17 H 30 the motor yacht "Mai Mai" comes in from Tuna fishing, and ties up alongside the quay in her berth, like most days, a group of tourists are drawn to the catch been unloaded onto the quay. Today the catch was: ten albacore tuna between 6 and 9 kilos, and four beautiful blue fin tuna between 25 and 49 kilos. Each fish carefully weighed on the scales.

The customers happy to pose for photos, answering questions from passers by where did you catch them, was it hard, what do they eat?

An hour later everything has calmed down, and the clients have left with there catch.

Excuse me Sir!

Yes

I have a problem, I am sailing from Beaulieu (near Monaco) to Calvi (Corsica) tomorrow and I have heard that you have a good catch on my route. Yes, its is almost directly on the course to Calvi, BEARING 130' about 24 miles offshore.

Thank you but I have done this crossing over 12 years and I trail one or two lures, but I have never caught anything, do you know why.

What type of lures do you use?

A 14 cm Rapala, red and white and a white and yellow feather.

What distance from the stern of the boat do you fish?

Between 60 and 100 meters.

Maybe that�s why you haven caught anything, you must.

Keep the line short.

Your Rapala should be very close to the stern of your boat particularly when you are sailing no more than 12meters and the feather at 15meters maximum. I would think fish that close like that would be frightened by the wake.

Well look at the evidence, I have fished from my boat today and we have caught a dozen fish come aboard my boat I will show you.

Thanks

You should understand that the Tuna fish is in its element and is certainly not going to be concerned by a boats hull, in particular a sailboat with no prop noise. The under hull shape can look like fin or pilot whale and as they try to catch the same food, they are use to being together.

So if your Rapala is in your wake up close, the fish looking up sees the troubled water and thinks he has found a shoal of anchovies, and jumps at everything that moves.

For example a motor boat like mine , I put out 9 rods, because you need to excite the fishes curiosity, with the lures between 10 and 14 meters for the Rapala, and 18 meters for the central, feathers and plastic lures and on the outer rods coloured lure weighted at 40meters, and don't forget the importance of fishing in the white water of your wake. Good I have understood, but I only have two rods and as you have said it will not be very exciting to the fish. As I said it is much better to fish up close not trailing at 100 metres and there are different things you can do to make things attractive.

Tell me

Dead lines, first off add two dead lines on the boat sides,

Dead lines

Yes when I started fishing I used this method. All you have to do is to take 15 meters of 100/100 line and attach to a floating buoy/fender with a lure on the other end. Then attach this to the rails with an elastic. Should a fish take the hook, the elastic breaks and the fender and line go off from the boat, Then you turn round and pick up the fender and line with the boat hook pulling the line in with gloved hands, you have to watch the dead lines carefully as there is no real noise when the elastic snaps, not like the whine/ click of a rod going off. If you are not careful you will loose line and fender.

Thanks for the advice.

If tomorrow you are fishing do not forget to turn your VHF onto channel 10, the local fishermen are often on the air and you can call me Bernard "Mai Mai"

Come and see us when you come back from Corsica, good fishing, What's your boat called Scorpion 2. See you soon