reason number 3 is related to the 2nd reason, when the tuna turns away from the boat the line often rubs on their body and worst case their tail. A tuna can beat their tail well over 120 beats per minute, acting like a saw against your line. This can result in what is commonly referred to as being Tail cut and why you should always have at least a fish lengths of mono/flouro while tuna fishing.

When guys switch on the reel make sure there is always someone ready to start reeling incase the fish makes a run toward the boat, It always happens when you least expect it good communication before the switch will help with this. After the switch to a fresh arm, you can click your auto pilot ( or yell at the guy driving) to turn a little bit toward the fish to gain some line, you want the fish behind boat, but a little to the side of the rod is ok, and you’ll gain some line quickly and a few degrees goes a long ways. As the fish gets closer you may need to turn toward or away from the fish harder, or switch sides as needed before it gets on the rail. Try to keep the fish directly off the corner of your transom. Never let the fish get close to being directly 90 degrees off your rail unless you are within gaff range, as it can and will circle into your motors. if you need more throttle to get ahead of the fish, then use it gently, with bigeye this is often required as they are extremely sporadic but some bluefin can be a real pain. I have a good video below using a lot of throttle on a stubborn fish.

Rail Time

If you have bent butt rods then do you don’t worry about this part as much, if your on a rail rod this is very important, If your on a standup rod, go buy another rod before you pull your shoulder or break your rod trying to use it on a rail. you can drop to first gear on your reel while on your rail, but be ready to reel like hell when the fish starts to head shake.

I typically switch to the rail when the fish is about 45 degrees or less down from the boat or I see wind-on/deep color. When you pull the rod out of the holder, remember how strong that fish is and the action of you pulling the rod our of the holder may trigger a run. You can expect 2 or 3 runs on a 150lb fish, sometimes they die easy, sometimes they do not. Every fish is deferent.

Its called the “rail” since the rods were are designed to be used on the large rail of long range boats in Southern California where rod holder don’t exist. The typical form is to tuck to butt of your rod into your am pit, grab the side of the reel with your left hand, and use your right hand to turn the lever. This can vary so find a form that’s comfortable and allows you to use your body weight to lift the rod tip. Some sport boats have the rail at the proper height, most don’t, for the Sorta Salty I had an simple rail assist pipe (RAP) made that works perfectly and slides into a rod holder when we need it and is out of the way when we don’t.

You can buy a very pricey RAP at Melton’s below, there are plenty of DIY options on the Bloody Decks and Coast Side Forums. I leaned the key is to place you RAP far from the motors to prevent the fish from circling into toward your spinning propellers.

https://www.meltontackle.com/rap-systems-rod-assist-pipes.html

Keep the Boat Rolling or Motors up?

With charters I now keep the boat rolling and circle the fish. But for a long time when we went to the rail, we would turn the motors off, tilt them up and fight the fish straight up and down in the death spiral. For those who haven’t tuna fished, the death spiral is when the tuna get on their side and swims in tight circles until their dead or they break off, its extremely difficult to move them and its when you need to use your heavy drag. I typically will add a click every 5 minutes on the rail or so, go by feel and if your aren’t making any head way add a pound, its a game of inches on the spiral starts. I often am working my way up to 35 or even 40 lbs on a stubborn fish, with 150lb wind on I don’t like crossing 45lbs, but our 250lbs bigeye required 55lbs to to get him to the boat after an hour and half, but we were using 300lb wind on, allowing us to be aggressive. In southern California we seemed to never have too much an issue going into neutral and in nor-cal we just stayed with it since it worked. After running into bigeye up in fort bragg this year, I will never stop the boat again for a tuna. I had to include this video from a client, Bob who recorded us fighting and landing a feisty little 120lb bigeye on undersized albacore gear that was the most hectic and stressful fish I’ve ever fought. With 60 albacore already being caught that day so it we were all tired and the boat was a mess. It shows exactly why I don’t stop the boat anymore as you can loose control of the situation quickly and have to chase the fish around, which makes for lot off potential issues. (YouTube wont let me embed it for some reason so you have to click the link )

https://youtu.be/1vnnZbzUAyM?si=Lfbbp_VUrl6uwg0w

Bigeye fight much hard than bluefin and their death circles are about 4X wider than bluefin, making that video a worst case example. If your lucky you can keep Bluefin from going into the death spiral, last year we landed a few fish in less than 15 minutes from bite to bag, simply swimming them up along side the boat before they even made a circle so you want to avoid the death spiral if you can, but ultimately the fish decides where it wants to go in the fight.

I want to include a video of what it should look when your in the death spiral. My boss for my other job, Will was deck handing for me that day and you can hear there’s some yelling but its clear communication going between him and I while I’m at the wheel and the chaos is limited. You can see I have the boat turned hard toward the fish, and use as little throttle as needed to keep the fish clear of the motors which can be difficult in this case as this was another hectic fish that took a lot to keep under control, Will was being very conservative on the gaff, which is good and Ill go over that later. In hindsight moving the rod toward the front of the deck at closer to a 90 degree angle and another 2 or 3lbs of drag (this fish is being fought at 34lbs) would have made this situation go a bit smoother. For the last 5 bluefin of the seasons, I was more aggressive on the drag and moved the rod up along side the rear helm, allowing me to see the fish while I’m driving the boat and keeping it away from the motors. But this shows another worst case scenario going a lot more smoothly.

The Gaff Shot

There’s no shortage of videos floating around YouTube of horrible gaff shots on medium size tuna taking guys overboard. I had to include one of my favorite below, of a medium size yellowfin turning down and taking this guy for a ride.

These fish are incredibly strong and if you put a gaff in them incorrectly they will wake back up and pull with unbelievable force and speed. A 50lb tuna can pull with nearly 100lbs of force straight down if their head is pointed that way. A 150lb fish can easily pull a several hundred pound man overboard if It gets the right leverage.

Make sure you have a good footing and the deck is blood/slime free. This video was going around 2 years ago so I figured I’d show it, everything was going right until the girl lost her footing. They could have waited another circle or two but the fish was in a position to gaff but her feet kicked out and she fell before the fish even pulled. She grabs another gaff right away and back to business which is easier said than done.

I highly recommend using Calcutta bamboo gaffs with a 3.5″ to 5″ hook, I make my own which is incredible easy do to. I also have a ton of good bamboo as of 2024 so feel free to reach out if your looking for some. Avoid using aluminum gaffs, as they snap very easily (speaking from experience). I’m scared to even have a carbon gaff of the boat for rockfish with the price tag of one, so Id avoid them unless you have a lot of money to burn.

I’ve been fortunate enough to never have a bluefin go crazy on the gaff, but I am also very patient and teach my deckhands to do the same. NEVER DIG THE GAFF MORE THAN 1′ BELOW THE SURFACE IF YOUVE NEVER GAFFED A BIG TUNA BEFORE. I let my deckhands get risky if they are confident, but they gaff several hundred lingcod and albacore per year deep down and have the accuracy that I have even lost over the past few years behind the wheel. It will be tempting but you want to wait for the right moment the fish hits the surface and looses all of its power. Also make sure the fish is not facing away from the boat, you will never out power a 200lb tuna and turn it back around unless you are incredibly strong and have a lot of faith in your gaff. You want the fish swimming toward the rail or the bow of the boat, and I’ll describe later where to put the hook into the fish.

If you have a 4 guys on the boat, have a guy with a gaff on each side of the person fighting the fish, if there’s only 3 of you, stick the guy with the gaff on the stern side of the rod since 90% of fish will be gaffed toward the back of the boat. Leave a 2nd or even 3rd gaff out of the way, for the guy at the wheel to grab, I usually just stick in a rod holder. When I’m driving I throw the boat in neutral as soon as the first gaff hits, and run back as fast as possible to sink a second gaff into the fish. Make sure the rod gets put into freespool with clicker/light drag and set somewhere clear of destruction, when these fish hit the deck they can snap a rod and anything in their path with ease, with charters this is critical for me using my gear daily and people often get caught up in the moment after a long fight, so always double check the rods stored and people are clear before brining the fish over the rail.

Gaff Placement

There are a few ideal locations ( Red dotted on image below) of where to sink the hook, and it makes all the difference giving you good leverage. Your not always going to land exactly where your aiming, but getting it in the right zone will help. The best case shot is the pelvic fin area when the fish is swimming toward the bow of the boat, which allows to to roll the fish upside down and into a state of tonic immobility, basically freezing the fish. It gives you all time in the world to clear the way and get another gaff into the fish and bring it over the rail, we use it all the time for albacore and bluefin to allow our clients time to safely move out of the way. I posted another video on how to gut Tuna down below, and it shows a prefect pelvic fin gaff. But just a word of caution, the second that fish gets is bearings back its going to be very angry on the deck, so keep a screw driver or a tuna spike near by.

The 2nd best Option if its swimming toward the rail is the top of the head or the chin, as both are hard cartilage and allow you to get a good hold unlike the gill plate or meat which can split. If you get the fish to go straight up and down with a chin or head shot, it will also immobilize mostly. Not as well as upside down but it will make it fairly easy to control until the 2nd gaff gets there. I usually put the 2nd gaff on the opposite side of the fish that the first gaff is on, sometimes making an X with the gaffs makes it easier to bring the fish over the rail but isn’t necessary by any means.

One of my favorite way of gaffing a tuna is when they put themselves vertical and start bobbing like a cork along side the boat before you even gaff them, I’ve had it happen twice with bluefin and it makes it incredibly easy to stick in the head and pull them over. Both fish were landed within 10 minutes of the bite. Plus its fun watching a 180lb fish instantly freeze after fighting like hell for 10 minutes. They do make a mess on the deck though since they have a lot of energy left.

On the Deck

Blood should be shooting nearly an inch high at a pretty good flow rate. The biggest mistake people make is going to deep, the artery is very shallow and going in 2 inches is way more then enough to slice it wide open.

Here’s a video of a smaller tuna being bled, when you bleed a 150lbs fish it should have a significantly stronger stream of blood, your boat should look like a murder scene, Ill include 2 good pictures below of what you can expect for blood. I use a 3″ dive knife to bleed, but these guys in the video have a neat little knife to prevent you from cutting to deep.

At this point, the priority should be to get the lines back in the water and get situated on the fish again. The best odds of getting a fish is immediately after putting one on the deck. Let the guy at the wheel keep spotting and fishing, while the guys on deck clean the mess and gut the fish while your fishing.

Gutting

Here’s a video on how to gut them, Its easier to show it than do use words to describe it. I wait until the bleeding stops and the fish is for sure not going to move again. Some guys cut a gill plate off to gut, But I like pictures with the whole fish intact so I leave it on. Having a good set of gloves will save your hands from weeks of infections that happens to me every tuna season. Like they say in the video, use a VERY ridged knife or even a small saw since those gill are trough. If you cut them right at the joint it goes smoothly and you can pull them out with ease, but that’s always easier said than done. Also a fun fact is that if you get good enough you can gut an albacore in about 10 seconds without a knife doing this same technique. This video also starts with a perfect pelvic fin gaff job to give you another example.

Ice

Last stage of the process is getting your fish on ice. I always make sure the gut cavity is stuffed with ice to help chill the internal meet as fast as possible. I always plan on bringing 1lb of ice for 1lb of fish caught, Most days I leave the dock with a little over 600lbs on board. I recommend leaving the fish iced whole for one to three days after being caught, as it makes the filleting much easier once the meat stiffens up. But we often have clients who head home that night so I just Ice the fish as much as possible before we get back to the dock.

Hopefully This write up was helpful again and Ill be working on a few more over the next few months for Bigeye and Albacore Tuna.