Every few years a new technique comes along that changes the way we fish on the West Coast. Interestingly however, many of these “new”
technique are really not new. They have been fished all over the world for years, but we, at times, have been slow to adopt
them. While some of our angling cadre may be eager to try new things, others are stuck in their old, traditional ways.
The ones on the cutting edge of new techniques are the ones who ride the wave of awe (or jealousy) for their stunning posts on Instagram and Facebook. For those on the envious side of the harbor, the posts are made worse when you’re sporting catches made the same time you
were out. It’s frustrating when you just can’t figure out what those guys are doing. Clearly, you can’t sit on your past successes. If you don’t want to be victimized by the kings of social media, you’re going to need an arsenal of methods when you head to the bluefin grounds.
The World Is Your Tackle Box In my years of testing many of the world’s fisheries, I have been exposed to some interesting techniques. Yet, it’s what you do with the techniques you learn that really matters. One of those would be utilizing downriggers for trolling live baits when
big tuna are deep and won’t come up to eat. I encountered this technique in Puerto Vallarta in the early 2000’s. When the big bluefin showed but wouldn’t bite, we got them on the downrigger.
As a consequence, my first cow here in July 2016 came on a slow-trolled sardine on the downrigger. A year earlier there were many days we were back to the dock early with nice bluefin when others struggled. Getting that bait down and in the precise zone was the secret. Other examples include the use of ballyhoo in North Carolina for bluefin while another was fishing skip baits for giant black marlin in Australia. I took these two trolling styles and started fishing ballyhoo read the full article
