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Yellowfin Tuna thunnus albacares
aka: YFT, Fin

 Photo: © Jono Shales

A serious fly rod contender and one that will test every knot, connection and piece of gear that you have.

Large Yellowfin are notoriously strong fighters and once hooked will make a powerful run and then dive deep.

On the East coast, from Bermagui to Sydney to South West Rocks, there are a couple of 'fin' runs each year with good numbers of solid fish being hooked by conventional anglers from trailers boats.

 

On the West Coast around Shark Bay, huge fin up to 100kg follow the trawlers when they haul their nets, even on conventional gear these become unstoppable.


If you get the opportunity to catch yellowfin on fly - take it but make sure you have lots of backing and that your arms and back are up to the challenge.

In the early 80's, pioneers of fly fishing for yellowfin tuna off the NSW coast like Gordon Dunlop, have been connected to large yellowfin for up to 4 hours.

 

Up until relatively recently, the 10kg tippet world record yellowfin on fly was a fish taken from Shark Bay in Western Australia.


 
Tackle and methods for Yellowfin Tuna

What tackle to use
Fast sinking lines or shooting heads that will get the fly down deep. Smaller fish up to 20kg can be handled with a 10wt rod, any larger than that and it's 12wt as a minimum.

What flies to use
Baitfish profiles, chum flies, squid immitations

Fishing strategy
Create a chum trail using 'cubes' of sardines that have been cut up. It's important to keep the trail going with a good rule of thumb being that once you can no longer see the last cube, then it's time for another.


 
Target Yellowfin Tuna in the following locations:

Target Yellowfin Tuna with the following guides:


Exmouth Fly Fishing

Fish Philliskirk

Mark Bargenquast

Melville Island Lodge

Nomad Sportfishing

One Tree Beach

Paul Dolan

Wilderness Island
Links to more information

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/speciessummary.php?id=143
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