Kevdog540

I know nothing about tuna fishing and would like to learn. Where do i start? Can you guys help? What time of day, tackle, bait, anything will greatly appreciated. I will be fishing out of Orange Beach, AL.Thanks

Bryan Bennett

This requires a rather lengthy answer, and I'll try to answer your question to the best of my knowledge as concisely as possible. We target mainly two species of tuna in the Gulf, blackfins and yellowfins, although bigeyes, skipjacks, and bluefins live in the GOM, too. Bigeyes and bluefins, however, are considered rare or incidental catches. I'll concentrate on blackfins and yellowfins. To consistently catch them, you need to know where they live. Although they can be found almost anywhere beyond the edge, they mostly inhabit the deep waters of the canyons (DeSoto, Mississippi, etc.). It can be tough, however, to target them in open water. Therefore, plan on fishing the deep rigs south of Dauphin Island and to the east of the Mississippi River. The closest rig we consistently find tuna action is the Petronius, which is approximately 62 miles SW of Perdido Pass. It is a "fixed rig," i.e. it extends all the way to the floor of the Gulf. Some other rigs, called floaters, lieto the southwestof Petronius,including the Marlin, Neptune (fondly referred to as the "Beer Can"), Ram Powell, Horn Mountain, and occasionally some other installations that are moved into and out of the area periodically. Get a Hilton's Chart or subscribe to Hilton's Realtime Navigator site to find lat/lon's to these rigs.

Some tuna fishing purists snub their noses at the lowly blackfin, but on light tackle they are fun and they are good on the smoker, too. You can catch them on diamond jigs and cedar plugs most of the time. But most tuna fishermen target yellowfins, because they grow bigger and lend themselves to a wider variety of recipes for the table. Yellowfins can be maddening. One day it seems they will eat a tennis shoe tied to a rope and others you've got to go down to miniscule leaders and tiny baits to get them to bite. They feed on all types of baits: flying fish, ballyhoo, blue runners, scads of various types, sardines, squid...the list is endless. Sometimes it is hard to get them to lose their "tunnel vision" on what they are feeding on to eat what you are offering.

Some techniques: slow trolling live "butterbean"-sized hardtails on light fluorocarbon leaders, trolling small ballyhoo with small dusters on light leaders, casting big top-water poppers on spinning gear to busting fish, drifting chunks of cut menhaden (pogies) on light fluorocarbon leader while chumming with same, kite fishing with live baits. There are so many ways to catch a yellowfin the list is almost endless, and there are so many tricks to employing all these methods. My advice is to load your tackle box with any and every thing you might need to catch them, because the "code" varies from trip to trip and your success depends on your ability to crack the tunafish code that day.

I don't claim to be an expert on tuna fishing but I've fished with some great captains, mates, and anglers and I've learned a thing or two about it over the years. I work at Sam's in Orange Beach and we carry darn near anything you might need to catch a tuna. If you'll stop by and see us I'll walk you through the process and help you select some gear for your bag of tricks. If you need any more detailed information, PM me or call us at Sam's at (251) 981-4245. Good luck!

Capt. Delynn

Best advice I can give you is to take someone who has gone before and know the ropes. You may have to pay their way but, it will be well worth it. Experience is still the best teaching tool. They can show you more in one trip than you can learn in a year of reading and learning on your own. Let me know if I can help. Good luck.