With the first few albacore showing off our coast there maybe a few bluefin showing as well. So I would like to take this time to tell you everything that I know about catching bluefin tuna. You need only one thing to catch bluefin tuna. That is good luck. If you do not have a little good luck then you probably will not get a bluefin tuna.

    For those of you who do not believe in luck, then here are some tips to help improve your chances. The best way to improve your chances is to have live bait on board. Bluefin are more willing to bite a live sardine than any other offering. There is something about sardines that can turn bluefin into feeding machines. If you can get into one of these schools the bluefin will bite just about anything that looks even remotely like a live sardine. A few year back I landed an 80 lb. bluefin that was dumb enough to eat a dead sardine floating on the surface attached to my 40 lb. outfit. Five minutes later it was on the deck of the RED ROOSTER III, wondering what went wrong.

    This is not to say that having live sardines guarantee success. I have seen many times when a school of bluefin refuse to touch anything offered by anglers. There are times when bluefin for whatever reason will not bite. Sometimes they refuse because of heavy boat traffic, maybe just to annoy us anglers or commercial boats are fishing in the same area. When you find times like this it is best just to give up or move to another area. Do not waste your time trying to "make" bluefin tuna bite.

    So you have your own small boat but do not have any live bait. Well, that makes matters more difficult. You can still get a bluefin trolling but it is tough. There are a few things that can help. The first tip is one that I found out about while on a long range boat one summer. That is trolling a cedar plug for bluefin. Chef Jorge on the RED ROOSTER III showed me a cedar plug that he claimed to have hooked six bluefin on the previous trip. Now I know Jorge and he has been know to stretch the truth to make a sale. But I was willing to try it. I put it out about 80 feet and waited. As my first trolling session was coming to an end I was beginning to wonder if I was the only thing that would get hooked with this lure. Well sure enough I got hit, but it turned out to be a yellowfin tuna. Not bad but not what I wanted.

    I called that lure every foul name in the book and Jorge wanted to know what was wrong. I told him that is great bluefin lure was only good for yellowfin tuna. Well, Jorge being the great salesman he is said the next time I was up on the troll he would show me how it was done. Jorge put that lure a 100 yds back , he said know you get one. Well the lure did. That plug hooked 4 bluefin that trip. I know that there are other southern california anglers who still "long" troll cedar plug for bluefin with some degree of success.

    Another lure that can be "long" trolled for bluefin are the large Rapalas. But replace the trebles with stainless steel tuna hooks. The trebles are not strong enough to hold up the abuse. I would recommend that you troll with a 50 SW loaded with 80 lb. mono. You never know when a 100 lb. bluefin will get the urge to crash on you trolling lure. When trolling in areas of surfacing fish, do not troll over the schools. Try stay to edge and then letting the "long" trolled lure swing over the surfacing school. Running over bluefin will more than likely just send the fish down.

    You can also toss jig to surface fish or drop jig down to school that show up on the depth finder. Most of the time this does not work very well, but it is worth at least a try. I have landed several bluefin tuna on chrome 6X Jrs. Each time as the jig fish came up it was followed by a few of this friends. His friends were then hooked by fellow anglers using live sardines.

    To finish up this article, bluefin are probably the hardest tuna to get to bite. Most of the time you can find them but they refuse to bite. Sometimes you may get one "blind strike" or one stupid fish but it is very hard to get any score on these tuna. So unless you happen to go on a summer long range trip that finds a school that wants to die, you probably never get a shot at one. I have been fishing long range fishing for almost 20 years and have landed a grand total of 11 bluefin tuna. I have also lost 3 big bluefin. So I guess I have had a little bit of luck.

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