3-Day Trip

[Paddler]

Looks like a great trip.  Congrats!  What line did you use for the leader?

The collar is the line from just behind the pectoral fin to the gill plate, all around the fish.  It's a very tasty part of a tuna.

The so-called "bite leader", which was 3' long, measures .064".  I rigged my own tuna jigs with 130# and 250# Big Game leaders, the latter of which mikes out at .058".  That means the bite leader is 300# material.  

We bought the jigs, pre-rigged hooks and bite leaders from the tackle shop in Fisherman's Landing, at exhorbitant prices.  Their prices on rental gear was very high as well, considering the condition it was in.  I was told that my gear wouldn't work well, but knowing what I know now I'd take my Shimano Tiagra 30Ws, maybe even a Daiwa SLT50W on my Calstars.  I like using nice gear, and my stuff is much nicer that the rental stuff.

Good to know, thanks! 

How many grams was the jig itself?  400ish to get down 2-300+ feet?

Would jigging with a 30W get pretty tiring?  Or would you just run that for the bait setup?  The Calstars are sweet rods.  I like the Seekers a lot too.

Yeah, I think 400gms, as the jig plus hooks and leader weigh 15oz.

As far as jigging, that's what I thought.  But we didn't yo-yo.  We just dropped down and reeled up fast with the rod on the rail.  So the weight of the reel didn't matter.  Same with fly lining or using a 2-3oz weight above the bait.  I caught my last fish with a weight.  Casting that is hard on the bait, it's better to just slowly let it down so your sardine swims around naturally.  I was playing with the drag to lower it down smothly when the fish bit, and it was ~70lb.

I like my yellow poles and gold reels.  This photo is offshore from La Push.