# Tuna: Open Water vs. Rigs



## JMB (Jan 2, 2009)

Are we only targeting half of the tuna population in the GOM?

The Tuna at the rigs can be very productive but seem to be rather finicky. Heck, that pretty much sums up tuna-finicky. 

Timing is key at the rigs in my opinion. You have to be there and ready when the tuna turn on. That is very hard to predict. As you all know they can start/stop abruptly. 

When we plan a rig trip we try to limit our running from each rig looking and hoping. If we find marks or good signs that they are there, we try to wait them out and use multiple tactics to see if we can jump start the action. We tend to plan on fishing 1-2 rigs and work it hard. Usually we can put something together, tuna, dolphin, billfish. 

Something to ponder though, is the open water bite. I have heard of quite a bit of open water bites this year and makes me wonder if the fish are changing their habits (rigs vs open water) or are the fisherman changing habits/locations. 

Question: are we as fisherman conditioned to fish the rigs for tuna? Most of us probably are, myself included. 

In the Atlantic and the Pacific they do not have rigs and they catch tuna. How is that so? They fish likely areas and use tactics that help in the search, trolling and chunking known areas. 

I speculate if we fished our area with more emphasis on open water bites for tuna there would be more caught. I know when I fish off the rigs my spread is geared heavily towards billfish and the by catch of wahoo and dolphin. Being so, I do not often catch tuna. I have but not with any consistently. 

One other thought: I saw an episode of Spanish Fly when they fished the rigs with Rimmer C. and he pointed out the differences in the body types of tuna that they caught on the show. 2 types of YFT: one long lean fish, the other a shorter but thicker fish. He said the longer thinner fish were a transient fish. The thicker fish a resident rig fish. 

That made sense to me in that a leaner fish is that way because it has to run long distances to eat. It is built like a cheetah or one of those African distance runners we saw at the Olympics. The residents have the food concentrated and can eat almost at will and have a body type that reflects that high food intake and relatively low effort out put. Those fish are built like the weight lifters in the Oympics. 

Just something that makes me thing how to be a better more observant fisherman. 

Could we all do better on tuna in the open water? Don't know with out trying. 

Anyone have some thoughts on this?


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## MillerTime (Jul 6, 2011)

All of what you said makes sense. The other thing is trying to pull them up through the sharks once you get them to bite.


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## samoajoe (Dec 28, 2010)

There have been studies on resident populations of tuna that stay around rigs all year long, along with the migratory populations. This may explain the multiple tactics we have to use to effectively target them. Other parts of the country/world place more emphasis on the troll for catching "rig free" tuna. It all adds to the fact that different fisheries have different methods of catching all fish, not just tuna. Great topic!


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## LITECATCH (Oct 2, 2007)

Like many we fish the rigs for yellows. Sunday Aug. 5th we caught a yellow fin around the nipple area. Not a big fish but big enough to keep. That yellow fin was the BEST eating yellow fin i have ever had. We ate it raw at the cleaning table and a day later Green Egged some and then on Wed. ate some more of it raw. It was the best i have had. Makes me want to target them more in open water!


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## billin (Oct 14, 2007)

*Tuna*

Open water tuna fishing is what I cut my teeth on in NC. I have noticed the Tuna here don't migrate as they do in the Atlantic so it makes open water fishing tough. I have found the tuna here to be larger around the rigs on average so if you are going why not go to the rigs. I don't fish for YFT here on the troll or atleast not the way I would fish for them at home my leaders are much bigger and shorter my lures are bigger and I pull teasers not very productive for yellowfin mainly because the fish are mixed here you don't get a true seasonal migration like back home. Tuna fishing on the east coast you get a seasonal run like the cobia migrate down here then the remainder of the year you are in a summertime pattern which is similar to our fishery here. I think that's why you don't see more people targeting them here they are too hard to predict in the GOM unless you are fishing the rigs.


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Open water tuna certainly exist, but its kind of the needle in the haystack trying to find them. Rig tuna on the other hand are relatively easy to find. I think it would be difficult to spend the day "targeting" open water tuna as you may come up empty handed.

All the open water tuna we have caught just happened. We would come across a school or feeding frenzy and it would all come together. We have caught a few solo open water tuna, but not many and interestingly they seem to the be the largest ones we catch. 

I always keep a pair of Fujinon Stabiized 14x40 binoculars on the bridge to look for breaching tuna. We also use our radar on calm days to look for birds, which usually mean tuna.

Robert


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## LRAD (Aug 13, 2009)

We had a school of yellowfin hit every ballyhoo in our spread earlier this summer while trolling for billfish at the Elbow. I tend to agree with Robert, though, they are definitely hit or miss in open water it seems (maybe mostly miss). I wouldn't think you would want to target them per se, but maybe rather include some tuna size baits in your spread while fishing for pelagics generally. Everything out there will eat a naked ballyhoo.


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