More Thoughts on Breezers

My buddy emailed me some of his thoughts on catching the "Breezing" tuna in the Bay and they made a lot of sense. He is too shy to post his comments on my blog, so I will

"The number one mistake people make on breezing and milling fish is casting at the ripples (even if they are front-side of the school and fish are coming at them) Even casting at the front edge of the wakes is a mistake, b/c that either puts you on the ass-end of the school, in which case the back-end of the school may spook, pushing all the fish down, or it puts your offering completely behind the school…

Most of the fish are WELL AHEAD of the visible wakes. And although they will not eat every time, they are much more likely to eat something well out in front of the pod, especially if one fish turns and others follow…

Nobody seems to get that though, even though it may be the most obvious thing. Duh,"

He then went on to show me aerial photos of big schools of fish just below the surface. They alll showed the wakes of the schools to be about two-thirds of the way in back of the school, proving his point. If you go to www.gulfofmaineproductions.org you can see the aerial photos for yourself.

Thanks to everyone who has been encouraging and supportive. I'm still not in any shape to be standing on the deck of a boat, but I am slowly making progress. Special thanks to Mark B. who brought me my "Protein Bombs" in the form of delicious tuna steaks from a nice fish landed with his fly rod recently. Nice job.

A recent post on one of the Web sites I view has folks talking about the difficulty of catching all these "Breezing" tuna that are in the Bay currently. Some of the guys are concocting elaborate schemes to bring helium tanks, kites and balloons out there in an attempt to live bait these fish. Several of us have been live baiting fish up on the SW Corner for a few seasons, and it does indeed work. We will often let a few live baits swim around on 30Wides while we Butterfly Jig and drift. Some of the guys we are friendly with, and who have been live baiting on the Bank a lot longer than us, have developed the their techniques into an art form. Kites aren't really necessary as you can use your outriggers just as effectively to bring your bait out in front of the school, without having the boat spook the fish. To each their own, but kites are for giants or kids as far as I am concerned.