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You know that yellowfin tuna will soon be caught up and down the line from the Norfolk clear up to the Wilmington, so how will you decide which specific destination to plug into the chartplotter? Offshore anglers will be watching the SST charts for swirls of oceanic warmth headed our way with their fingers crossed this month, as we all hope for an early run of fish. This bite will be red-hot or non-existent depending on currents and weather patterns far beyond our control, but if we get a lucky break and an eddy escapes from the Gulf stream a wave of fish may well head our way. There’s only one way to make sure you don’t miss out on the action: keep one eye on the SiriusXM Marine satellite views and the other on the Coastal fishing reports and be ready to pull the trigger the moment the fish come within shooting distance.

angler trolling for yellowfin tuna
Splash bars, spreader bars, and/or sidewinders are a must-have in the spread when catching yellowfin tuna is the target.

Prepping the Gear for Yellowfin Tuna Trolling

You know all those rigs you pulled last year? Now’s the time to find out which are still in good shape and which need to be replaced. Unwind all those skirted rigs and feel every inch for chaffing or kinks. Check every crimp by pulling with every ounce of strength you’ve got. Wherever you feel or see anything sub-par chop it away and make it fresh. Remember that dinks or medium ballyhoo are usually best for yellowfin of the size you’re likely to encounter during the spring migration (30 to 60 pounders on average), and make sure you have plenty of rigs with skirts of various colors ready to roll.

Another item you’ll want to double-check is your bird/Green Machine rig. You say you don’t have one? Make it up before those fish come to town, because it’s a killer. Put a bird up front with 18’ of 200-pound test behind it. Then add three Green Machines, one at 12’, one at 15’, and the hook bait at 18’. Run it in the shotgun, way back.

Spreader bars, splash bars, and sidewinders are also must-haves for the spread, and while these usually feature stout construction that lasts for years, it’s always a good idea to check the lines for chafe, the bars for bends, and the lures for deterioration. If those bars are more than five or six years old it’s probably a good idea to replace ‘em.

Boat Electrics

Another critical part of the prep is making sure you’re fully armed and ready for electronic warfare. If your boat’s been sitting all winter don’t assume the MFD and all of the accessory components are ready to roll. Turn everything on and give it a test. If it’s a relatively new system you may also want to dedicate an afternoon to cruising around and playing with the chartplotter, fishfinder, and radar, because it’s easy to forget which buttons to push or where to swipe after a long winter.

siriusxm fish mapping app
Having SiriusXM data beamed down to your MFD—or downloaded to your phone—delivers some serious data

Next, make sure your SiriusXM subscription is up to date so you get the latest offshore weather intel beamed right to your chartplotter. Being able to see what the wind is doing, where the storms are and where they’re heading, and how the forecast is changing not only gives you a serious safety boost, it also allows you to run farther and fish harder since you know when and where the conditions are changing. Plus, you can look at those SST breaks and plankton charts via Fish Mapping. If you haven’t done so yet get the Fish Mapping app on your phone—it’s free for subscribers—so you can pull up all this info at any time in just about any place (read: while you’re supposed to be working).

Tactical Planning for Yellowfin Trolling

Now consider your spread: will you just send lines back willy-nilly? Or do you have a plan? While casual anglers tend to put out a mix of lines including some or all of the offerings we talked about earlier, tuna-hunters who are serious about success will go a step farther and plot out ways to set a spread with added appeal. Drawing it out with an old-fashioned pencil and a piece of paper can be very helpful, and will help you visualize how slight changes can have significant effects. As you do so, remember:

  • Place single baits 15’ or 20’ aft of large attention-getters like splash bars. Often predators will be attracted to the commotion, and see that trailing bait as a straggler who’s easy to pick off.
  • Run another attention-getter (like that bird rig) on the line that’s farthest back. Your boat is essentially your biggest “teaser,” and lines that are way back don’t have the advantage of being close to the boat nor to other lures and rigs that pull in the fish.
  • Keep it simple when it comes to flat lines run close to the transom. Naked and skirted ballyhoo often do best in those spots.
  • Remember that bigger single offerings aft of smaller ones can appear like a relatively small predator chasing bait. A larger ballyhoo rigged behind a bullet head/skirt, for example, is likely to have better results running behind a naked dink than vice-versa.
  • If you’re running a small boat with small single-line outriggers, consider different offerings to try and bulk up the spread without tangling. A skirted ballyhoo or daisy chain running from a far-corner rocket launcher, for example, may be in danger of tangling the rigger line. A diving Marauder run in that spot should work out better.

 

trolling for yellowfin tuna was successful
Small boats may need to modulate what goes where to maximize the spread and pull in the tunas. Photo by Steve Schad.

 

Firsthand Experience

There simply is no substitute for firsthand experience, which is one of the reasons we’ve been thrilled that SiriusXM teamed up with FishTalk to bring you this offshore series about yellowfin tuna. We’ve used it and we believe in it, thanks to the way it boosts your fishing prowess by delivering SST and additional angling data if you get Fish Mapping, and in the way it boosts your offshore safety factor by bringing the very latest weather data possible directly to your chartplotter. But there’s more: unlike many systems, SiriusXM Marine also delivers wind data to the helm.

As long as it’s calm enough to fish, why worry about wind? A stiff breeze can alter the locations of temp breaks, gather or break up weedlines, and cause colliding bodies of water to mix. The wind can also help to accelerate a current when it’s moving in the same direction, slow a current down when it’s moving the opposite way, and/or cause waves to stack up. In an area where two different currents converge this can make the difference between fishable conditions and unfishable ones. On the flip side of the coin a little bit of chop can also be a good thing as far as the bite goes, and on relatively calm days finding the edge where glassy waters become slightly riled can lead to more bites. The bottom line? Having the wind intel SiriusXM provides at your fingertips adds one more datapoint to consider as you decide which way to point the bow. Added bonus: that wind and weather data will also help you make better informed decisions when the conditions look iffy, which can make the difference between green-lighting a trip or sitting at the dock.

siriusxm marine weather and fish mapping
Being able to check on wind speed and direction, as well as SST and Fish Mapping, will boost your offshore abilities.

Of course, we can’t expect someone who’s never harnessed SiriusXM at sea to understand just how valuable it can prove to be. Fortunately, there are several ways to get a free trial as long as you have the hardware, which many boats already do. Check out siriusxm.com/marine to find out what options are currently available, get that firsthand experience for yourself, and we’d bet you’ll become a believer before that trial runs out.

Prep work and planning are critical to success in any endeavor, and that certainly holds true for tuna fishing. Now start staring at those SST charts and wait for an eddy. Any day now, any day…