VERY fish species has habits or
behaviours that you only learn about
after spending time at sea chasing
them. Over the years I’ve learnt quite a
lot of neat little tricks that help in the pursuit of
game fish. This article is a hotchpotch of
various tips and tricks that have all served me
well. Hopefully they’ll do the same for you!W ind y Tuna
If you spend time casting metal slugs at striped
tuna, mackerel tuna or longtails, you’ll soon
work out that positioning the boat is
important. Sometimes the fish are extremely
boat shy and require a stealthy approach using
long casts. Once you’ve found your tuna
school, get upwind of them and drift back onto
them, engine turned off. This is necessary
because tuna feed into the wind. This little tip
has helped me become a lot more efficient at
catching tuna on metals. Sometimes the
schools will randomly pop up all over the place
but most of the time they push the baitfish into
the wind.Travelling Marlin
In summer when the juvenile black marlin
migrate south along the Queensland coast into
NSW there are often strong northerly winds
and afternoon northeasterly sea breezes. These
winds often create short choppy seas. Black
marlin commonly sit in these wind swells and
glide along with them, a behaviour known as
“tailing”. In these conditions it’s easy to pick
out the long raked tail fin as the fish cruises
along with the swells. Tailing fish are generally62 | fishingworld.com.au | February 2015
A lifetime of on-water
experience has taught
DAVID GREEN valuable
lessons when it comes
to targeting big fish from
small boats. In this article
he details key observations
that will fast track your blue
water success.
Trade
Tricks
Of The
TECHNICAL: GAMEFISHING
IMAGES: NATHAN BAJADA.E