Tuna Fishing

Oh, and to answer your question about chumming... it seems that the last few trips we've made there are always tuna breaking the water. Theres been times where tuna were jumping all around us but wouldn't bite anything. You may not always mark the tuna so just look for other signs of tuna in the area (i.e. tuna breaking the water)

Never have tried that but can't say it wouldn't work. Most of the time we just feed the line out and the hardtails seem to swim away from the boat. Never have used outriggers either. We're still learning a lot too.

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I hear if you go out there with a horseshoe stuck up your arse you are more likely to catch marlin. Just what I've heard

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There may be some truth to this

When we tuna fish we make a couple wraps around the rig trolling. If this brings no success we starting chumming and bury a hook in a piece of chum and freeline the reel.

My apologies Choirboy. Just speaking from experience.

IMO, drifting with live, small (<1 lb) hard tails is your best bet for pelagics of just about any kind. Use a kite and hold on. The trick is finding and catching the livies to begin with. If there are fish in the area, this is usually successful.

As far as "marking" tuna, it's a situational kind of thing. If you're in blue water and see a large mass on the fish finder at any kind of depth, there are only so many things it could be. Tuna being the usual culprit.

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I can't think of any other big fish that school deep though that you would find in tuna kinda water.

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Exactly. Chances are it's YF or BF or possibly bait which is also a good sign.

Live bait - "bump troll" shift one or both engines in and out of gear periodically to keep the HT's from running up into your motors.

Chum - Dead boat/neutral. Let your bait drift naturally with the chum.