What are the most promising tuna birds?

Matt B

Matt B

RAMONES
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Some of us were discussing and debating if there are certain bird species that are more likely to yield positive PNW albacore tuna results. In my recollection when we we’ve seen Bonaparte’s gulls, even single ones (and they often seem to be solitary), that it is worth checking them out. Someone else mentioned a certain tern. I could see one smallish black headed bird being mistaken for another.
Other than a bunch of birds actively diving on bait, which is a definite sign to GO, are there certain birds that give you the albacore tingle when you see them?
 
I specifically watch for pomarine and parasitic jaeger's when I am on the tuna grounds. They skim the waves and when they see tuna showing, they'll alter their flight pattern, rise up in the air and then settle on the water - presumably looking for scraps. If even one jaeger is on the water - it's is worth investigating. Two or more usually means that it's game on! They'll also steal food from other actively feeding birds. My non bird watching tuna fishing partners know them as "tuna birds".
 
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I watched a lot of "bird balls" in Southern California. There,... it is the Terns that must have the sport fish pushing the bait up to the surface. Other birds like Pelicans can dive deeper into the water to get at the baitfish, without necessarily having the sport fish present. I also learned that the "bird balls" often were at the location where the feeding frenzy had just taken place (to clean up the scraps). This meant that the school of sport fish was likely already moving on to the next bait ball. The trick there was to watch the general direction that the birds were moving and try to predict where they would be headed to next, in order to get to the next "party" before it was over.
 
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In my experience, bird activity is not as reliable a signal of albacore off the Washington coast as it might be elsewhere. We'll see fish busting bait at the surface and there won't be a bird in sight. On other days, we'll see small groups of sooty shearwaters bobbing on the surface and there aren't any tuna (or at least willing biters) when we troll through. It is always worth it to troll through an area where you see birds, but no guarantees.
Steve
 
Terns (North Pacific Tuna Eagles) are king. Hands down. Many a day has been saved for me by spotting a single tern acting suspiciously. We refer to such things as SBA.....Suspicious Bird Activity.

Shearwaters (Black Duck) are next, but tend to be present when we are fishing water a bit more Inshore. When we're going way, way offshore just don't see them as much.

The others I really couldn't care less about.

Not every school of fish has birds on them. But a single bird doing the right things is a dead give away a high percentage of the time.
 
I very rarely see terns when fishing offshore. Which tern species are most common off of Washington?
 
In Southern California Terns signified sport fish. The Tern requires a sport fish to chase the baitfish close enough to the surface for it to get the baitfish in it's beak. Many times I would see bird balls (with no Terns) feasting on bait balls.. with no sport fish,..but when the Terns were there (hovering) it was a sure sign of big fish.
 
In Southern California Terns signified sport fish. The Tern requires a sport fish to chase the baitfish close enough to the surface for it to get the baitfish in it's beak. Many times I would see bird balls (with no Terns) feasting on bait balls.. with no sport fish,..but when the Terns were there (hovering) it was a sure sign of big fish.
 
Evan B said:
It's a masked booby. According to some enthusiasts I got the photos to, this is a very rare sighting this far north.
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Glad I kept reading, I got a little excited about the photo and was going to say something!
 
Evan B said:
This is my answer too. Birds don't mean much to me if they aren't showing me the bait balls.
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I do want to qualify this statement a bit... I do turn toward and follow birds no matter their behavior, because what else do I have to go on? Some birds will still follow tuna around even if the bait ball isn't there. Though I haven't really noticed these birds to really up my success, but I don't have as much data to go on as someone like @Nick Clayton
 
Evan B said:
I do want to qualify this statement a bit... I do turn toward and follow birds no matter their behavior, because what else do I have to go on? Some birds will still follow tuna around even if the bait ball isn't there. Though I haven't really noticed these birds to really up my success, but I don't have as much data to go on as someone like @Nick Clayton
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I recall at least one time where we went to check out a non-feeding, non-diving bird or two birds, and they were definitely watching a school of tuna below them, you could just see how they were looking and see that there were tuna there, not busting tuna necessarily but a school sorta cruising and milling around, and we ended up turning that into hookups.
 
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