So after an unusual experience this weekend with a big eye tuna I have some questions I hope those with more experience with this fish may be able to help me with.

Has anyone ever sight fished with a livie a big eye tuna anywhere in the world.

What gear did they use.

For those who have hooked big eye.
What gear and circumstances did this happen.

If you have hooked a big eye tuna can you describe the type of fight that ensued.

With respect I'm...

Looking for responses from those with real time first hand experience.

Thanks.

M

We caught one up at the Kings tease and switch fishing. It blew up on the teaser about 6 times and then ate a live Koheru which we pitched to it. From memory it weighed 128kgs. We caught that fish on 50 pound stand up and it took around 40 mins.

For me Marligator it was an unusual experience.

Jakepitsville and I had gone wide from Whangaroa to drop for swords.

On one of our retrievals trying to keep the weight as we had a bad drop so ensued a slow retrieval.

As we got to the breakaway line Jake was carefully and slowly pulling up the line when he said he saw a tuna.
I didn't see it. Then he said its there again, on the third time I saw it.
Big fish I thought, unsure what type.

We got the weight in and started frantically cutting up our macs to cube and keep it interested while putting together a rig.
I pulled the Stella down and put on a large stickbait.
After a few casts no sign.
On my last retrieve Jake said he saw it again.
I took off the stickbait found a livebaiting trace and backhooked a livie.
Sent out with no weight, it drifted down and past the stern about a metre down.

I was putting another rig together, Jakes still cubing.
Jake says it's still there, i lean off the starboard to see this very nice fish ghost past the livie about a metre down and just behind the outboard, eat it you mother.....
This was no yft, it was a big fish.
He passed again from a different direction but no action other than my encouragement to eat it.
Third time another direction and woof, bait inhaled.
I thought it was a big eye or..
My mind raced to assimilate it to something else, it didn't fit.
So Jake is on the Stella, and that thing is screaming, line vertical.
I said to Jake attach to your belt as this is a long rod and the leverage will be hell.
The reel is screaming the rod is well bent, we're both Cheshire cats.

This fish did three explosive bursts all vertical.
Jakes asking me how much line and that spool looks very small, I'm scratching to remember what and how much line.

Basically fish did 400 m straight down probably less than a few minutes.
They were glorious minutes, but we crashed to reality as it all went slack.
Gutted, as we retrieved we just wondered why.
All the normal assumptions of course.

All the gear came back undamaged, with a clean inline circle hook.

We're pretty sure that in those explosive moments from start to finish we had a big eye on.
But that is just an assumption.

So hence my interest now about these fish.

Bad luck Mattoo. Would have been cool to see it swimming around the boat.

As Shaneg said in the toots post those pic memories in your head are gold.

An hour or so after that possible big eye encounter,we had another pic to remember.
A Mako, jumped out of the water and somersaulted.


Not so unusual you might think, this shark of good volume did it three more times.

Now we weren't hooked to it and we were the only boat around.

It had a piece of line with meat and a hook I believe the fish bit someone's line were obvious.
It was only fifty metres from the boat.

I assume that it had taken a hook or bait or fish from the bluenose hunters about a k away.

The randomness of its jumps sends a small shiver down your spine as it could of easily been a Murphy and far to close for comfort as we had no bookings in our hotel,for uninvited guests.

All so cool.

Somewhere I have a better pic. But the leader was 1.8m long and this guy was way longer than the leader. Had it on for over 4 hrs. Finally max drag pulled the hook (going to run out of daylight). Unfortunately was only on 24kg gear. We had a fly swatter basically. Live bait.

JoshW how big were they?  

And a little humour but really what happened.

We were catching livebaits in one of my favourite never fail spots in whangaroa Harbour.
The challenge was it was outside of my normal time to get them so we started a little late at 12.30 am and caught through till 2.30 am.
Normally this takes us 1/2 an hour.

Now Jake exceeded a feat I haven't yet been able to do and hooked and landed an anchovy. Not fowl hooked actually caught.

I was frustrated with that achievement and so sought to do better.
So I used a bait net and scooped up some white bait.

To add insult to injury Jake put a whitebait out as a livebait.
Holy crap he kept doing it and massively out fished me for bait initially, they couldn't get on the hook fast enough.



Until I started using the whitebait I scooped.

I do have to say I had to ask a few times to bait my hook as I couldn't see either to well.
Good mate, well temporarily as we were back competing.
It was typical you can I can do better.
Loads of fun even if my eyelids were at half mast



Loaded up on baits finall before getting up 2.5 hours later to go fishing....

Al,
Fair question.
As I,said it was an assumption .

And if we landed it there would be no assumption.

I have caught a few fish around the world.
So for me it was a matter of what I know based on experience and circumstances.
Basically a best guess.

Landed yesterday 101.6kg top effort on 24kg