We left early in the morning at 7am, a delay of one hour from the original scheduled departure, so as to benefit from the incoming tide. This tide would bring in the Tuna closer inshore for feeding.
There was already a lot of activity on the water from birds diving onto the water to collect pieces of bait being attacked from underneath by fish in a feeding frenzy.
The guide was very experienced and only wanted to see a specific flock of birds (terns) rather than the ubiquitous sea gulls, as terns primarily fed on bait schools being slashed at by Tuna . We were also keeping a sharp lookout for water splashes indicating attacking Tuna.
We were lucky and located a group of Tuna actively attacking bait on the surface. A quick dash in the boat brought us to within 50 meters of the feeding Tuna and I laid out a long cast with a Twisty 40gm metal and retrieved the lure as fast as I could turn the reel handle .
You need to trigger the reflex action in these predators by mimicking bait trying to flee the area. However, the Tuna ignored the lure and disappeared.
Time and time again, we would locate them either by finding flocks of tern diving onto the water or by water slashes but no matter what we tried, the Tuna would either disappear by the time we reached the area or they would not hit the lures. Very frustrating but that is the way this game is played!
We tried to stay in one area and wait for the Tuna schools to approach us and it almost worked..... the Tuna came within meters of the boat and were jumping out of the water chasing the bait. They were all large, easily in the 20 kilo range and we led them by casting ahead of their direction of travel. No luck.
We spent several hours chasing them until time ran out. Disappointing but that is fishing for you. I will try again next year and hope that Lady Luck smiles upon us.
Contd....
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Last edited by kingfish on Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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