I put this in the wrong spot....

I re-rig the Frenzy flyers with one or two good quality trebles. Cut the long leader down so that you can use a spinner and cast it kinda like a popper. It is often allowed to stay out as we move the boat back to a rig after completing a drift. You can make a daisy chain for trolling them. If you choose to slow troll a livey around a rig, put a flyer back way long.

The charter capts don't like to mess with down riggers much when bump trolling. They'll just move to another rig. I see nothing wrong sending a bait deep if you have anglers that are capable of helping.

Try to find Eddie Burger when you are there. If he is spending alot of time on the water, he'll know what is working.

The long jigs and topwaters were working very well a month ago. Good sized Mahi were easy to find.

DSG,
Thanks for the info. I have never fished flyers before so I'm fired up to do it. I have plenty of poppers as well.
Steve

I have seen them on fire and also cold as a cucumber. I have not figured any reason why.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Frenzy flyers are good from a kite too... or a helium baloon.

I would take along a pool net myself. Scoop up some live baits.

When we fished with Eddie on Sunday/Monday, we asked him what size poppers to use and he said small. So we used Tuna Hunter Juniors and Wombat Chuggers. The one we caught popping was on the smallest one we had.

Russ

Thanks Guys.

Russ, did you guys fish live bait or chunk on the drift?

DSG, pool net huh??

Yes, pool net. Get as big a head on it as you can find. Get one that telescopes too. It is hard to beat a live flyer for yft...

If you can get some light on or in the water you'll have even more bait around the boat. It is fun to drift away from a rig at night and pull the tuna with you.

StevieT: We did both. Most of the live bait was fished during the day. We had caught some hard tails about 6 inches and longer, and some other, smaller bait that I could not identify. We pretty much used up the really small stuff (3-5 inches, I would estimate,) when we headed out deeper. I think that 3 of the dolphin were caught on the livies, but the bull was caught on a huge Krokodile spoon, jigging style.

I think it was only after dark and moving out farther that we began chunking almost exclusively, and we had most of our success on tuna that way. As I have said before, we were not being careful at all, hooking the bait on like worms with the hook hanging out, and I realized later that some of us had started to drift our chunks immediately when the drift started, and sometimes before the Captain began to toss some out, so maybe we were lucky. We used all size chunks, some small and some that looked like pot roasts, and it didn't seem to matter much.

Russ

DSG, I'll bring my pool net and it does telescope. That should be fun.

Russ, last year we just drifted and chunked during the day and had our best success doing that. I think we only got 1 on a live bait. We started at the Lena and then moved out to DT. How far did you guys go? Mars? Ursa?

Man, I'm gettin fired up!!!

StevieT: I should make a slight correction--when we fished live bait, I believe we slow-trolled it the entire time. I do remember that the Captain was really ripping the line off the reels, and I remember the engines running faster, so I think that was the case.

I have no idea on God's blue ocean where we were, except that we ended up about 50 miles out and followed a southerly course most of the time. Don't know the names of any of the rigs we visited. Sorry not to be of more help.

By the way, hope you have a wonderful trip. Having been out there, I envy you. By the way, I told Captain Eddie that I had thought when I retire, I might want to be a deckhand. I decided after watching him run around the boat and gaffing fish, I will probably end up as a WalMart greeter. "Hey, Lady! Make that kid shut up, and quit blocking the whole main aisle with that big butt of yours!" Probably I shouldn't do either job.

StevieT, we started at Deepwater Millenium and ended up at Ursa I believe.

Fred

Russ, LMAO!!!!

Gimme,
thanks for the info!! It's sounding like the Mars/Ersa area is the best bet. I'll talk to the guys when we get there and see what working.