Tuna fishing Gold coast

Tips for Tuna fishing gold coast Australia.

Tuna Types

Tuna are a highly prized saltwater game fish. There is no doubt that most of the tuna species grow to a hefty size and size making them an excellent game fishing target species. There are several species of tuna including the Yellowfin, mackerel, Striped, bonito and bluefin. Plenty of Tuna are caught by offshore anglers year round off the Gold coast just an hour south of Brisbane. The main species taken off south east Queensland are Yellowfin tuna, Mackerel Tuna and Striped tuna.

Trolling For Tuna

One of the most productive methods of Tuna fishing is trolling. Trolling is done with Skirted lures, Hard bodied lures such as those offered by company’s like Rapala and halco. Live or fresh dead bait, Chrome slices and feather jigs.
When trolling its advisable to set a spread of lures at various distances behind the boat. Lures should be trolled at between 5-8 knots for tuna fishing.

While trolling look for areas of interest like tide lines, reefs, bait schools and places where sea birds are working. If you locate a school of tuna working on the surface try to troll around the edges of the school rather than driving straight through it. Driving through a school will often spook the fish and cause them to dive deep.
Sometimes once a feeding school has been located it can pay to stop trolling and shut the motor down. Allowing the boat to drift towards the school, you can then cast either chrome slices or live or dead baits into the feeding school.

The Hook Up

When tuna strike, they hit hard and fast. Big Tuna usually hook themselves provided the drag is set to strike. The reel will scream and line will peel off the spool at a rapid rate. If the line becomes slack during the fight, the fish is usually swimming toward the boat. Never assume the fish has been dropped, wind up the slack as quickly as possible. Always keep the line tight. A big fish will give you run for your money, fighting hard for its life. The fight will vary usually they will come up high in the water column for a while and then dive deep later in the fight, they will often do large circles under the boat and fast work is required to prevent being cut off on the keel or propellors.

Bait Fishing for Tuna

Another very deadly technique for catching Tuna off the Gold coast is to anchor or drift and create burley trail and wait for the fish to turn up. Burleying can be done with the aid of a burley pot and masher, or you can cut up pilchards into cubes and slowly feed them over the side of the boat.

Once the burley trail has been established you can set your baits in amongst it. Generally speaking live baits are the most effective, preferabally yellowtail scad or slimy mackerel. use a 6/0 hook, they can either be hooked through the shoulders just behind the head or through the top lid. Sometimes a float such as balloon is required to get the bait away from the boat.
set baits at varying depths in the burley trail.
If live baits aren’t available a lightly weighted pilchard drifted down the burley slick can also be effective.

While using these bait fishing techniques off the Gold coast or Brisbane you will often encounter other species as well, such as Cobia, Mackerel, Marlin, Sailfish, Sharks and wahoo.Of course if you don’t have a boat you could try one of our Gold coast Tuna fishing charters for a chance to do battle with a fast and furious tuna. Gold coast Tuna fishing charters