To Catch a Blue Fin Tuna - Part 2
Continuation from part1 of “To Catch a Blue Fin Tuna”
Far far offshore, we continued to sail after landing our first tuna of Zephyr’s winter Blue Fin Tuna fishing mission. We still were not sure whether the tuna we had landed was an albacore or a very small bluefin tuna but in either case, stoke levels were high! We’d at least managed to catch a tuna of some sort so we would not be returning to port empty handed.
We continued on under grey overcast skies heading towards shore to an approximate location where we knew blue fin tuna had been caught. The Tauranga Sport Fishing club maintains a sponsors grid which sections off the Bay of Plenty into huge blocks. When a fish is landed and a photo is taken of it, often times the grid number will be in the photo which can provide some clues as to where other fisherman were having luck.
Grid 35 is where we were heading. It was included in a few photos of recently caught sashimi barrels. It is the largest grid by far encompassing an area of approximately 250 square miles making locating the specific area where fish are being caught even more difficult. Searching for additional clues, I looked at the charts. A lesson for any sort of hunting or fishing that I’d learned is to search along the edge of two environments rather than in the middle of a homogenous one. It appeared that grid 35 included a 40 miles of a long shelf where the water drops from a few hundred feet to a few thousand in a gradual manor. If there was anywhere fish would congregate, it would probably be along this shelf.
By noon we’d managed to make it to the shelf and we started sailing along under Zephyr’s blue code zero towards east cape. The grey overcast skys turned into patchy rays of sun mixed in with some cloud cover making the atmosphere a lot less gloomy!
In our spread, we were towing three things. On the starboard rod, we were towing a blue Zacatak thunderstruck with a bird teaser in front of it way far back. Up the middle a daisy chain with no hooks designed to peak a hungry fishes interest with all the splashing. On the port rod we had a fat headed large green squid that seemed to pop pretty nicely.
Around 3PM I spotted two sport fishing boats in the distance who looked like they were also fishing along the shelf. A good sign indeed. Not 2 minutes later, the port rod went off like a bat out of hell!
FISH ON!!!
This is probably one of the trickiest things about fishing from a sailboat…..when a big fish gets hooked, you need to get the boat stopped or you have no chance of bringing it in. Sometimes it gets frantic. Since the primary mission de-jour was fishing, we only sailed with a single sail up making putting it away a quick affair.
Marty had been fast asleep in his forward cabin as far from the rod as one could possibly be. The sound of a Shimano Tiagra peeling off line though pierces all barriers and he was quickly on the rod while Amanda, Aaron and I put the code zero away.
After a minute the fish was still peeling line off the reel easily. Whatever was on the other end of the line was indeed big!
15 minutes in it was still fighting!
Huge mistake: we had bent butt fishing rods and 0 degree fishing rod holders for a reason. That reason being that you do not have to take the fishing rod out of the rod holder and you can simply crank the fish in. The rod holder does the hard work. You just crank.
On this first fish Marty decided to fight it in gentlemanly fashion holding the rod himself. On a big fish with a massive rod and reel as we had that’s a tall order. This was not intended to be standup fishing gear. We managed though!
When we finally got a glimpse of the beast I was floored how big it was! Now that’s a blue fin tuna!!!!!
Along with some other equipment for this mission I’d purchased a breakaway gaffe system. A normal gaffe is simply a metal hook on the end of a pole. With a very large fish this is a big hazard. You sink the hook into the fish but you may not be able to hold onto the pole once you do. With a breakaway gaffe system, the hook is tied onto the end of a rope and the hook is loosely attached onto the end of a pole. Once you sink the gaffe into the fish, the hook detaches but is still attached to a rope. You can attach the other end of the rope to the boat. You can also have multiple people holding onto the rope to bring the fish all the way in.
After a little bit of fiddling with the breakaway gaffe we managed to finally sink the hook in!!! It took Aaron, Marty and myself together to get the fish on deck!!
Measuring it up we had just caught a 70kg (154lb) bluefin tuna! The fillets from this one fish alone would be worth about $2100 USD wholesale!
Elated. That the only way to describe the feeling of uncertainty transforming into achievement in the course of an exciting 45 minutes battle with a fish.
We continued our sail along the shelf all the way to Hicks bay on the end of the east cape of North Island dropping the anchor after dark we began the process of filleting and vacuum bagging the monstrous barrel of sashimi. Zephyr turned into a full fish factory with someone on the transom filleting cuts of meat and then a team of folks inside cleaning the fillets and then neatly vacuum packing them.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. At least the first of our three goals. Which were:
1 - Catch a bluefin tuna
2 - Catch enough blue fin tuna to fill Zephyr’s freezers
3 - Catch a 100kg tuna (heavier than any of us)
Although a 70kg fish is a big fish, we had room for much more in Zephyr’s freezers.
We took a break the following day in Hicks bay accomplishing almost nothing. We were all exhausted after the herculean effort of sailing all day then toiling late into the evening processing fish. Conveniently, the wind was due to switch around the following day such that we would be blown downwind back the way we came…..so it made a lot of sense to simply take a break.
Sushi was definitely on the menu!
The following day we left early in the morning. We would be sailing towards Tauranga which is in the bottom of the bay of plenty. Our lucky shelf was right on the way so we had high hopes of hooking up once more. We set the lures the same as the day before. Thunderstruck way back with bird in front of it on SB, daisy chain up the middle, green popping squid on port right behind the daisy chain.
About 3 hours in we spotted a group of sport fishing boats all working a similar location. Same as last time…..as soon we spotted the boats, the port rod with the green squid starting going off. FISH ON!
Sadly this did not last. The braided line bunched up on the reel and fish broke off. Still to this day I don’t quite understand why this happened. We’d taken care to unspool all 2km the braided line on the way down and wind it on tight such that the braid could not compress into the lower wraps. We’d already successfully caught a fish on this rod. It jammed anyways in this case.
Our lucky green squid was gone……but….we had two data points now. The tuna had always taken the lure right behind the daisy chain rather than the one way far back. We pulled in the Zacatak Thunderstruck and also removed the bird in front of it because we believe it might be interfering with the lures action. We replaced the green squid with various other lures through out the day.
With about a dozen sport fishing boats concentrating in this one area and at least a few boats that were obviously hooked up, we also decided to concentrate on this area. Reaching back and forth motor sailing under the jib we zagged a few times around the grounds. We fished like this for two hours and had a line go off only for the fish to let the lure go. This was on the thunderstruck so it was a clue that perhaps we’d made the right decision bringing it in.
Finally, after about a half day of intensive fishing we landed yet another albacore! With the Tiagra 80W reels and 130lb mono + braid line it was a quick affair to boat it. An hour after that, I was resetting the Zacatack thunderstruck lure when a big tuna struck the lure while the rod was in my hand.
FISH ON!
We managed to land yet another blue fin tuna! This time 60kg (132lb) so a bit smaller than the last one. But with the two albacore and two blue fin tuna we’d for sure managed to fill Zephyr’s freezers! Goal #2 accomplished.
All in all we’d now managed to catch about $4.5k USD to Tuna. Not too shabby for a day and half of fishing. All aboard were elated at our success!
With freezers full, we began the long overnight sail to Tauranga as a pit stop on our way north. Marty was on the aft transom filleting the 60kg tuna so that we could pack it away in the freezers.
Thats when the rod went off. Again. This was our fifth bite today and would be our fifth fish……if we landed it.
FISH ON!
Marty covered in blood tended to the rod as Aaron, Amanda and I put the sails away. We got the boat slowed down and the fish was still going…..and going. It was getting dark out and we knew we’d probably be signed up to be fighting this fish into the evening.
Marty on the rod and Aaron ready with the gaffe
This fish was obviously bigger than the last few we’d landed. After 45 minutes we finally got it to the boat with the light of day almost gone. It was indeed a monster!
We sunk the big gaffe into it but it was too heavy to lift on board. We had to use the second smaller gaff as well to get enough hands involved to get this sashimi barrel on deck.
Measured it up, this was indeed a 100kg tuna (220lb)!!!! Of our three goals we managed to nail all three.
Now came the problem….freezers full, what do we do with this fish?
This was in the middle of winter in New Zealand. A easterly wind was keeping air temperatures quite low. The best bet we decided would be to leave the fish whole on the transom and get to Tauranga as fast as possible. Once there we could sort a freezer solution.
Pulling into Tauranga we ended up meeting a very nice fisherman with more kindness than teeth and plenty of ice to spare. In addition with the 2nd freezer, we also have a cooler which lives in the cockpit as an extra bench seat on Zephyr. The last time it was used for fish was up in Alaska on a mission to fill Zephyr’s freezers with as much Coho salmon as possible. Today we filled it up with the fillets from our monster tuna as well as ice. That was enough to keep the fillets cold for the 1.5 day sail back to Whangarei where Marty stashed the tuna in his families freezers.
The whole team with our 100kg fish!
Now, at a reasonable $25 per pound for the blue fin and $15 per pound for the albacore the fillets we caught would total up to a value of……..
$7000 USD!!!
Thats not even counting the ridiculous amount of blue fin tuna belly we had we can go for $100 per kg easily.
Belly meat marbled with fat. Melt in your mouth goodness!
The temptation to get a tuna boat, head to the east coast and join the “Wicked Tuna” reality TV show was strong.
Before leaving I’d met folks that had tried a few times and not managed to land a tuna. We landed 3 bluefin and 2 albacore in 1.5 days. In Hicks bay we ran into some folks who had been out fishing multiple times in recent days and not managed to catch any fish.
How’d we end up getting so lucky?
I can’t be certain but I definitely went out and bought the absolute best gear I could before leaving on this trip. After towing hand-lines across the pacific and trying to make some pretty small cruising rods work, the Tiagra 80Ws + carbon bent butt fishing rods I had purchased were a major upgrade. The process of getting fish to the boat was simply a matter of cranking rather than back breaking work. The break away gaffe system as well was a major asset for boating monster fish. Johan at the Saltwater Connection in Whangarei set us up with all this and I don’t think I’ll go back to using hand lines after using this gear.
The real magic I think was the lure choice though. Specifically the Zacatak thunderstruck. After watching a video of the action underwater I bought three for the trip. We always had one zacatak thunderstruck and one other lure in tow. Of the 7 strikes that we got, 5 fish were on the zacatak thunderstruck including the 100kg monster tuna at the end. I tried all kinds of different options towed along side the thunderstruck. Given the statistics the thunderstruck was clearly a winner for us in the case of blue fin tuna + albacore fishing!
So what’s next?
This was all back in July. Now we are here in November with still a few fillets kicking around in the freezer. Currently Zephyr is on its way south to Stewart Island at the southern tip of new Zealand and firmly in the roaring 40s. The plan is to gather crayfish (NZ lobster) and Paua (NZ Abalone) as well as keep our eyes peeled for any white tailed deer we might run across.
After Stewart Island we’ll be heading around the corner to Fjordland…..and rumors have it that blue fin can be caught off Fjordland in the summer……and these ones are bigger. Some more than 400kg!!!!
We all know what goal #4 is……