# Bluefin Bites in NC becomes consistent.



## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

It's been frustrating tuna disappeared whenever I fished in NC This year.
It was not a good we found banana in a cooler which one guy brougt on the boat. They teased me I am a human banana. When we couldn't locate tuna in the morning, I thought I was. 
Finally Capt Andy located tuna. We jigged hard. You name it. We used all sort of jigs,but tuna just ignored them. Finally my like got tight. But it didn't stay long because of knot failure. 
I usually tie a knot directly to the eye of a jig. But I used swivel/split ting this time. The knot went through the small swivel was not perfect and I was lazy enough not to retie it.
It cost me a big tuna. That was the only tuna we hooked up on jigs. The jig was FCL LABO 340g with spotted glow. I usually don't use any jig heavier than 300g for tuna, but I tried it as Scott said he had good bites with the jigs and curreant/wind was pretty strong.
While tuna didn't cooperated on jigs, we saw lots of tuna just below the surface. While jigging, we saw a few tuna on the surface not far fro the boat. Greg castes a OTI Komoda and tuna hammered it a few times without hookup. On the next cast, finally line got tight. He used a custom Race Point rod. He had a Braid full harness and harness ring attached right above of reel base. I was not comfortable of the ring because it touched my hand when casting, but Greg said it doesn't bother him much with gloves on. The fight lasted pretty long and we knew it was a big tuna. But unfortunately spliced line failed. Spliced line or loop to loop connection usually don't fail even in extreme pressure. But it has to be perfect. There must be defect/damage on the line as Greg is very good at it.

Now my opportunity came. After I cast my 150g HERU Skipjack against wind, we saw big explosion on my lure while I was cranking slack line caused by wind, I thought I lost the fish because there was too much slack, but to my surprise tuna was still there when I finally got rid of the slack line. After a brief fight, I asked Dan to fight because it could be a last fight of the day.
I watched how the Black Hole 2nd generation reacted/performed carefully. And also I was very curious how the Chinese 20000 reel, which I brought from Beijing Show last week,performed for big tuna on heavy drag. Dan fought relaxed and comfortably on full haress and Braid harness strap even it was his first try on a popping rod. We saw the big tuna, but the tuna got freedom when 130 lb leader line got broken when the leader line got wrapped the tail and tuna charged.
While Dan was fighting, Greg cast out and several hit. I think the use of single hooks on the lure attributed to the low ratio of hookups.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

Greg fighting big tuna. He had several hit on OTI Komodo before he finally had a solid hookup.
The Race Point looks nice.





































I had an explosion on 150g Heru Skipjack while it was sitting motionlessly.
The reel I was using was Chinese 20000 which I brought from Beijing Show last week.
After I spooled the reel on the boat, drag was sticky when pooled. Indeed, drag was hesitant while fighting tuna though it didn't give any problem. It seems it is not a major problem and I got a bad batch reel. They claim the reel has a max drag of 30 kg (66 lbs) as most spinning reels maide in China claim. The reel looks solid after one hour fight with heavy drag, but my Saragosa didn't give any problem until I landed several big tuna with it. I am going to test the reel more for big tuna before I post my review of the reel.

The rod is 7' one piece Black Hole Cape Cod Special 2nd generation. I haven't decide whether to go with 2nd geration and 3rd generation for normal cow popping rod on the long range boats and for 300 plus lb bluefin on the East Coast. After observing the fight, Greg and myself felt 2nd generation is better and 3rd generation could be too stiff. But I'll decide after more testing with big tuna in NC and on the 8 days trips to Socorro Island for big cow in April.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

I fought the fish briefly and Dan took over the fight.


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## ksong (Jun 30, 2004)

Greg hooked up a few times casting a popper behind the stern, but lost all after brief fight.
Greg used 11/0 single hook and Capt Andy suggested to use bigger hooks as they are having success with much bigger hooks on trolling lures.


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