South Florida Secrets for Bustin’ Bruiser Blackfin
Abundant in the tropics, blackfin tuna make their migration through warm South Florida waters during the early summer where they routinely pay homage to anxiously awaiting anglers.
In an effort to help readers find and fool these brilliant open-water predators, we’ve contacted regional specialists and asked them to share some of their most treasured tips for bustin’ blackfin. Read on for tuna triumph!
It’s all about live bait! - Southeast
Starting mid-April, trophy-size blackfin begin to invade the outside reef edges along the southeast coast of Florida. These fish become even more numerous through May and have been known to stick around until September. It’s no coincidence that the arrival of these feisty-feeders coincides with the migration of massive schools of pilchard, threadfin and Spanish-sardines – all favored forage.
Obtaining a healthy supply of prime offerings should be your first priority. If you do not have a bait pen to store a supply of live bait prior to your trip, reserve as many baits as you can afford from your local live bait boat. This way, you won’t have to waste time procuring bait while the early morning tuna bite is going off. Live chumming is the most effective method of enticing tuna into your spread, so it is always best to have as many ‘freebies’ as possible to maximize your tuna-attracting efforts. While you may hear of a decent blackfin taken on the troll or while chunking, off the tri-county region (Palm Beach/Broward/Dade), live-baiting is by far the most effective means for fooling these keen-eyed predators.
When it is time to find the tuna, look for reef humps, ledges, or depressions ranging from 80 to 240-feet deep. As long as there is forage in the area, these bottom contours act as a “drive-thru” for hungry tuna. Mark bait schools on your depth-finder in these areas, and it is a good indicator that it is time to start fishing. Stop your boat dead in the water and determine your heading. Reposition your vessel accordingly in order to drift directly over the desired structure.
For tackle, 20lb. spinning and conventional outfits are perfectly suited for the task. Tie a Bimini Twist at the end of your running line and connect it to a swivel with approximately eight-feet of 30lb. fluorocarbon leader. I prefer razor sharp J-hooks ranging from 3/0 to 7/0 depending on the size of the bait. Along with your flat-lines, rubber-core sinkers on a couple of additional rods will help cover the water column. Blackfin tuna are notoriously boat-shy, so fish your baits far away from the boat.
Kite-fishing, too, is highly effective as it will enable you to fish more lines and provide a better chance of multiple hookups.
Big blackfin prefer low light, which explains why you will experience the best fishing near dawn or dusk. I’ve also noticed that the tuna in our region tend to bite out in front of our major inlets during the outgoing tide, a characteristic often attributed to speedy wahoo. Use this as a hint to show up at the right place with the right bait and as long as the tuna are feeling cooperative, you’ll likely be rewarded with tuna tataki!
Hit the Humps! - Upper & Middle Florida Keys
Along the Atlantic side of the Upper and Middle Florida Keys, there are a series of underwater humps that rise hundreds of feet from the bottom of the ocean. Some of these submerged mountains are situated no more than 12-miles off the coast of Islamorada making them fairly easily accessible by boats of all sizes. As the blue-water currents collide with the humps, massive upwellings of nutrient–rich water are driven toward the surface and right into the hungry mouths of eagerly awaiting schools of aggressive blackfin. These underwater seamounts can be ultra-productive as they provide ideal structure for predator and prey in an otherwise featureless topography.
As you are approaching your favorite hump, keep a sharp lookout for heavy bird action which can typically be spotted dive-bombing through the surface in search of leftovers from foraging tuna – a dead giveaway to the feeding frenzy taking place below the surface. If your boat is equipped with high-powered radar, fine-tune it to home-in on the action from afar.
Of the few methods for enticing blackfin on the humps, I prefer to troll weighted feathers rigged on a maximum of 40lb. fluorocarbon as these fish can be extremely line shy. Hook size is dictated by the size of the offering, but should be small enough so it is completely concealed by the feathers. My favorites include C & H Lures No Alibi. This world-famous lure has been a staple in offshore anglers’ arsenals since 1926. I would say that they are here to stay! The color patterns that have provided me with the best results are blue/white and red/white.
Equally effective throughout the Florida Keys are Billy Baits’ Mini Turbo Slammers which are extremely productive in all of their Mylar color patterns.
Spooky blackfin tuna are notorious for avoiding whitewater which is why your trolling feathers should be dragged a minimum of 200-feet behind the boat. Depending on the speed of the current, you’ll find six to eight-knots is right on the money.
Like all other species of tuna, blackfin can be particularly boat-shy so be sure to give them plenty of space when trolling. At all costs, avoid a straight run directly over feeding schools. Instead, circle around the fish and you should be rewarded with multiple hook-ups on each pass.
If you reach the humps and there are no visible signs of life, deploy your spread and give it a shot. Sometimes the tuna sound as a result of fishing pressure or boat noise so even if you don’t see them, they may very well still be in the neighborhood. Remember that no matter how good you are, you can’t catch fish if your baits aren’t in the water!
Shrimp-Boats Baby! - Lower Keys & Key West
In my opinion, hitting the shrimp boats, which I call “tuna shrimping,” is by far the most action-packed method for catching blackfin. It requires a long run into the Gulf (usually 40 to 50-miles) with Key West the best port to depart. The goal in this fishery is to locate the commercial shrimp-boat fleet. If you are going on a charter, the captain will surely know where they are located, otherwise, ask around at local marinas and tackle shops. They’ll point you in the right direction.
Commercial-shrimpers drag their nets all night and sleep all day, but they’re accustomed to being approached during the early morning hours by recreational anglers seeking their bycatch of juvenile fish and crabs – and they’re always willing to barter! Dr. Pepper, Budweiser, magazines, food, cash, all work. Be prepared for the exchange as a few baskets of bycatch are essential to your angling success!
Once you have the goods on board, separate it into bait and chum and keep it on ice. Pick out the puffers (which, of course, are dead and deflated at this point) as they are worth their weight in gold. Drop back 100-feet behind the anchored shrimp boat and drop over a few handfuls of bycatch. Within seconds, an armada of hungry fish will rise from the depths to scoff down the freebies. Carefully scrutinize the school. If there are no dark silhouettes (blackfin tuna) among all the silver ones (bonito), move on to the next shrimp boat. There will be many to choose from.
Once you’ve located feeding tuna, the trick is to get your baits past the frenzied bonito and into the mouths of hungry blackfin. This is when and where the puffers come into play. Impart a 2/0 tuna hook through the tough skin of a puffer, near the dorsal, and wait patiently with your bail open. Every handful of chum will result in a violent feeding frenzy. Toss your puffer to the edge of the school where you’ve noticed the greatest number of dark silhouettes. The first fish that grabs your bait will most likely be a bonito. Leave the bail open and resist the urge to set the hook. The bonito will likely spit it out. Another one may immediately grab it, and then another and another. Be patient, it’s an exciting game. Eventually, a hungry blackfin will grab the puffer and will continue to race off, bait in mouth, in search of another morsel. For reasons not clearly understood, blackfin have acquired a serious liking for spiny puffers and rarely spit them out.
Now you better hang on, as these fish are powerful and average 20-pounds or more. Long, tackle-testing straight runs are the order of the day. I suggest you spool with 15 or 20lb. line on reels with plenty of line capacity and you’ll surely have a ball. Once you’ve landed a few beefy blackfin, scale down to 12 or even 10lb. gear or maybe even try your luck with a fly rod.
Try “tuna shrimping” for yourself and get a taste for this exciting experience. I assure you the craving will never go away.
Long-Range Recon! - Southwest
One word describes the blackfin tuna fishery off Southwest Florida, “EPIC!” Consistently finding packs of hungry tuna off the Southwest region was pretty much unheard of until high-speed center-consoles hit the scene. Nowadays, it’s common for crews to head offshore in chase of these tasty gamesters and to find success on a consistent basis. Last spring for instance, my gang tallied a total of 17 blackfin in a single day! These aren’t footballs I’m talking about either – rather tackle-testing bruisers averaging 15 to 30-pounds! What I’ve learned is that finding and fooling blackfin is not at all that difficult as long as a few key factors are taken into account. Any successful long-range trip begins with a bit of research, and the only place to start is on Hilton’s Realtime Navigator (www.realtime-navigator.com). Accurate temperature, current, altimetry, chlorophyll and salinity readings take almost all of the guess work out of finding tuna schools when running 100-miles offshore. Some times the information works so well, it feels like ‘cheating.’
Most of our blackfin tuna expeditions take place in 200 to 400-feet of water. Exactly where, depends on the information culled from Hilton’s. Ideally, we focus on the counter-rotating eddies that regularly spin off of the Loop Current. We then center our efforts on the boundaries of the different water masses determined by the readings from Hilton’s Realtime Navigator. The areas with the most overlap typically signify the precise location of rips and weedlines. Once we arrive at our target destination, we simply tune the radar and close-in on nearby bird activity – wasting no time fishing unless we spot tiny tuna chicks vigilantly picking off the surface.
When targeting West Coast blackfin, you can go pretty light. We typically run a spread of Accurate 870s loaded with 20lb. test monofilament topped off with 15-feet of 30lb. fluorocarbon. Over the years and with long hours of trial and error, we’ve dragged a number of different lures and have come to the conclusion that black/red Mini Turbo Slammer are the only lure worth its salt in this application. These tiny lures work so well that there is really no reason for us to run anything else. These fish feed on tiny bait so a spread of Mini Turbos’ perfectly mimics their natural forage.
Tuna are extremely shy, so avoid trolling too close to busting schools. Once you get hooked up and the first rod starts screaming, don’t slow down! Keep the RPMs up and wait until a second and third rod scream to life, or at least until your entire spread has had the chance to pass through the frenzy. When traveling this far offshore, remember to make safety your number one priority and file a float plan with a responsible individual. Weather permitting, this fishery produces quality catches year-round so if you have a window of calm weather and can identify promising water, call a few of your fishing buddies and go for it!
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