Seven yellow fin and nine big eye are sent to NZ in December each year and once they've been caught that's your lot. NZ's issue will be reduced next year.

My biggest was on a Rapala type and smallest on big marlin lure!!

 

Spot on mate!

Fished the Tuna Tournament and boy, did we burn some fuel looking for the illusive yellowfin.

 

Was chatting to two very experienced skippers on our boat viz Lionel and Paul Kingie and there was some interesting observations and comments about why the 'fin have moved off.

 

Coming back to the original question though, I can honestly say I'm buggered if I know.

Traditionally I have always fished smaller marlin lures.....striped marlin are hooked easier and the big blues also eat them. With the smaller spread of lures, yellowfin get into them just as much.

 

In all honesty, when we target tuna, we find running the lures a bit further back than when fishing for marlin gets the strikes. But then again, we fish where tuna actually live!

 

 

I have also had good success with the Williamson Live Mackrell lures, but throw away the shyte rigging that comes with them as it is crap and does not make the lure work.

Check out http://www.fish-crazy.com/index.cfm?pageid=115 - here http://www.fish-crazy.com/index.cfm?pageid=115 - http://www.fish-crazy.com/index.cfm?pageid=115  on how to rig them and make them work.

Cheers

odin

 

and on skip baits our biggest is 64kg on large kahawai skip bait

flying fish rigged as a swimmer or skip bait

 

LUES; Super plungers, wide range softheads, Pakula's-sporckets, chatterbox, cockroaches, other lures like Mrs Palmer and the Mother in Law or a pink hex head 6 inches short.

You really really think so do you? regardless of scientific data about tuna biomass being on a steady decline take a look at the results from the last 20 years of the once great Whakatane "Tuna" Tournament of which there were NO yellowfin or other large tunas caught this year - where in recent history it was not uncommon to see 150-200 odd put across the scales daily....take ya rose tinted glasses off Wanabe!!! and while you are doing that read the books: TUNA - A LOVE STORY and THE EMPTY OCEAN by Richard Ellis.

Sorry but that was a completely moronic statement to make.

Live baits, small skipbaits and straight running trolled lures like rapala's sprokets, krakatoa's moldcrafts etc did the damage for us, we never managed one on a angle faced lure though.

spreader bars also worked well when you had big schools up moving fast and feeding.

thats a a 200

Wanabe, you could start a thread, top 10 tuna lures in NZ......

little livebait sized ones

slightly larger, caught on a straylined google eye or chunk bait

nice gaff work..... save the toro

one of the angriest fish we caught, this took 45mins on 220lb spectra

this taped out at 267 I think

this fish inhaled a stickbait

theres a couple

Top producing tuna lures were .....

Zuker 3.5  R16 Whakatane special

Zuker 3.5  R07 black purple

Zuker ZTWG 8  Zuchini ( same in feather)

Zuker ZTWV  8  black purple ( same in feather)

Sevenstrand  1205 Duck egg

Sevenstrand 1220 duck egg (  Doug Iretons all tackle Nz record was caught on a 1220  mack in 1984  a 95kg fish.)

 

Next best was 3 dead anchovies on a hook, or a live kohi.

cheers Greg

(we sold more zucker lures than the whole of New Zealand put together in those days) 

 

 

The yellowfin fishery is an interesting one for many reasons. They are highly sought after by the purse seign vessels up in the pacific where 3-5 kilogram juvinile fish are the norm. I am quite concerned about this fishery as yellowfin are highly migratory which leeds to overfishing from many countries that they pass through. In saying that though, a kiwi tuna fisherman from Nelson who goes up to Samoa every season after the Albacore run, manages to get great catches of big yellowfin to 100 kilo on a regular basis. He has got a good catch history also, however it must have been a couple of seasons ago he dipped out, but he put it down to the surface temperature being to warm and the fish sticking right down deep on the thermocline. He can identify them on his sonar and sounder readings.

 

Big eye Tuna- I have no problems with this fishery as they are always out there, especially in Bay Of Plenty waters where they show up in droves from about September. We have got a quite good fishery which recreational fishers should and will  develop in time i guess as they turn up well before the yellowfin do. As always currents dictate where you will find them however most years you'd be looking at 60 to 80 mile out, especially early spring.

I wouldn't be surprised if they remained in the New zealand waters year round. The foreign vessels outside 200 mile catch them year round, as well as the huge Albacore, one of which weighed in at 52 kilos caught from a tauranga based vessel a few years back.

Bluefin tuna is still pretty much a good fishery here in Nz. Also can be caught here year round in certain locations ( Quota gets caught thick and fast) however worldwide it is generally accepted as on the decline.

 

Ben.

 

 

 

 

How is that bloody hoof of yours - only bloke I know that has his foot crush in a forklift that takes his cast off and comes fishing high as a kite on painkillers and beer!

Good boy!!!

 

 

 

The three best lures for tuna trolling are as follows.

Mac skippy( daisy chain) for bigeye.

Zest lure's. Albacore.

Seaferrets(if you can get them somewhere) Yellowfin and Albacore.

 

We have tryed something called the Zucker lure which is ok but the above is the top three.

Ben C.

the workup at the end is a great site to see with big tuna and porpoise.