Tuna trips are awesome and can be quite addicting. For tuna we troll feathers and plugs, and at times, slow troll live mackerel for blue fin. Since fast troll is about 8 miles an hour, when we get a bite it’s usually instant adrenaline, especially as more rods start to go off with more fish because we just trolled through a school of tuna or bonito.
The gear we use is on the heavier side using 4/0 reels and stiffer rods. When we first hookup we continue to troll for a few minutes while the other rods continue to hookup with fish. Once it seems were away from the school we circle back and start tossing out anchovies and whatever else we have to keep the fish interested. We swap out the stiff trolling rods with live bait rods and iron (lures) and continue hooking up and gaffing fish. It gets busy, real busy. It gets messy, real messy. It’s chaos at its finest.
For these trips you should bring waterproof slicks or bibs. There’s probably going to be a lot of blood and it won’t wash out of clothing. Also some waterproof boots will come in handy.
Bring your special gear if you like. We use 4/0 Penn Senators on Okuma Cedros rods with 80# test. We use cedar plugs and zukers and konas. By all means bring your lucky stuff!
