ThatGuyRyRy
Life of the Party
I'm ready for any regular tuna color now.
Half-and-halfs.
Half-and-halfs.
Tuna 2022, let the games begin!
- Thread starter SilverFly
- Start date
Personally I hate x raps so very much that I refuse to use them. There is no doubt they will catch fish, but then so does everything else. I've not once seen a day where xraps made a difference. It's just not worth it, to me, for the hassle of dealing with those flying hook missiles when over zealous people launch them out of the water when clearing gear.
As far as "hanging" one, no I do not believe in that concept at all. I know this is a common one amongst some people, but whether commercial or sport fishing I've never seen any evidence that it accomplishes anything, and honestly I can't think of an experienced captain, sport or commercial, who employs that technique of hanging them. I do, however, believe that getting fish hooked up and not losing them definitely helps. When they are constantly being hooked up it seems to help get the school up on the boat and excited, but when fish are hooked and lost those fish high tail it out of there and a bunch of the school will often follow them so it can go from wide open to done in a manner of a few lost fish. Seen that so many times this year alone. Keeping the ball rolling, so to speak, is definitely a good thing!
I run X-Raps but only when searching for fish. If I'm consistently hooking up, I don't have them in the spread. But if I go for an hour or more with no action, I put one down. It is ALWAYS the one that gets bit in this situation with almost no exception. It gets the first fish of the trip every damn time. But I'm running my own boat with a small crew that isn't a bunch of inexperienced clients, so different situation. I wouldn't have them in my box if I was a charter captain.
Sounds like the best of all worlds to me!Haha I never knew the devastating (human) lethality of X-Raps!
What if I bring my own and tie it on my fly pole and put it in the spread? What about THAT?!?!?
But yeah, I can totally see why charter captains would hate them. They have to be tuned, and they are absolutely projectile missiles in the wrong hands. A lot of guys don't swap the hooks out either so they have two sets of trebles to contend with. I just run a single large hook off the rear and it does awesome. I actually find trebles in general to be bad for tuna. I lose more fish on trebles than anything else combined. Only things I have left with trebles are my Coltsniper jigs, but I'm slowly swapping those all to assist hooks.
4 or later most likely unless you plug the boat real early.
Nick doesn’t like to give up with out giving that little more. On our last trip Nick asked us to be at the boat at 5:30am, I’m guessing he new we were going to have to go a little farther out to find fish. Which we ended up coming in early and trowel for kings because tuna was so slow.
While there are a few exceptions you can expect to get back to the dock no later than 430 on average. I am stubborn and like to push it till the bitter end every time I can, we generally have to be back in order to fuel up before the fuel dock closes
Ya trebles and tuna are definitely not not for me. They don't seem to manage to land fish as well, and then often the ones they do land are such a giant pain to get unhooked, which is especially annoying when dealing with troll fish while trying to get a bait stop going
And today, just as @Nick Clayton is about to give the "That's all folks." announcement, my friend hooks up yet another stubborn albacore that took quite a while to subdue. But it eventually joined 22 of its brethren in the ice bath. Nick always give FULL VALUE.
Steve
I once did a test where I put a hole in a piece of cardboard and hung a weight on a treble hook and to see how much weight it took to sink the three points to the barbs then a single hook tested the same way. You would think it would take three times as much weight to sink the treble as it did the single hook, but it took much more then I thought it would. It was a long time ago and I can’t remember the numbers. But I don’t fish treble hooks any more.
We were running nice big single hooks on the X-raps. And on everything else. Well, except the tuna live bait hooks, and the @SilverFly Gillplate Saury fly which uses a tuna live bait hook; those aren’t really all that big, but they are single hooks.
With all that tiny bait that the tuna are apparently feasting on, somebody ought to tie up a fly that looks like a small school of 1.25” fish.
Did I mention I cracked the big ferrule on my well-used Xi2 12 weight? The damn thing must’ve come loose and I didn’t check it. As I brought forward a haul there was a sickening crack and the top 3/4 of the rod went in the water. The ferrule is definitely cracked but not catastrophically. I wrapped it tight with electrical tape and it cast the same but I wonder how it would do pulling on a tuna, something it hasn’t been tested on. I’m tempted to tempt fate and just roll with it and fish it taped up again. If it blows up maybe it’ll get me my $195 repair fee’s worth; if I decide to shell that coin out anyway...
My first attempt at rolling spicy tuna maki went just okay as far as presentation goes but it tasted great. There is plenty of room for improvement in my technique there.
With all that tiny bait that the tuna are apparently feasting on, somebody ought to tie up a fly that looks like a small school of 1.25” fish.
Did I mention I cracked the big ferrule on my well-used Xi2 12 weight? The damn thing must’ve come loose and I didn’t check it. As I brought forward a haul there was a sickening crack and the top 3/4 of the rod went in the water. The ferrule is definitely cracked but not catastrophically. I wrapped it tight with electrical tape and it cast the same but I wonder how it would do pulling on a tuna, something it hasn’t been tested on. I’m tempted to tempt fate and just roll with it and fish it taped up again. If it blows up maybe it’ll get me my $195 repair fee’s worth; if I decide to shell that coin out anyway...
My first attempt at rolling spicy tuna maki went just okay as far as presentation goes but it tasted great. There is plenty of room for improvement in my technique there.
Pink Nighty
Legend
I've rolled a lot of rolls. When you put your rice down, try and compensate for the pressure points of the roll. Thinner where it pinches. Hope that makes sense, yours look great and I've sold worse for money
ThatGuyRyRy
Life of the Party
Do you think you would troll with that small of a fly? Or is that like a bait switch thing once you get a stop going?
I guess I need to go even smaller.
I have a spreader bar that I built that has about 20 mini hoochies that skip along the surface then troll a full size clone of the same color behind that. Maybe come up with a fly rod equivalent
The thing catches fish, oftentimes being the hottest troll setup when deployed... but my buddy that's usually with me hates it so usually vetoes putting it out there.
This isn't mine, but same idea basically. (I got it from image search... no idea what the numbers are for)
The thing catches fish, oftentimes being the hottest troll setup when deployed... but my buddy that's usually with me hates it so usually vetoes putting it out there.
This isn't mine, but same idea basically. (I got it from image search... no idea what the numbers are for)
SilverFly
Legend
I thought about this after seeing those tiny slivers of baitfish schooling in 2020. I don't think it necessarily has to be a big, unwieldy, apparatus. Basically a single baitfish pattern tied on a stong hook like a #2 live bait, with up to a half dozen "decoy" flies suspended in front of the main fly on short blood knot tags.
I know it sounds like a mess, but the "decoys" barely need to be more than a few strands of fiber and flash material. A few of those in front of a 2" fly would be nothing to cast on a 12wt. Might play around with this when we get back from the beach.
Edit: Here's a rough sketch. Using Uni-knots for the decoy tags vs blood knots would make them adjustable along the length of the leader, and also allow changing flies. Guessing 15 or even 12# FC would be stiff enough to splay the decoys outward from the leader into a "school".
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The numbers appear to be length of line.I have a spreader bar that I built that has about 20 mini hoochies that skip along the surface then troll a full size clone of the same color behind that. Maybe come up with a fly rod equivalent
The thing catches fish, oftentimes being the hottest troll setup when deployed... but my buddy that's usually with me hates it so usually vetoes putting it out there.
This isn't mine, but same idea basically. (I got it from image search... no idea what the numbers are for)
View attachment 29118
ThatGuyRyRy
Life of the Party
I wouldn't want to be the one to cast that.