sounds great matee!!!

pitty bout the tooona

im confused at the last bit you trolled in at 35 knots!?!?!?

 imo dont bother casting for tuna,

just throw x-raps or dd laser pros out really far and troll straight towards the fish, then go around the fish so when your on the other side of the bust up the fish are between you and the lures. if you know what i mean.

never go straight through the bust up, as this makes them tak off super quick

Tuna can be a bit tedious but some tips I've learnt from FW;
1) Get up wind and drift onto them
2) If you can't, then drive at a tangent to the school, but within range of your casters. They want to get one off as you approach the school, but flip the bail and crank as you go away from them. Don't vary the line or the throttle speed and make sure your casters know to cast at will.

What won't get you onto fish is trying to come up on them from behind, or pissing around slowly, drive at max speed to get ahead of the school, or as slow as you can to make a tangent, but manoeuvering below 20kn isn't going to get you fish unless its one hell of a beat up or you have an electric because they just move too fast.

Do not drive directly at the school, especially from downwind. Its completely useless for casters as your lure drops dead in the water and you usually can't crank it faster than the boat moves, so it just sinks deadsticked.

Thanks for the tips fellas. I thought there must be a knack to them, because we tried for a good 90 minutes, spotting, driving, casting to no avail. Awesome site to see these big fish getting a long way out of the water.

Probably a downfall is that both my brothers are fairly lacking in skills and desire. Half the time I would position the boat and one of them would dick around with his gear for a few minutes and miss the opportunity.

Hard to know what from behind was, they were jumping an area probably 250m across at one stage, and a shark had managed to grab one at one stage too.

Diehard - we trolled first at 5-7knots, then when light ran out we shot in.

was also out from two rocks today, just a bit deeper, had a heap of luck bottom bouncing. after 4:30, as you said, the conditions were great, almost a glass off were we were. a large bait school did hang around for a bit but there was nothing really following/hitting them.

I don't know if you missed much by not going there, Cammos....we came in from the fads...two dollies, about 46 million mutton birds :(...and trolled from West End to Parker Point, 20-25m depth contour, for not a thing. Bait schools EVERYWHERE off Parker and halfway back to PT Peron, but nothing, even the birds, appeared to be interested in them. Although I should point out that I am no genius when it comes to trolling around Rotto!

Water temp at fads=24.5, water temp at Rotto=23.7 according to my sounder.

Till, after many frustrating hours chasing tuna, totally agree with your comments.....we now charge flat out at a tangent, with one or two casters ready to ping a cast. I find you get one or two chances on a new school and if you don't get hit, best to move on.

Hi Guys, I was out at the three mile at first light yesterday...not real pleasant conditions and not too much going on either. I trolled all the way up to Ocean Reef from Hillary's for not a touch then got a Striped tuna on the way back. He hit an xrap and was pretty much straight out in front of the marina.

    The water was a pretty uninspiring shade of green which did nothing for the confidence. The water temp was only 22.5 as well which suggests some cold water moving in. I was at Parker Point last Sunday and the water was around 24.5. We got two Spaniards over 10kgs and a mid sized Sharkie.

   As far as casting for Tuna is concerned...five years targeting them in Moreton Bay has told me this.

1. They almost always feed/move into the wind.

2. A soft plastic (atomic paddle tails in 2.5" in silver or Gold) on a 1/2 ounce jig head is dynamite. It works when you retrieve it but it also is very effective if you let it drop through the bust-up. Often the bigger fish are sitting at the bottom picking up scraps. The Atomics or similar are good as you can cut them down to match what the tuna are feeding on without damaging the action.

3. you need to be keen or crazy to do this type of fishing because it makes golf seem like a pretty relaxing sport!!

Good Luck

Thanks for that. I had a box full of plastics but did not even think of using them.......duh.