Offshore trolling Albacore

[MexicanGulf]

Are any of you passionate about albacore tuna trolling? It is a pelagic that I literally adore, also excellent in cooking. I would like to start a specific discussion.

[Hardy Boy]

I have fished for the nany times off of the North West side of Vancouver island. Look forward too it every year.

Todd

[alantani]

we used to get albacore here.  it's rare to be in range, now.  mostly it's shorter rods from private boats.  anything with 12-15 pounds of drag will usually suffice.  i used tld 20 two speeds because that's what dad wanted.  they worked great.  it was braid and a 60-80 pound mono topshot.  for trolling lures, i used 150 pound mono leaders, all crimped.  i still have all of this gear.  it just hasn't been used in the last 15 years!!!!

[Keta]

We have good albacore fishing Alan, drag your boat up and fish.  Coos Bay and Newport, OR are the better ports.  Easier to launch out of Chaarelston (Coos Bay) than Newport due to the crouds and it is the port the boat I was a deckhand on fished out of.  Pacific halibut are available but fishing for them is better out of Newport or Florence.  Winchester Bay is another good port. 

Albacore are fun and the 25 fish per day per  person limit fills a freezer fast but for me I would rather target larger tuna and yellowtail,  and off of Oregon salmon, rockfish and halibut.

When I fished for albacore I liked Avet JX/Penn FTH 25N size reels filled with 60/65 pound Spectra.  For jigging and cut bait smaller reels work better, Avet MX and Penn FTH 15XN/FTH 15 size.  The charter boat I worked on was Avet sponsored and we used Avet JX and LX reels for albacore.

My clones were rigged with 100# mono and single hooks.  I got hooked too many times by double and triple hooks by "overly excited" clients when I was a deckhand.  I detest trolling plugs with 2 treble hooks for the same reason but we always had 2 in our spread. Two spreader bars (I fished  Archer Supper Bars because Fred Archer was a friend) were always in our spread too. 

All lures were fished no further back than the 4th wake, usualy the second or third , and in the front side of wake.

[alantani]

the excursion gets 6mpg when towing the boat.      

[Brewcrafter]

TLD?  Avet?  Penn?  I figure you veteranos were out there jackpoling them  I remember as a lad that the Eldorado and Toronado (and later the Liberty as well) would come up to Morro Bay in the summers and run alby trips. - john

[Keta]

the excursion gets 6mpg when towing the boat.      

My F-250 with the 7.3 diesel gets 12 mpg towing a boat the size of yours, 9 mpg towing the 11,000 Tolleycraft.

Split the fuel 3 ways and you only have to rob 1 bank to fund the it.  Once you cross the border fuel is about $1.00 per gallon cheeper than in Newscums paradise.... for now.

[Keta]

TLD?  Avet?  Penn?  I figure you veteranos were out there jackpoling them  I remember as a lad that the Eldorado and Toronado (and later the Liberty as well) would come up to Morro Bay in the summers and run alby trips. - john

We would occasionaly run up to 12 handlines when on freezer runs John.  It was crazy on the deck when all of them got hit.

[Crab Pot]

A topic near and dear to my heart!

Clones: Mexican Flag (green/white/red), Zucchini (green duh), Jerry Garcia (purple and black), and white are deadly.

Cigar Plugs: Pick a color, they all work.

Meat Lines: Rapala X-Raps Sardine/Anchovy/Purple/Silver/Mackerel.

We run 6 rods and 2 meat lines.

The Cigar Plug (Shotgun) on a dredge is run up to 100+ yards behind the boat. Then fourth wake in towards the boat for the other rods. Meat lines are approx. 30' each with a 6' leader.

Whever's at the helm needs to be on their game or you'll be knitting sweaters...

It's chaos when you get into them but good chaos!

Steve

[Gfish]

When you really run into 'em it's prolly more fun pole fishing than anything else. On a commercial troller we had 2- 600+ fish days. That was when we first hit 64F water headed NE from Honolulu, towards Port Angeles, WA. The jigs were double hook rigs with no barbs, just a slight curve near the point. Trolling at 8 knots with no slowing down and hydraulics made it easy to not lose fish.

Yeah, of course I had to try the LB 60 with 50lb. No, I couldn't even move 'em forward, once hooked-up. The Captain wasn't gonna slow-down for one fish. I did get one whipping a deep diver off the side at night after we stopped.

[Hardy Boy]

I like running a couple of dive boards with zukers on hand lines. Gets some afternoon fish.

Todd

[MexicanGulf]

Among all the various families of trolling lures, feathers seem to be the most profitable. Unfortunately, they have become difficult to find on various online shops. To tell the truth, they can be found but in very small sizes.Also the build quality is very low. I remember Zucker's were really great, sadly it seems the company has closed.

[MexicanGulf]

😔😔😔

[Cor]

We used to get plenty in the 30 - 50 lb class and catch them on normal Yellowtail tackle using metal jigs, sink it deep, wind fast and stretch the arm muscles a bit. Great fun.   We would often find them near poling boats, but had to keep a reasonable distance as smaller boats in the vicinity weren't popular with the large commercials.

Where Yellowfin love a surface lure these Longfin generally don't take a lure in the top water.
Like all fish around here they are also becoming very scarce and the last few times we had to travel a long way to find them.

Great sporting fish.

[boon]

I like 5-6" chrome jet heads in pink or lumo/green for them, usually rigged with an Owner DH-41 double hook on 100-150lb mono.

If you want to find out if you're a good angler, go fish for them with 10-15lb line on something like a Calcutta 400B