Fishing for tuna is one of the most rewarding and frustrating fish to target. Some days you'll have them at the boat eating almost everything to days of trolling for no return. The team here at Fishing Station have extensive knowledge when it comes to finding and catching Tuna and here's an extensive guide to help you bring home more fish!

TROLLING

Trolling is the easiest and most reliable method for targeting tuna. Using a variety of skirts, divers and other lures between 6-8 knots allows anglers to cover large areas efficiently, making it easier to locate fish and cover ground. By varying lure types, sizes and colours, this can help identify feeding behaviours to refine your approach to maintain a bite.

STICK BAITING

Stickbaiting - the most exciting way of targeting tuna - casting topwater lures into actively feeding fish resulting in instant bites and action. Stickbaiting is used when a school of feeding fish or bait is being chased across the surface. This method is a more challenging approach, and requires experience from both the angler and captain. This is because a mixture of accurate casting and boat placement is the key its success. Being a skilled caster and staying controlled during the hook up process is additionally a key element in staying connected to a fish. 

CUBING

Another approach for tuna fishing is cubing, and can be done two main ways. First, finding desirable areas where fish have been caught/seen, currents and temperature breaks meet and/or a good amount of bird life and baitfish have been identified. A combination of all these factors is a great sign. Having an experienced skipper who understands how winds and currents can influence your drift is key to having an effective cube trail. Usually done early in the morning or into the night, covering dusk and/or dawn to prioritise fishing during active feeding periods. Once you have established a drift throwing a small amount of cubes in consistently ensuring the trail is never broken and fishing with both livebaits and hooked cubes at different lengths and depths. The other style of cubing is used when fish have been hooked on the troll, to bring the school up to the boat it is essential that you instantly start heavily cubing once a fish has been hooked, this is particularly productive on bluefin that are more susceptive to staying around the boat. Make sure you have large amount of pre cut cubes ready for when you hook up. 

It's a big blue ocean out there but using angler's knowledge and technology will help you find where the tuna are biting. Technology is key to setting up a good game plan for success. You don't want to be fishing blind and hoping for the best so we recommend using RipCharts. This provides you with water currents, temperature breaks, "rich" water and more. By analysing the ocean's movement provides a "hit list" of targets.

However, technology is only half the puzzle. The data might indicate there will be fish in a certain area but, as will any type of fishing, the fish may not be there so it's important to get first-hand advice/knowledge. You can always call us and we're more than happy to provide advice and help around where the fish have been caught.

The Souther Bluefin Tuna is highly prized for the it's eating qualities with some fish fetching over a quarter of a million dollars in the Japanese sushi market. Below are the three common species caught off the east coast of Australia.

Depending on the conditions, boat, gear being used and angler preference there are many variables. It is important to find what works for your boat as various conditions and set ups may give off different action to your lures. 

Now that you’ve found and caught a tuna it’s very important you process and prepare the fish correctly to ensure that you have the best eating quality meat. Tuna are warm blooded animals, and their body temperatures spike when fighting, this can ruin the flesh if not processed correctly. As soon as you’ve landed the fish or have the fish on a gaff you need to dispatch of it, this can be done in a few ways the best being the iki Jimi method where a metal rod/spike is inserted into the fishes brain killing it instantly, then to end all remaining nerve activity a wire is then inserted into the core of the tunas spine and fed through it to the tail, this prevents the release of lactic acids that can worsen the meats quality, other common methods include using a donga/bat to the head as well as using a knife in a similar way to an iki spike. The next step In preparing tuna is to bleed them, this is an extremely important step as it rapidly drops the tunas internal body temperature and has a major impact on improving the eating quality. Slicing behind the pectoral fins on the lateral line on both sides of the fish with a small sharp blade will pierce a major artery. Another common and effective way is slicing through the gill arch, this is located under the gill plate and behind the gills ensure you sever the majority of the gill membrane but be careful to not cut the throat latch as this will partially remove the head from the body. We recommended to bleed the fish in the water for 10-15 mins as this helps flush the circulatory system efficiently. If you’ve already landed the fish on the boat best to flush the cut areas with the deck wash. We also recommend to gut and gill the fish directly after bleeding, to do this sever all points of contact of the gills to the head, then cut a small hole around the anal opening, after all attachments have been cut you can pull the guts and gills out together in one go, this will give you access to the gut cavity where you can pack ice into and internally chill the fish. Once you’ve dispatched and bled the fish it’s essential to chill it as soon as possible, always be prepared with a few bags of ice and a large fish bag that can be fully zipped up to maintain a low temperature. Filleting is generally easier after several hours as it allows the meat to firm up.