(Originally published Sep/Oct 2014)
I’ll Tell You a Secret If You Don’t Tell Anyone
By Capt. Tred Barta
Canyon fishing today is a classic study of a limited resource shared by many interest groups but especially recreational fishermen. There are just so many people you can sit down at a table eating a blueberry pie wherein the pieces get so small you wonder why you are there.
With advent of all of the new immediate long-range electronics, often a hot bite at the Hudson Canyon or as far away as Atlantis finds 30 to 50 boats working a spot in close proximity. I have counted 123 boats between the Fish Tail and the Dip.
Back in the glory days of bigeye tuna fishing, and I am not so sure we are not witnessing a resurgence of it today, Makaira developed three specific techniques among many others to perform when trying to compete against many other boats during a high-traffic, tight bite.
Here goes, let’s go to work. It is my humble opinion that the key to success in the above conditions is at any expense to make your boat, wake, and lures look different. I highly suggest trying turning off all of your electronics, keep in mind your depth sounder makes a click and a ping, in a twin-engine boat shut down one engine and turn your genset off. By doing this you are reducing noise, reducing vibration, reducing white noise clutter, and cleaning up your wake. Believe me you will look different. Since you will be going slower, your wake will have more blue holes in it, so move your entire spread closer to the transom.
On many days we absolutely gave the entire fleet a fishing lesson. Why it works I suspect but can’t prove except it worked for Makaira.
The second technique is during a hot bite run four flat lines off the tip. hopefully with heavy lures like a 16-ounce deep clone. By the way, they are now being marketed and available by White Water Outfitters in Hampton Bays, N.Y. By taking a gloved hand open palm with your thumb tucked in and face down, in one swift movement push down on the line from the tip almost to the gunnel, producing a classic Montauk jigging technique.
Two people can work four lines. With these four lures having additional erratic action, it often will trigger the bite while passing a boat rigger to rigger. In this technique, watch your depth recorder and if you have bait and tuna present start jigging. This is a bigeye and albacore tuna killer.
If you have extra people on board, drop your riggers back, reel them in quickly, drop them back again and repeat the process. This again makes your lures and baits look like they are in a panic, in chaos and it has made a big difference on Makaira.
Another seemingly ridiculous technique but one that has saved the day several times, is to pull the entire rig in, go just outside of the fleet at about 15 or 16 knots and make 10 to 15 extremely tight turns in one direction. Of course everyone will make fun of you, right up to the point that all of your rods come tight; at the end of this turning procedure there is white oxygenated water everywhere. It looks like an absolute war zone. When you finish your last turn, go to the middle of the last circle and drop five butterfly jigs immediately and obviously start jigging. I know for a fact that from below this looks like a massive feeding frenzy. It looks like a big bait ball similar to what you see on Blue Planet.
You must be prepared with jigging rods using light leaders and very often you are covered up on all lines. Of course in traffic you can only pull this off once or twice in a day. My captain and mate, Mike Foreman and Jamie Hummel would often fire out a heavily weighted mullet or squid, and on a slow troll, these baits were annilated immediately.
Everyone will call you a jerk right up to the point that you unload your boat. As a field note, don’t forget to use this technique when you are all by yourself in the presence of a lot of porpoise and marine life. You can use this technique with several teasers out at one time. You can also have several flat lines out while you are doing it.
What is the point of this article? Never accept the norm. Never accept that what you think is the right mouse trap works every day. There are no rules and there are only results. As Makaira used to travel the Bigeye Tuna Highway down to Hydrographers, the 43 300 line, we never expected to catch bigeye tuna at night while trolling deep clones with cylumes at 6 knots, but we slammed them. Why? Because Capt. Mike Foreman pushed the envelope while I was asleep in my cabin.
I close with a classic quote. Never Give Up, Never Say Never. Do It the Barta Way the Hard Way.
Capt. Tred Barta
