Wire is the way to go. The Tuna weren't biting off it was probably
Kings or Cuda's, crews on party boats stay away from wire simply because
it's hard to work, especially with non fisher people, kinking ect.

Harry Krause wrote:

Ron M. wrote:
Several times, I've been on charters off the Texas coast when we ran
into a school of blackfin tuna, mostly in the 10-30 pound range. What
normally happened was, the crew would throw out a couple handfuls of
sardine chunks, then immediately free-line a whole sardine into the
chum. It would get hit almost instantly, and then they'd hand the rod
to a guest. They used 3 rods at a time; they couldn't have 15 guests
all hooked up at once; it'd be a tangled mess.

The rigs were freelines... just a tuna hook tied directly to the end
of the mono, nothing else.

The problem was, at least half the time the blackfin would bite through
the 50# mono and the crew would have to reel it in, tie on another
hook, etc. They used a HUGE amount of time doing this, sometimes
getting 5 ot 6 biteoffs in a row before finally hooking one.

My question: is there any particular reason why they don't use a fine
wire leader, to prevent so many biteoffs? These tuna were 10-30
pounds, and a 20# leader would be plenty strong and very fine. I don't
know why it wouldn't work, but these guys were seasoned pros, and knew
what they were doing. Any comments out there?

Ron M.


I've only been on two charters where the crew used wire leaders, once
when "sharking" off Cancun, and the other time when fishing for wahoo.
My guess is the crew didn't like wire leaders because some fish see them
easier than than see clear flurocarbon leaders, and they tend to kink,
and at trolling speeds, they don't make for as natural a presentation.

--
January 20th, 2009: Hang in there, America!