Bluefin Tuna passes every year along the coasts of Italy. Twice. Big fish coming from the Atlantic Ocean to complete their reproduction cycle, starts to run all along the Mediterranean to spawn from Spring to fall.
Some schools instead are resident in the Mediterranean sea, living here year-round. This large presence of the species, set with no doubts Italy as the location with the best Mediterranean fishing for tuna.
The Bluefin Tuna is considered a superb animal, superbly adapted for extreme swimming, extreme lasting, extreme diving, travelling, eating, growing compared to other fish. This is one of the reasons why we dedicated a short movie to Atlantic Bluefin Tuna fishing.
The video
This video is a tribute to this great fighter, taking the battle to the ultimate level! Unbelievable spooling, exhausting oppositions, long lasting fightings, a technical approach and preparation as shown in this short movie are always part of the bluefin tuna game fishing.
The footage highlights the emotions coming out from the epic fight, for the angler and the other people aboard. When the tuna arrives finally under the boat, showing his majesty, is always a general “WOOOWW”. Is also possible to see how the Crew guidance, concurrently helps the fisherman to correctly behave in order to take the fish under the boat, which is not an easy job! Apart from being a fishing trip or a fishing charter in Italy, we love to transmit knowledge about how to catch a bluefin tuna.
Technique and equipment
The technique is Drifting for Tuna, with both live and dead bait. The preparation is an important part of the fishing session, looking for live bait and preparing the dead ones to correctly drop on the current. Correct distances, bait presentation, equipment dimension, right spots and timing are just some of the local knowledge that plays a big role to reach the strikes.
In this specific case, fighting was done on a fishing chair and using Shimano Tiagra 80lb reel and rod. A setting that can be considered “heavy”. We frequently use instead of a setting that can be considered “light”, employing the Shimano Talica 50lb and 25lb with the deep spool, together with lightweight harness gimbal (belt) that allows stand-up fishing for Tuna and completely different action.
We hope to transmit an important message evaluating Tuna game fishing as a sustainable and sportive activity, against not sustainable professional fishing techniques. Thanks to some government actions and strict lows the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is back in big quantity in the Mediterranean Sea, after a past period of illegal and uncontrolled fishing. It worth also to mention that Bluefin tuna is also a historical fishery in the Mediterranean sea as described in a past article about Tuna fishing in Sicily.