12 Rod Tuna Spread, 33 Blackfin

[Captain Fred Archer]

Here's what a 12 rod tuna spread on a 33 Blackfin looks like from above. Draws lots of multiples we've been covered on it several times with only four or five crew...that's the definition of the word, "Pandemonium"!

Here's a shot of an albacore double on one of our new Spiders that someone left the chasebait off of and armed two of the back teasers with hooks. Let's see, 2 x 12 is...ah, never mind! No more of that stuff! One at a time per lure is good enough on nice albies like this, to say nothing of a couple of big 'fins or 'eyes (gulp)!

[babalaza]

gl with that lol. Nah, on a serious note now, must create a nice school of bait back there, and great moments too!

should be fun to see this 12 rod spread after dorados

[hunt4fish]

Talk about working the pit That puts a whole new spin in things.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Guys,

I've never run a twelve rod spread, but I ran an eight or nine, all spreaderbar one on the many days we were after tuna down in Cabo. The seeming nightmare of hooking a mix of tuna and dorado happened pretty frequently and actually wasn't much of a problem. We had our passengers tackle the tunas first because most went down to fight the typical tuna fight, except for snagged fish, which often made long, surface runs, but almost universally straight line ones. Once they stopped running they were dead meat and could be cranked back up to the boat with no running around and most drowned real fast.

Since the dorados for the most part fight up on top, we left those rods in the holders and after the intitial wild jumps were over and they had pulled off some line, they pretty much backed off, maybe turned on their sides a little and pretty much followed along well behind the boat and amazingly, pretty much behaved themselves and didn't fight much or even at all. The boat was always in gear and moving forward during these times. The only time a crew member had to pick up a rod and do an "over/under" was if two of the dorados looked like they were going to cross lines. Didn't happen much.

The best part of all of this was that after the tunas were landed or released, those darned dorados fought like hell when our anglers started pulling on them.

Those who haven't done it will be shocked to learn what tuna and even dorado do if you have to leave rods with them hooked up in the rod holders, ignore the fish and just keep moving slowly forward as you fight the others. The tunas will only run for so long and then they turn and the pressure on the rod decreases. Soon, it looks like the fish is gone, but they aren't, especially if you use circle hooks on your bars, like we do. We had this happen countless times when we had more rods out than crankers and the same thing happened with the dorados, except that I was able to sit up in the tower and watch them swimming along behind us, nice and peaceful like until someone started pumping and winding on them.

But twelve? Hmm, could get interesting!

[Seaker]

We have been successfully trolling SBFT in CCB. One of the reasons I feel we have enjoyed some of the fish is we pull a lot of bars The OI green monster bars have been well chewed.

The cool thing about your spiders is we replaced the short corners with them and added a trolling weight to get them down and add some dimension to our spread. With all bars just cruising along on top our spread was one dimensional and the spiders give very little drag which meant we could put em on the 30's with a cigar weight and I feel they added much to the spread...

Great job of engineering a solution to a common problem.

They also seem to be bullet proof

[Wasabi]

Fantastic setup, Captain ! Downright inspirational.

What kind of livewell is that you've got ?

[lazyfatass247]

very nice capt. I will be running a 12 rod spread this year in the canyons should be interesting.

[DH 111]

[QUOTE=Captain Fred Archer;217456]Here's what a 12 rod tuna spread on a 33 Blackfin looks like from above. Draws lots of multiples we've been covered on it several times with only four or five crew...that's the definition of the word, "Pandemonium"!


"Guys,

I've never run a twelve rod spread, but I ran an eight or nine, all spreaderbar one on the many days we were after tuna down in Cabo."

i am sorry a little confused....first post was a 12 rod spread that you were covered up on sevral times..........next post first quote......i've never ran a 12 rod spread??????????

[Purple Haze]

Bud Light,

Fred was a last minute no go on this trip. But has gone many times where 8 or 9 set-ups were run on our last boat a 27 Grady Sailfish. Fred also knows that when I get tired of metering fish that dont bite, my creativity in the pit gets a bit out of hand at times. With our new Blackfin I just maybe over did it last week!? Had FUN any ways and got a workout too. Yes Fred you get to go next time.

SuperBars, rigged fender teasers (Toads), UpRiggers (some set as IGFA teasers with SuperBars), and the super new Spiders as mentioned earlier giving a three dimensional spread is what made this super slow day much better.

Wasabi,

As far as the bait tank. It has no brand markings that I have seen. It came with the boat which was purchased last November out of Florida. It kept the 4-6" sardines pretty well most of the day. But nothing to write home about. Getting ready to mount a scoop and a half soon.

Sorry about the huge photo. Computer monkey strikes again.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Oops! Ya caught me, Bud! And thanks. The Cabo spread stuff was accurate, I have never run a 12 rod spread on my boat down there. Fishing with Purple Haze, though, is a different story and he has put some spreads out, including the 12 rod on in the photo, many times and I should have said that "he" has been covered up many times while "I" have been covered many, many times with my Cabo spreads. Guess I have to slow down and read what the heck I write. I didn't mean to mislead anyone and apologize for my mistake.

Now young Purple, he's one of those "mad scientists" that I sometimes write about and admire so much. Typical of the Haze man, on his last trip he took the single chasebait off a Spider and put hooks on two of the last teasers. Then he turned around and caught an albacore double on the danged thing! One of the things that I really like about the guy, even when he has me scratching my head over something, is that he's a fiddler who actually comes up with some pretty neat stuff sometimes. And other times - ho, ho, ho!

Again, sorry about the incorrect commentary, but hey, nine isn't much different than twelve and what I was trying to get to was how we fight the fish during big multiples. That's the most important part that I hope will help people new to that sort of thing.

Load them patterns up, stack them bars in close to one another, and stay calm when the poop hits the platter!

Now it's time for my Labs to take me for a drag...lemmee see now, was there two of them, or four? Was they yellers, or chocolates? Oh yeah, blacks. Wunner wut their names is? Man, gettin' old's no fun and sometimes you look like a fool because you ARE one...an old one to boot!