 The Fish Fad Program of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is working to improve access to tuna and pelagic fishes by promoting domestic anchored fad programs in the Pacific Islands region. This video will demonstrate specialized fad fishing gear and techniques that can improve your skills and catch around fads. Sometimes we hear that a particular fad has no fish on it, or that fishing that fad is a waste of time. These thoughts often come from fishers that arrive late in the morning and only use standard trolling gear. They'll make two or three trolling passes on the fad, catch nothing, and head off in search of other fish. The issue is clear. Trolling on fads is most productive early in the morning, but is one of the less effective fishing methods on fads later in the day. The importance of arriving at the fad early in the morning cannot be stressed enough. This will mean starting your trip before sunrise, as long as it is safe to do so, and arriving at the fad just when it is light enough to locate it. This is where a marker flag on your fad is so useful. Set up for trolling a few miles before you reach the fad area. Sometimes a fish strike is your first sign that a fad is close. Once the fad is located, it is important to determine the direction of the current and drift. This should be obvious by looking at how the current streams past the fad floats. It's important to keep track of where you are in relation to the fad, so you can keep track of where you're catching fish. One way is to divide the area into two up current and two down current areas centered on the fad. Take note of where you get strikes and keep returning to productive areas. Trolling from just before sunrise until about 8am can be very productive and worth doing as long as you're catching fish. Remember, mahi mahi can be dangerous when fresh. They should be gaffed or quickly tossed into an ice hold. When they settle down, spike the brain to reduce struggling and submerge in a slurry of ice and seawater. After a few trolling passes without a strike, it's time to slow down and use some other tricks. Try throttling back to 4 or 5 knots and put out some other types of lures. A rubber squid can be very effective at these speeds, especially if you pull the line causing the squid to splash and jump a bit. When exploring the four areas around a fad, try to develop an image of where you think the fish schools are holding. Yellowfin and big-eyed tuna often stay up current from the fad. Mahi mahi may be all around the fad float or very close to it with wahoo. Skipjack may be hundreds of meters away chasing bait in all directions. If you have a depth sounder, keep track of where you see fish marks. Small tuna may show as grainy blue marks, often around 30 to 40 meters below the surface. Larger tuna will appear as dark lines or check marks with more red and yellow visible. These marks may show up down to 100 meters or more. Keep track of areas where these larger fish are marking and try some midwater fad fishing techniques to get your lure or bait down to where the fish are. When tuna are holding near a fad, dropping a heavy metal lure down to them can be very effective. They come in a wide range of sizes and styles. The jigs can have a treble hook on the bottom or sharp single hooks hanging from the top or bottom on tough braided line. The simplest type is the chrome diamond jig, which are heavy and dense and sink quickly to where the tuna are. Areas up current from the fad and around 60 to 80 meters in depth are a good place to try them. Metal jigs can be fished from a hand line or a rod and reel. The most important rule is to drop your jig where the fish are and to fish your line as straight up and down as possible. As you let the jig out, count slowly and stop at every five count to give it a jerk. Then drop another five count before repeating. Tuna may hit the jig as it is falling or being jigged, so always be ready for a strike. Repeat until you get down to a 40 or 50 count. Now begin to retrieve your jig by gripping the line and sweeping your arm upward. Keep track of the depth you get strikes and concentrate on those depths when you drop your gear. Using a jigging rod and reel can be an advantage due to the faster retrieved speed of the reel and springy nature of the rod. An effective way to put fish in the box is the use of what we call a spreader bar. This technique uses a weighted steel rod to take a lure that can normally only be used at the surface down to where the tuna are. The technique uses a long monofilament leader of four to five arms bands in length. The lure on the spreader bar is a small trolling skirt on a single number 24 circle hook or small silvery metal lures. If your boat has an echo sounder, locate the school. Otherwise, through trial and error, you'll learn where the schools normally hold. Deploy the lure clear of the boat letting the leader stretch out fully and drop the bar to your chosen depth. This can be assisted by marking your line or by using the countdown method. It is important to have your spreader bar and lure directly below you during retrieval so the lure is rising vertically. If using a hand line, retrieve in long arm length pulls. If using a fishing rod, lift and crank in long, steady pulls. After five pulls, hesitate, then start pulling again. Often a tuna will hit when you pause. When you get to the spreader bar, place it on the gunnel and grab the leader. If the fish runs, the bar must be able to fly off the rail without tangling. When landing fish like tuna and wahoo, always wear gloves and be ready with a hook gaff, a backup gaff, a fish bat, a knife for bleeding, and a steel spike. Leader the fish close to the side of the boat to where it is just below the surface. Never pull the head of the fish out of the water. Never gaff a fish in the belly or side as it ruins the meat and may rip free and escape. Try to sink the gaff in the side of the head, at or behind the eye in a lifting or drawing motion. If the first gaff strike is off target, having a backup gaff can save the day. Stun the fish with a sharp blow to the head just behind the eyes. Spiking the brain assures that the fish will not struggle and also preserves flesh quality. The spike should be inserted into the top of the head, between and behind the eyes at a downward angle into the brain. A quick quiver or tail flick lets you know that you've hit the spot. A sharpened screwdriver makes a good spiking tool. Spiking tuna will help to cool them down and preserve meat quality. Smaller tuna can be bled by cutting the gills or between the gills and gill cover opening and placing it head down in a bucket of seawater. Larger tuna should be bled by making a shallow cut in the side of the fish, at two to three finger widths behind the pectoral or side fin. Running a deck hose or buckets of water can help to flush out blood. Now rinse off the fish and immediately bury it in a brine mix of two parts ice to one part seawater. Always take care to ice your fish properly. Once an area of tuna have been located near a fad, various midwater handline techniques can be used to target the larger tuna that hang out below the smaller fish. This all started with the traditional Pacific Island dropstone fishing technique. They did not have fads, but practiced the technique at special areas off their islands where tuna were known to school. A baited circle hook and chum is placed on the flat side of a rock or chunk of coral and wrapped in a large fresh leaf. Several wraps of the leader are made to secure the leaf, bait and chum in a tight package. Make two winds around your thumb and pass the line through loose coils to form a slip knot. A variety of cut or whole bait fish can be used on a single circle hook. Here are two ways to hide a circle hook and strips of skipjack. Using the skin to secure the hook but leaving the bar exposed to promote a solid hook up. The boat is positioned up current of where fish are holding near the fad. Spare line is paid out and the stone package is dropped with slack line paid out quickly to the desired depth. A sharp pull frees the slip knot, releasing the weight and leaves the baited hook inside a cloud of chum. Another few fathoms of line is paid out to allow the hook to drift freely to simulate a natural bait. This method will require you to gather and bring stones or coral chunks to use as weights. These should be about the size of one or two fists and 1.5 to 2 kilograms in weight. It's good to have one flat side to secure your bait and chum on. Paluahi gear is basically the modern day version of dropstone fishing. The idea is the same, to drop your baited hand line down to where the big tuna are. But a lead weight is attached to your line instead of a stone that falls free and is lost. In this way, we can keep dropping many times using the same setup, which consists of a sturdy hand line, square chum cloth, weight, leader, and circle hook. The hand line is stored and fished from a round plastic basin, such as a plant container or a plastic laundry bin. The hand line is made from multi-strand, no stretch braided line of about 100 to 200 kilogram test. It's good to have at least 200 to 300 meters of line attached to a monofilament leader tied or crimped to a tuna circle hook in size 10 to 12 odd. Be sure to fasten the end of your line to the boat or make a loop available at the end ready to attach to extra line if needed. Check to see that your hand line is free and clear of tangles. You may want to drop your line overboard before your first drop and neatly stack it back so that it pays out smoothly. Now you need to prepare some chum. You can use any fish, bait fish, or squid chopped up into small pieces. Remember, bloody fish like skipjack and kava kava are good chum, but bloody meat tends to draw sharks. Some of the best baits to use are live appellu or mackerel scad and akule or big-eye scad. These can be jigged close to shore or on the fat itself. Light monofilament rigs with three to five dropper lines can be used for live bait capture. Small curly tail lures or hooks rigged with chicken feathers or shiny thread make effective lures. Handle your fresh bait carefully and keep them alive and circulating seawater. If your boat is not equipped to do so, fresh bait kept on ice is still very effective. Now to wrap up the bag. Throw your hook overboard so that it can uncoil without twists and carefully coil your leader. Place the leader coil underneath your weight in the center of the bag. Now cover the weight in leader with a handful of chum. Your bait can be any hole or cut bait fish, squid or slab of cut bait from tuna or other fish. Often, you will use a bait made from the same fish as your chum. You can even drop a live bait inside appellu ahi bag and nothing can be better for bait tuna. Now carefully hook your bait. Fold over the bottom corner, place your hooked bait here, which helps to separate it from your leader and reduces the chance of tangling. Fold over the two side corners. Finally, fold over the corner where your hand line is connected and make several wraps around the entire package. You can wrap two ways or just one depending on the shape of your weight. Hook the line around your thumb and reverse it to form a loop in the opposite direction of your line. Take one or two overhand wraps around your line to secure the chum and bait inside a tight package. The most important thing about midwater fad fishing is to drop your bait where the fish are. This is often just up current from the fad and fad mooring. Using his experience, observations of birds and an echo sounder, the captain will now position the boat just up current of where he believes fish are. The captain moves to this area and signals to the crew to drop their polu bag to a depth where he thinks the fish are holding. On fads, this can be quite deep, like 60 to 100 meters or more. Care must be taken to not drop too close to the fad and tangle with the fads mooring line. When ready to drop, extra line is paid out before dropping the polu bag. The package must fall free so that it remains tightly bound together as it sinks. The main line should be marked so that it can be reliably deployed to the proper depth. Another technique is to slowly count as it sinks. Sometimes you can see the polu bag on the echo sounder as it drops and determine how your counting relates to depth. When you reach your target depth, take a wrap on the hand line. When it comes tight, give a strong jerk to undo the knot holding everything together. You should feel the weight unrolling. Slowly take in line until you feel that it is fully unwrapped. Give a long, steady pull, repeated by another slow pull of about arms length. This will spread out the chum and stretch out your leader, leaving your baited hook inside the cloud of chum. Now take one wrap on your line and get ready. A bite often comes within a minute or so of opening your polu bag. If you feel a bite, do not jerk the line, which can pop a circle hook out of a hungry fish's mouth. Instead, provide steady pressure and let the fish hook itself in the corner of the mouth as circle hooks do. If no bite occurs, you can slowly pay out line to keep your bait close to the chum. After drifting past the fad, retrieve your line and repeat the process. Sometimes, releasing chum at the same depth will attract tuna to the area. If the polu ahi method is used with a basket of hand line, the fisherman will hold up the line waiting for a bite. You can also use a set amount of line and attach floats that are cast overboard, allowing the line to drift past the fad. This is a very effective way to drift fish the fad while you move around trying other methods. One boat can deploy many buoy lines. There are a few ways to rig a polu ahi chum bag. In this example, the lead weight is attached to a swivel that is bound to the chum cloth. Your hand line passes through the same swivel then to another swivel, your leader and hook. Another way to get your bait down to the bigger fish is to use what we call a cone bag. This is a very simple system that uses a cloth bag sewn into a triangular cone that holds your chum. You can use the same hand line basket in line that you use for dropstone or polu ahi gear. The defining piece of equipment is a simple cloth bag sewn into a cone shape. Attach a lead weight about half to one kilogram near the pointed end of the cone. Thread your hand line through the weight to a large swivel. Your fishing leader is attached to the other end of the swivel. Use a good quality clear monofilament of 50 to 150 kilogram test and about three to four meters long attached to a 10-odd to 12-odd circle hook. Bait your circle hook. A strip of fresh skipjack or tuna works great. Hole or cut appellu or mackerel scat is another proven bait. Cone bag fishing is very fast because you don't even have to coil the leader. Fill the bag with chopped chum and bury the hook bait inside. Position the boat over where you think the fish are. Throw some extra line on the water and carefully drop your bag, pointy end first. As long as you pay outline faster than it's dropping, the chum and bait will remain inside the bag. When your desired depth is reached, wrap the line around your hand to stop the bag and pull up sharply on the line. This will flip the cone bag over and release the chum in your baited hook. If for some reason you experience tangles, you can also coil the leader and bury it inside the chum instead. Remember, if you feel a bite, do not pull back sharply which will pop the circle hook free. Just hold steady and let the fish hook itself. Most bites occur right away, so be ready. Tuna are often hanging around a fad but will not strike on standard trolling lures or jigs. This can be really frustrating but they can often be taken on fresh cut tuna chunks or whole bait fish. Chunking is one of the simplest fishing techniques but can also be one of the most effective ways to fill your box. The gear is simple, a conventional fishing rod and reel loaded with 20 to 30 kilogram line. A multi-strand braided hand line of 100 kilogram test will also work. The best hooks to use are short shank, live bait style hooks. Remember, circle hooks are not used when chunking. Sneller tie your hook rigidly to the hook eye which helps make solid hookups. Prepare your chum by mixing chopped bait and a small amount of water in a bucket. It's best to smash and crush the bait so all the large pieces are gone and the water becomes brown. You wanna give them a sniff but nothing to eat so your bait is the only choice in town. Move about 50 to 100 meters up current from the fad to begin your drift depending on the speed of the current. Position the boat so that it will pass the fad by about 20 meters on either side. Ideally, you have a fresh skipjack, kava kava or mackerel scad that you can use for bait. Cut a cube of flesh about two centimeters on a side or sized to your hook. A strip of skipjack belly or small bait fish is also effective. Carefully hide your hook inside the bait. When the boat is drifting in position, move to the upwind side and put your rod in the nearest rod holder. Now drop the bucket of chum overboard and drop your hooked bait in the cloud of crushed chum. Make sure your reel is on the clicker setting and start stripping line as fast as the boat is drifting. It's important to strip enough line so that your bait drifts freely with no drag. Watch your line like a hawk. If you see the slightest motion, throw your reeling gear and you should be hooked up. Keep chumming the same drift and you will eventually bring the fish up and in a biting mood. Vertical long line gear sets baited branch lines on a vertical main line to target the larger deeper swimming tuna on fads. One line may fish 10 to 15 baited circle hooks down to 300 meters. Vertical long lines can be buoyed off to drift past a fad or fish directly from a drifting vessel in combination with other gears such as Paluahi and Dropstone. Here we see a simple line storage system rigged from two plastic wash basins taped together. A section of three strand rope is spliced to the swivel and used to connect the branch line leader using a single sheet bend. If you have them, stainless steel long line snaps are used to attach the three to six meter branch lines to a spliced loop on the main line. They can also be clipped to the eye of very large swivels. Here we see a homemade hook bucket. The hook is baited and thrown over before clipping the snap to the main line. The process is simply reversed when retrieving the line. Be careful to attach each hook to its corresponding snap to avoid tangles. This is the FAO wooden handrail that can store, deploy, and retrieve the main line when securely mounted to the vessel. A simple weight is made from three sections of steel construction bar bound together. Weight should be two to five kilograms. A variety of cut or hole baits can be used for your vertical long line. And when deploying the vertical long line, the circle hook is baited, thrown over, then clipped to the main line that is slowly let out to prevent tangling. It is important that the hooks are in the water before branch lines are attached for safety reasons. This process continues until all branch lines are set. Floats and a flag marker buoy are attached and allowed to drift past the fad. Setting must be done carefully to avoid tangling the fad mooring line. When the long line has been drifting for an hour or more, approach it from downwind to begin the retrieval. Clip the line into the reel and retrieve branch lines, storing them carefully to avoid tangling on the next deployment. The SPC manual on vertical long lining should be consulted for additional details on gearing up, setting and operating vertical long lines. The manual can be found online by searching SPC vertical long line. Consult the manual also for details on the other fad fishing techniques. We hope this video will encourage you to try some fad fishing methods to improve your catch of larger tuna and your access to fish throughout the day. There are different ways to rig each particular method, so it will be up to you to adapt the gear to match your local conditions. Good and safe fishing to all.