Marking Tuna
 

Went on a trip last week and we were marking tuna in 60-120 feet. How do y'all get them up to bite. We were free lining live and also sent a few down.

Any tips?

chunking red meat... aka bonita or blackfin

that must have been a loooong paddle

Try jigging them up with a butterfly jig

Current was real strong around the rigs we were marking. Still an option to chunk bait?

if you can get em to come up its the same concept a chum/ chunk for mangroves . key is to bury hook in the meat n let it drift as free as the non hooked chunks . problem with chunking like that is the sharks . id say in those depths they were blackfin tuna and iv jigged them up succesfully lots of times , the action can almost get as quick as trout fishing if you get em fired up . also letting a live bait drift out behind the boat away from the rig can work

Yes you just need a lot of bait. I posed a similar question on THT the other day. The overnighter I was on the other day we had to deal with a crazy amount of current. I tried chunking but gave up too soon I think.

We were 75 miles out of Venice. We were drifting and moving around with all the current. I don't think we could have tied up there.

75 miles from the marina or mouth of river?
In kayaks ? Mother ship right??

we were drifiting at 5.5 on the gps near mars, I dont think you are allowed to tie up to floaters

Nah. I was in a boat. We were fishing around Ersa, Who Dat, and Mars

5-7oz glow diamond jigs. You will catch mostly BF but YF will hit them as well

I tried dropping a 9 oz jig and the current was so strong it just went sideways

Tuna will school deep like that to keep cool, then come up periodically to feed, then return to the deep to cool again. When they are down deep, they will eat, but they are "finiky" since not much "bait" holds down there. We had great success in the past with downriggers and trolling baits. Your current may be 5.5 on surface, but not that bad below, and vice versa. When you located them on sounder, drop Stretch 30's or trolling plugs down to desired depth with downriggers. Use to work for us, see no reason why it would still today.