IN HOT WATER

In the past, we thought it was impossible to catch bluefin by trolling when the water warmed up and the fleet converted to chunking. We went along with this belief for many years until this past season. In 2007 we chunked only one time in early July and due to our success with trolling and jigging, we switched to all trolling and jigging for rest of the season. The primary reason for this success has been the use of the "way, way back" technique for trolling baits. This is the second big change we have adopted for inshore bluefin fishing since the days when we fished out of Lewes and Ocean City. By using hollow core spectra on our reels, we have the line capacity needed to troll this way. This method certainly has it detractors but it does catch bigger bluefin.
I have become a firm believer in how effective the "way, way back" line can be. We run almost every day in the summer months and I have seen that this method has produced almost all the bigger bluefin we have caught the past couple years. One big negative about this type of trolling is if you fish around the more popular lumps and hills that are jammed with lots of boat traffic, having lines out up to 400 yards invites cut offs and tangles if you make sharp turns.
During the 2007 season we concentrated our efforts quite a bit north away from the large fleets so on many days we had only 2 to 10 boats within a few miles of us. This enabled us to troll at least three lines "way, way back" without problems and resulted in some very good bluefin catches. Although we did not have the bigger bluefin over 150 pounds except for a few days in late summer when the Elephant Trunk was open to the multi-day scallop fleet, we caught plenty of charter friendly tuna in the 50- to 90-pound range. By late August we had a hard time finding bluefin under 47 inches as almost all that we caught were 50 inches and up. When we fish in tuna tournaments, we run further south and fish the more popular traditional bluefin locations such as the Ham Bone, Hot Dog and Sausage lumps in order to target the bigger bluefin in the 140- to 175-pound range. For the most part we avoided fishing these areas last season because the large fleets of boats makes putting a good catch together extremely tough. If you fish these well known lumps and hills, we suggest you arrive before daybreak and, if possible, fish on weekdays when there are fewer boats.
Fighting a bluefin in the 90- to 125-pound range or bigger can be quite a challenge when the fish is on a rig that is 400 yards back but our charters loved it as it provided a challenging fight which they really enjoyed. When trolling using the "way, way back" method, we run three lines with one back about 400 yards in the shotgun position, one placed at 275 yards on one rigger and the other 325 yards back on the other rigger. We also run one or two baits on planers in close, however, many times last year we did not even bother to put out the planers as almost all our tuna bites came on the long lines.

TUNED TROLLING

When targeting bigger bluefin over 90 pounds, we use large ballyhoo with a large bullet head Ilander. We rig our lures on 130- to 150-pound fluorocarbon leaders that are about 6 feet long. At times, if the bite is slow, we run long 20-foot wind-on fluorocarbon leaders and occasionally even go down to 80-pound leaders. If there are wahoo or early season bluefish in the area, we go up to regular 180-pound mono leaders on our planer baits. We have found this makes no difference right at sunrise but after the sun comes up, we never put out leaders over 130 pounds when trolling for bluefin.
We've learned we don't need to use fluorocarbon leaders on dark, overcast days or when the boat traffic is very light as we have been able to catch bluefin on regular mono leaders without any problem. We have experimented with having both fluorocarbon and regular mono leaders when trolling and have found the mono gets just as many bites under low light conditions. This also holds true when chunking with deep lines down around the bottom. One of the advantages of being able to fish so many days during the summer and fall is that we can experiment to see how different methods work. We continually strive to improve and to use the most effective methods available especially since the number of bluefin that can be boated is limited.
These days we don't troll over 5.6 knots when targeting bluefin. The exception to this is when we put out artificial lures such as Marauders or other wahoo lures to target wahoo and then we troll at least 7 to 8 knots or more. If we have ballyhoo in the spread though, we continue to troll at the slower speeds and most of the time we do have at least one ballyhoo out either naked or with an Ilander when targeting wahoo. To date we have never had a bluefin eat a ballyhoo rigged with wire for wahoo even though we have gone down as low as # 9 wire. After we have caught our legal bluefin limit, we target wahoo and run tooth proof ballyhoo rigs on our planer baits that have just a short trace of wire. It is our opinion that the right trolling speed, when targeting bluefin, is to go the slowest you can yet keep the ballyhoo swimming properly.
We use #24 and #32 planers rigged with 200-pound Jerry Brown Spectra although we still have 300-pound mono on some #24 planers. We converted to using hollow core spectra on our planers a few years ago because the thinner line diameter allows the planer lines to run a little deeper. We haven't had any issues with the spectra cutting anyone as it is softer than Power Pro. I suggest using spectra on your planer or downriggers. We also paint our planers black to help prevent wahoo and shark bites.
The #24 and #32 planers are run at 60 feet and 100 feet with our baits at various distances behind the planers. Most times we run the bait at least 200 feet beyond the planer but of course we switch how far the baits are back depending on the bait sets that are getting the bites. We mark the lines with rigging floss so we can put the baits back out to the exact same distance on subsequent troll sets after bringing the lines in when fighting a fish or after checking or changing baits.
It is also very important to use top quality baits and to defrost them in kosher salt or a brine solution. We rig our ballyhoo by punching out the eyes with a wooden dowel and use rigging wire to keep the mouth closed. We fish our ballyhoo with Ilanders or naked with chin weights. This past year we also had good luck with Carolina Gentleman lures in front of medium ballyhoo that were very effective for 50- to 80-pound bluefin.

Overall the best color combination for us was the crystal electric pink/electric white with blue/white being the second most productive. On some trips it did not matter what color lure we put out as we caught bluefin on many different colors. I am sure Billy Baits, Sea Witches and other lures in front of ballyhoo would all work if the fish are feeding. The secret in my opinion is to get the baits down and make sure they are swimming correctly. You can check that the ballyhoo is swimming correctly by letting the ballyhoo bait line out next to the boat or off the stern and then watching the ballyhoo to make sure it swims and doesn't wobble or spin.