HOME » Saltwater » Mackerel » One of those Days - Tuna!

---

One of those Days - Tuna!

By Andrew Schrodter

Hey Team, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year break and got into a few fish during this busy time of the year!

I tend to stay a little clear of the water at this time of year, due to it being really crowded, however I had the chance to jump aboard my brother's boat and head out for a session in the northern Moreton Bay area.

The day prior to going I had a few mates head out and hit some rubble and structure, coming up with the goods bagging some nice snapper and golden trevally. So, after hearing this, I was pretty confident that we could replicate this the following day. Now their day was a cracking glass out, with some stand out fish, however even if we hooked up to some and maybe managed a feed of school mackerel, I would still be happy.

We arrived at the ramp nice and early, making our way across the bottom of Bribie Island and yep, we were greeted with a stiff northerly. Anyone that fishes the bay regularly knows that northerlies aren't very fun! However, there was very little swell so we slowly made our way out into the bay, smashing into the chop. I think we persisted with it as the weather forecast said it was going to get better as the day went on... and for once it was spot on.

The plan of attack was to hit some rubble patches and structure in the bay. I had a pretty empty freezer, so I was hoping to get into a few school mackerel to take home for a feed. With this in mind I took three setups with me, which were my two Okuma Cerros Spin rods, rated 5-12kg, both teamed up with a 40 size Okuma Helios SX spinning reels and my new Okuma Komodo baitcast setup. I thought as we weren't chasing tuna these would be plenty good enough for the target species.

Sometimes things just don't go to plan... sometime for the worse and sometimes for the better. This time it was for the better. On the way up I noticed a few birds gathering up and diving into a few small bust ups. I turned to brad and said "Hey, let's just go and see what they are. Might be a school of mackerel and we can put some early runs on the board".

THIS WAS THE START OF ONE OF THOSE SESSIONS.

We moved up to the birds and I grabbed a Cerros spin setup, which was rigged with a Fish Inc. Flanker sinking stickbait. If you've never used one of these Flankers before, I suggest going and getting at least one... you won't be disappointed! The bust ups didn't look very huge, so we pulled up without driving in there like crazy and had a cast. Boom! Double hook up, myself and Brad brought in two smaller sized mac tuna of around the 50-60cm mark. We thought to ourselves that if anything that's a cool start to the day and got some drag singing a little.

After boating and releasing them we looked up and noticed some slightly larger bust ups in the distance, so off we went. As we drew closer, we realized that there were tuna carrying on everywhere, with some jumping out of the water over a metre and others just smashing the bait schools that they were working.

Now, anyone that chases tuna knows that they can be very finicky however these fish were far from it. Brad positioned the boat, we both cast and yep, another double hook up! This time the drags were screaming a lot more than with the mac tuna that we had just released. We had doubled up on longies (longtail tuna) around the 80-90cm mark! I was pretty pumped! Anyone that knows me knows that I've had nothing but trouble landing longtail tuna for years. I've hooked them, had them boat side and for some reason I'd never had one in the boat (luckily this changed earlier in 2019 when I finally landed one).

To see a longy come up was awesome. I was stoked and to have Brad hooked up at the same time, we were both cheering! This was to be the start of an epic 2½ hour session on longies, where we must have boated at least a dozen fish, ranging from that 80-90cm mark to losing a few larger models in amongst them.

What impressed me in this session was the Cerros / Helios SX combo and how it handled that size of fish, with their quick runs and power, very well. That combo is probably the closest thing to a perfect allround setup, covering everything from impoundments, estuary species and now decent tuna. It has served me very well over the last two years.

Normally if I was chasing longtail I'd have my 55 size Okuma Ceymar reels on my Okuma Azores 8-12kg spin rods. I was running 20lb braid on the Helios SX 40 and 40lb leader. The Cerros / Helios SX outfit was light, easy to cast and really cushioned the runs well. The only thing that I'd say is that the fish took a little longer to boat compared to my larger setups, which I didn't mind as it had been a while since I've had a session like that, so I tried to soak it up as much as I could and enjoy my time on the water.

As for the longtail, it was the first session I've had chasing them where they didn't shy away from the boat or dive deep. All we made sure of was that we positioned the boat in front of them (the direction in which they were feeding) and made our casts into schools when they came close enough.

When chasing tuna the closest that you can get your lure to looking like what they are feeding on is the best bet and the Fish Inc. Flankers look exactly like the bait schools you see in the northern bay. They are a very slender lure, with a nice kind of walk the dog motion, depending on if you fast retrieve or sink and slow retrieve them. On some of my casts the lure barely touched the surface and I was on! The only other lure that I ran in that session was the ZMan 3.75 StreakZ in Pearl colour, rigged on a 1/2oz TT Lures HeadlockZ jighead, which is also a dead ringer for the bait schools and this also produced fish.

Something that did freak me out a bit during that session was the size of the sharks in the northern bay. During this session we only lost one fish to the sharks but man some of them are huge. We were in a 5.2m plate boat with a very high cast deck that I was running around on all morning in that northerly chop and seeing one of those sharks in particular made me question myself and move down off the deck. It must have been 3.5-4m in length and moving very quickly! I have seen plenty out there over the years but he was all sorts of angry.

After a couple of hours having fun landing longies and keeping two each for a feed back home, we decided it was time to head off home. We did end up checking one of the marks on the way home, however another boat was positioned there so we called it a day. It's not every day that you get to enjoy pulling in a heap of longies and we were both happy campers!

Until next time...
Andrew

Gear List:
Fish Inc. Flanker 85mm Sinking Stickbait

ZMan 3.75" StreakZ - Pearl
TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads - 1/2oz 3/0

Okuma Cerros Spinning Rods - CER-S-701H 7' 5-12kg
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-40
Platypus Bionic Braid - 20lb

Okuma Azores Spin / Jig Rods - Z-S-702M 7' 8-12kg
Okuma Ceymar Spin Reels - C-55