Whole lotta Chicken-of-the-sea !!

[David Lee]

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/22650/anglers+405-pound+yellowfin+tuna+is+heaviest+on+record/

Big fish -

D.~

[mems]

Now that is a gorilla with hair! Mems.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

That is good for the fishing tackle and boat business in southern Cal.

[Darian]

How'd ya like to hook up with that guy on a fly rod :?: :?: :eek: Altho, I'm not sure I'd like to have anything on for 3 hours. :confused:

[David Lee]

On a flyrod ?

More like 3 seconds before you're cleaned-out .

D.~

[Darian]

Yep!!!! But it might take a bit longer than 3 seconds to rip off 500 yards of braid. (....5 seconds :lol: )

[Hairstacker]

I'm thinking good knots won't help in this case. . . . :lol:

[OceanSunfish]

Fun factoids..... afterall, this is fishing shop "talk".

Gear for San Diego long range trips has evolved heavily since 1998-2000. Braid, and specifically hollow braid has allowed anglers to pack smaller reels with a lot more line. Just look at the line ups at Accurate Reels, Daiwa, etc.

Hollow braid allows anglers to use flouro topshots of whatever length necessary to fool the fish, etc. Most imporatantly, the line diameter of braid is significantly thinner, yet stronger than the equivalent mono. Pin a sardine to your hook and let it drag around 30 yards of 100# mono?! Not a great presentation.... That same sardine could pull #100 braid tho....

What has allowed all of this to occur is the ingenuity of one particular person (and friend) in 2000/2001 to single handidly change San Diego Long Range tuna gear for good by figuring out how to 'serve'/ attach the flouro topshot to the hollow braid and get 100% knot strength. He also customized and modified crimps, plus help develop some of the best fluoro lines on the market today.

Coincidentally, this is the same person/friend that I refer to in another thread as 'working to death' the Sage 690 XP at the Log Hole in 1999. For kicks, he was experimenting in 1999 with hollow braid as running line.... It was fun for awhile until you get tired of getting yanked off the rock you're standing on with each grab...... It's something to try at least once tho....

So, I surmise the same can be done with fly gear especially since many big game fly reels are capable of holding a lot of backing....

I'm not up on real big game fly reels, so I'm not sure there is such a thing as a 'two-speed' fly reel that would allow an angler to change gears as needed..... Imagine cranking 1:1 to recover 300+ yards of line, then have it all go back out again in seconds.....

In the end, the flygear needed to subdue even 100# tuna begins to look like the same conventional gear needed.... multiply that by 3 for a 300# tuna and it basically is the same gear.......

Mems, and others in Hawaii, I'm sure, are much more qualified to elaborate more on this than I ('land lover').

[mems]

Jerry Brown, the tackle guy, has developed a large following in the tuna fishing game. The hollow braid and fluro topshots are very effective. The nice thing about the wind on leader is that you don't have swivels going through the guides over and over again. We have techinques over here that are pretty unique for getting large ahi and are very simple in design like dropping stone, palu ahi and ika shibi. Here we have ahi koas that are areas that locals have found where they can feed resident ahi and use bait to keep them around and catch on a more frequent and reliable basis. The problem here is the fishing techniques have depleted the stocks since the 1970's, and the fishing pressure caused the industry to collapse. We still get runs of big ahi, just not with the frequency and regularity that we did 30 years ago. I have caught ahi in a variety of ways from trolling, green stick, live bait, chunk, busting bag, jigs, squid, etc. It is almost endless, and all the techniques have their time and place. The easiest I have found, and the one that got me my largest ahi, 250lbs was live bait on a downrigger. As long as you keep the head comming up they swim right up to the boat, you gaff them and put the on board easier than any other way I know. The craziest way I have seen and used is a dangler. That is a bar with a rubber squid that is attached to 500lb test line and hook. You chum, squirt water on the water and dangle the squid. The ahi jumps bites the squid and you swing them on board with out the head going down. It is used by commercial guys out at the illegal bouys.
My favorite is a 50lb ai on a popper and a spinning rod, or a 12wt. But I like to fish, I don't see it as a job. Ahi are the most prized catch over here in Hilo. Kona likes marlin, but the locals and the weekend warriors all want to get a big gorilla. Now a days one a season is something to be proud of. For me that sorry state is something I am not proud of. Mems.

[Darian]

My fishin' partner and I have only found Ahi in the last two years on our October trips to La Ventana. I guess they're around lots more than we've been able to locate them but that's another story. :nod:

We've taken them on flies and on bait (on a spinning rod). The post about using braid with a top shot, above brought this to mind. My partner alternates between fly and spin casting and didn't want a large/bulky spinning outfit but they were the only reels with adequate mono line capacity for fishing down there. She bought a mid-range reel and loaded it with Braid and a 30' top shot of 20# flourocarbon.... That's been a great tool down there. The braid is easily cast, handled and doesn't tangle. I use 50#, gel-spun braid on my Abel, Super 12 fly reel. It's got about in the neighborhood of 500 yards capacity before the running line/shooting head is added. Couple that with a 12 weight rod and mobile panga and large fish don't have much of a chance (unless I run out of energy..... ;) )

[OceanSunfish]

My friend was using Jerry Browns' braid as backing on the 690 XP.... as well as on all his tuna gear from 1999 going forward.... He fished along side of Jerry on several private charters out of Pt. Loma too. Without going into too much detail, Jerry learned quite a bit from my friend..... some notable modifications to the braid were born from what he learned fishing along side my friend.

I don't think my friend gets enough of the credit and he doesn't ask for it either. To him, the R&D is the fun part of fishing. Catching is validation. You know how the fishing industry is or any other industry for that matter with regards to giving accurate credit.

If you think wearing out a 690 XP is harsh, how about wearing out an Accurate Reel! My friend did just that...... He was on back-to-back charters and word got back to port about the size and amount of fish he hooked, plus the worn out reel.

Kudos to Accurate who had a new reel waiting for him at Pt. Loma 'packed' to his liking when he returned to port from the first of two trips. Accurate was very excited to be able to study a reel that was stressed to the point of failure.

Needless to say, if 'he' says a knot is 100%, I gotta to believe him.