Yellowfin tuna lures

[lautan015]

Hi all. I was wondering if any of you salty dogs have some insight on my dilemma. I am having very successful results live baiting YFT up to about 120lbs using loooong 40 ft. 50-80 lb flouro leaders and small circle hooks on sprat, as they call the whitebait here in the British Virgin Islands. But I would also like to nab a few on the troll while targeting marlin and wahoo. I cut a couple of the tuna open after catching them on live bait and they all had very small, i mean very small fish and squid in them. Like 1/2 inch to 2 inch squid, jacks, and other weird sargassum based baitfish. I was wondering if Roddy, Bart, Peter, or any other fishing gods have advice on some small lures for the tuna. I would love to have a scaled down 2 inch moldcraft squid, or some other ultra small, ultra strong YFT assassin. I am going to tie up some flies on some owner aki 7/0 hooks and try to mimic a small squid, then troll it on the way back. Or use some of those small billy bait skirts naked with a hook in em. Im not saying that the tuna wont hit ballyhoo, green machine, illander etc. Im just saying I would like to match the hatch and see if I can up my numbers. I have had good success with blackfin in the past on 1 inch streamer flies trolled fast on a 30 lb outfit, but those YFT are mean and very strong, I need something that can handle them and keep them from getting sharked in an extended battle. I attached a pic of a typical yft for around here. Any suggestions?

Also does anyone notice that the atlantic yft get big sickles at around 75lbs and the pacific yft dont get them until they are way bigger? wonder why?

[Mikey Mike]

Aloha lautan 015
I find that matching the hatch works with tuna when yer going slow moreso than when yer going faster. 8 knots to 10 knots.

In the RMI I used 400# leader with a claw style double hook on a 4inch lure at speeds to 10 knots and caught plenty of fish. But when slowing down or circling busting schools you will have days when lighter leader catches more fish.

Another thing I learned is that fish size and lure size have a correlation when at 8 knots. 4 inch = 40# and down. 6inch =s 40#s and up. 9inch = 60 to unlimited size YFT.

One of my favorite lures for YFT that worked for me at trolling speeds of 8 knots on 400 leader was Erick Rusnicks mirrored Beauty with dark purple skirts to resemble an addled reef squid.

Some days the fish are lure shy and boat shy. On theses days a shotgun placed double the distance of your long rigger might get a bite.

Good luck!

[Jim Mckeral]

This is a small 4 inch flying fish lure-that will catch large Tuna

Mini Yummee Fly'R

Of course the original has proven time and again to catch large Tuna worldwide often when traditional methods will not work-using a kite is tremendously fun way to catch them as the strikes are spectacular

Yummee FlyN Fish

This inline bird/lure combo comes with an inline bird(aka delta wing flyer) leading a 4 inch or 6 inch octopus skirt as chase lure. You get one inline bird sand 4 rigged chase lures in a kit

Inline Bird Kits

Same inline bird with a daisy chain of small 4 inch or 6 inch octopus skirts

Inline Bird Daisy Chain

Other lures and information

Products

Good Fishing

Jim

[Carl Z]

What you're looking for is what's often called a meatball-a mass of small lures fished on spreader bar with a chase bait not much bigger but maybe a different colour.

Old Fred Archer used to produce something similar but word is that he's not long for this world but anyway there are other better products.

Try contacting these manufacturers for details

R'nR Bob

Custom spreader bars,dredges & bounce-ball Big Game fishing tackle

I'd start fishing these lures waythehellandgone behind the boat & adjust distance as conditions permit.