DIAL IN YOUR GAME TO TARGET THE TROPHIES
DIAL IN YOUR GAME TO TARGET THE TROPHIES
But what about those elusive 20- to 30-pluspounders, the true trophies that are harder to find, harder to fool, and more challenging on light tackle? There are proven tricks to dialing in those brutes.
ZONES AND TIMES
Capt. Bouncer Smith’s depth window for blackfins off the Miami-fort Lauderdale area is 90 to 180 feet. He seeks out a knot or two of north current where the water flows offshore, avoiding wrecks, which attract sharks.
Blackfins are most active around sunrise and sunset. “My livewells will be filled with medium to large pilchards, herring and goggle-eyes,” says Smith. “Once anchored, I’ll set baits off a kite and flat lines, and one around 60 feet deep. I’ll lightly chum with pilchards and pick away at them until the big bite occurs.”
Chum lightly during evening and daylight, and step it up around sunrise and sunset. If short on live baits, Smith suggests chumming with freshly thawed Spanish sardines and even squid.
He rigs 20-pound tackle with 50-pound fluorocarbon leaders and 6/0 VMC Tournament circle hooks. If predators become an issue, he’ll step up to 30-pound gear. His top blackfins include trophies of 37 and 37½ pounds. He and I share our largest blackfin to date, a monster that registered 42 pounds on a Bogagrip. It took me 20 minutes to lead the fish to Smith’s gaff, on 20-pound spinning tackle.
GULF COAST LARGE
Darren Blum is no stranger to catching outsize blackfins off Bradenton and Sarasota.
Last July, the freelance guide boated one that bottomed out a 50-pound scale.
Blum dials in on big blackfins much the way Smith does off Miami. “We find large blackfins in 130to 200-foot depths during summer, fish averaging 20 pounds,” he says. “During spring, they come in closer, often into 80 feet.”
Blum looks for clean blue water and bait, and anchors. Chumming commences with periodic disbursements of pilchards, cigar minnows or sardine chunks. “We freeline two to four baits, based on our crew size,” he says. “It’s much like yellowtail fishing. We let a live bait drift for a set distance, then swim it back and repeat. Either live-chumming or chunking will hold the blackfins; we consistently catch them between 20 and 25 pounds, and occasionally some break 30 pounds.”
Blum prefers a 2/0, J-style hook and 60-pound fluorocarbon leader on 20-pound-class tackle.
DIG DEEP
On the fabled humps off Islamorada and Marathon, Capt. Ariel Medero has the big tuna figured out. He doesn’t wait for big blackfins to come to him; he goes after
them where they live, anywhere from 200 to 350 feet down.
“I get up-current of the hump and set out lines at 250 feet and 350 feet,” he says. “I use 20-pound tackle with a 40-foot, 40-pound-test wind-on fluoro leader, a small barrel swivel, and 2 feet of 40-pound fluoro or — if the fish aren’t eating aggressively — 30-pound fluoro with a 2/0 or 3/0 J-style hook.
“I hook a live bait in through the lower jaw and out the upper jaw, freeline it out to the double line, then hang a 10-ounce sinker where the double line joins the leader. I lower one bait to 350 feet, and the other to 250 feet.”
Then Medero drifts across the hump. When a rod tip bends, you wind rapidly to set the hook. When the sinker comes within reach, remove it. On the day he showed me his technique, we boated blackfins of 26, 27 and 33 pounds.
PEANUTS AND ELEPHANTS
Stepping up in bait size discourages small tuna. And the longer a livey frolics within the danger zone, the better the odds of it being consumed by a large fish. Big blackfins easily devour big baits. Some of our larger blackfins continue to fall for live pinfish and goggle-eyes, both hearty baits that do well at depths to 300 feet. It may take longer to get a strike, but the fish that eat will be beauties. That 33-pounder taken by Medero ate a pinfish. In May, aboard my MARC VI over Islamorada’s 409 Hump, a live goggle-eye at 300 feet scored a 21-pound tuna for Dee Kaminski, whereas a deeply positioned goggle-eye in Bahamian waters in early July resulted in a 27-pound blackfin for Harry Vernon III.
LOWER FLORIDA KEYS/ SHRIMP BOATS
Capt. Beau Woods targets blackfins around bars and wrecks between Cudjoe Key and the Marquesas. In the lower Keys, he opts for anchoring and live-chumming with pilchards, and prefers to set up some 200 feet upcurrent of a wreck, luring the tuna behind his boat and away from sharks. “If live bait is difficult to find, don’t fret,” says Woods. “Take cases of sardines or, if you fish a lot, save your leftover pilchards and freeze them.”
Woods favors 1/0 and 2/0 in-line circle hooks, free-lining baits on 25- and 30-pound pink fluorocarbon leaders. “Lighter leaders get more takers,” he says. “Circle hooks let you scale down the leader for those extra bites.”
It’s a bit different behind the shrimp boats. “Keep the chum going and pull the fish with you as you drift away from the shrimper. The bonito usually haul back to the shrimper, leaving the blackfins. If you’re culling bigger blackfins,
keep tossing a few pieces of chum, and time your bait delivery for when a larger fish charges up. Establish a rhythm to bait the larger tuna, but you best be quick on the draw.”
DESTIN DOGS
Come fall off the Florida Panhandle, Capt. Sid Little frequently targets the big blackfins within a mile of the beach. “These fish average in the 20s, and we’ve caught them off the beaches up to 32 pounds,” says Little. “When there’s an outgoing tide, these fish, along with sailfish, feed on ballyhoo and houndfish.”
Little keeps a couple of spinners rigged with popping plugs. “The plugs often get to them faster than baits,” he says. “When they chase the plugs back to the boat, we can load up our other rods.” Little slow-trolls cigar minnows and hardtails on 4/0 circle hooks and 150-foot top shots of 40- to 60-pound fluorocarbon. “When mackerel are a problem, I pile hooks on the console and tie on a new one after every cutoff,” he says. “That’s the reason for the long leaders: It’s a lot faster to tie on new hooks. I stay away from wire, since we’re looking for bites from big blackfins and sailfish.”