Tuna

Tuna bait:

Here is a couple of sketches of a tuna bait setup as shown by fishing mate Geoff Wilson. Notice in the whole tuna how the hooks always face forward. In this case the tuna is loop hooked with twine through the eyes. I personally prefer the tuna to be hooked throught he skull and all the loose cable zipped tied as below

In this first photo notice the big hooks, sharks do not get put off with big hooks. This setup was designed to float just off the seabed away from crabs etc. the balloon was partially filled with water so that it did not shoot straight to the top of the water. the bait kept the balloon down and a counter weight was tied with 10 pound line to one of the hooks to keep everything stable. In the next photo is a picture of me holding up a floating tuna bait. In this case I split the tuna nose to tail , set the hooks in the part of the tuna with the backbone in it, and zip tied the fillet back to the tuna as can be seen. The two fillet sections are now on the outside , the two skinned sections back to back on the inside. The idea of this is that the filleted sections give off an extra chum/berly trail which the sharks pick up on more readily. This is one of my prized sharking secrets and I often outfish other sharkies every time with this little tip. As I keep saying notice how all the hooks are ALWAYS FACING FORWARD.

This is my mate Steve. I have been teaching him to catch sharks and he has caught several, however he still surprises me with his stupidty, like the recent shark trip for makos. He brought absolutely huge hooks that were for a stingray bait and set them up on this anorexic tuna. I told hime not to bother but he reckoned that sharks dont care, maybe thats why I caught 2 makos that day and steve caught ZIP ZERO. Sharks do care and bait presentation has to mimic somthing in the wild. Unfortunately that tuna had more steel surrounding it than tuna and his new design hook setup sucks !!! . So pay attention and think about what you are doing... Incidently Steve dont take it to heart we still all lova ya.. and our trips would be a lot less colourful without you !!!!! However for anyone fishing with Steve do not give him any buckets to fill or ask him how he stabs a jetty with his knife. !!!!! I still have to admit though that is a pretty shitful looking tuna. !!

A great tip is to saturate the tuna in tuna oil, available from any good fishing tackle outlet and even if you can inject it into the bait.