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Yellowfin Tuna Fishing Videos: Live Bait, Chunking, Trolling
Browse Video LibraryYellowfin tuna fishing comes down to finding fish that roam offshore with bait, then putting the right presentation in front of them. Most yellowfin are caught chunking and live baiting in a chum slick, trolling skirted lures, or casting poppers and stickbaits to surface-feeding fish. What changes from one fishery to the next is which signal finds them and which method gets bit.
These yellowfin tuna fishing videos were filmed on the water with working captains in the fisheries they run every day: behind shrimp trawlers, on oil rigs, under birds, on dolphin schools and along offshore ledges. In The Spread became the first streaming platform in sport fishing in 2014, and our founder is aboard every shoot.
Featured Instructors
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Yellowfin Tuna Angling Technique
29:06 · Mike HennessyYellowfin tuna around Costa Rica spinner dolphin schools demand precise approach strategy positioning ahead of moving pods while maintaining distance avoiding spooks. Mike Hennessy's real-world demonstrations include proper low rod tip technique preventing high-sticking failures, reading water for rolling tuna identification, and gaffing skills securing fish during critical final moments where many yellowfin are lost.
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Popper Fishing Yellowfin Tuna on Spinner Dolphin
43:48 · Mike HennessyYellowfin tuna surface feeding around spinner dolphins creates thrilling popper opportunities when reading natural indicators including finback and short beak dolphin activity. Success requires strategic boat positioning avoiding spooking fish with straight approaches, casting 100-plus feet, and mastering pop-and-wait retrieval cadence with 3 to 5 second pauses rather than working lures too fast.
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Fishing Yellowfin Tuna on Spotted Dolphin Schools
47:43 · Mike HennessySpotted dolphins and yellowfin tuna feed cooperatively off Costa Rica, creating productive scenarios when dolphins herd baitfish. Mike Hennessy's specialized techniques require distinguishing feeding behavior from traveling schools through water color and bird activity, strategic boat positioning maintaining strike zones without spooking pods, and rigging configurations with bait presentation timing matching the aggressive feeding frenzy intensity.
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Gore's Offshore Tuna Trolling Lures
36:24 · Jason GoreNASCAR engine machinist Jason Gore applies precision manufacturing to tuna lure design where natural keel weighting creates true swimming action through hydrodynamic engineering. Plastic, aluminum, and brass head materials offering identical shapes in weights from 1 to 8 oz. provide tactical flexibility for varied trolling speeds, sea conditions, and target depths without learning new lure characteristics.
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Bait Rigs for Yellowfin Tuna Fishing: Mike Hennessy
21:40 · Mike HennessyYellowfin tuna rigging versatility handles fish from schoolies to giants through adaptable setups balancing finesse with strength. Mike Hennessy's Golfito expertise covers bait options, hook selections, and leader materials requiring proper crimping technique and storage preventing degradation, plus live bait rigging and bridling methods presenting baits naturally while maintaining hook positioning for solid penetration during violent strikes.
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Porpoise Schools and Tuna Fishing: Keys to Catching More
15:15 · Mike HennessyPorpoise and dolphin schools reveal yellowfin tuna locations in vast offshore waters through feeding relationships on similar baitfish. Mike Hennessy's expertise differentiates white belly porpoise, spinner dolphin, and spotted dolphin behaviors around tuna, requiring specific boat positioning and bait presentation tactics for each marine mammal type indicating feeding activity and fish depth beneath schools.
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Lures for Tuna and Wahoo: Mike Hennessy
8:30 · Mike HennessyMike Hennessy's decades of global offshore experience reveal when poppers and stickbaits excel for casting to surface-feeding tuna versus bibbed plugs and twitchbaits dominating trolling scenarios. Lure selection based on fish behavior and environmental conditions drives tactical decisions, with retrieval technique adjustments and color preferences accounting for water clarity and light affecting how yellowfin and wahoo respond throughout the day.
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Lure Trolling for Yellowfin Tuna with Shawn Rotella
23:51 · Shawn RotellaYellowfin tuna trolling tactics shift dramatically when skipjack schools appear, demanding lure adjustments most anglers miss. Captain Shawn Rotella's Kona expertise reveals how predatory patterns, tide influences, and habitat structures determine which lure colors and trolling speeds trigger strikes from Thunnus albacares, plus post-catch gilling and cooling techniques preserving quality for premium table fare.
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Sub Surface Lures for Yellowfin Tuna Fishing
23:48 · Seth HartwickYellowfin tuna feed in the top three to five meters using the surface as an edge to trap baitfish, making sub-surface lures more effective than topwater presentations. Sinking stickbaits reach these feeding zones while avoiding bird interference that dominates surface activity, requiring proper terminal tackle pairing with hooks and split rings maintaining lure action during violent strikes.
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Top 10 Tuna Fishing Lures: Seth Hartwick
2:53 · Seth HartwickSelecting tuna lures without global testing experience leads to collections filled with designs that sound effective but fail under real fishing conditions. Seth Hartwick fished every major tuna fishery worldwide, working with top anglers and craftsmen to refine his collection to only the best quality performers that trigger strikes across varied feeding behaviors and environmental factors rather than location-specific patterns.
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Topwater Lures for Yellowfin Tuna Fishing with Seth
24:05 · Seth HartwickTopwater yellowfin tuna fishing evolved into refined styles where popper and stickbait quality, build, and price vary dramatically. Seth Hartwick's extensive lure testing reveals which designs justify investment, how sea conditions affect lure selection and placement, and what tackle components including hooks, split rings, swivels, and leaders create reliable setups withstanding violent tuna strikes.
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Jigs for Yellowfin Tuna Fishing
13:04 · Seth HartwickYellowfin tuna suspending at depth matching deep water baitfish require speed jigs and knife jigs rather than surface presentations. Seth Hartwick's worldwide experience reveals success demands understanding jigging techniques that work entire water columns, proper boat and angler positioning, and matching rod specifications to jig sizes with gear ratios and drag systems handling sustained runs from depth.
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Live Bait Chumming Yellowfin Tuna - Venice Louisiana
1:33:52 · Josh HowardYellowfin tuna around Venice trawlers feed competitively on bycatch discharge, creating brief windows where aggressive strikes can overwhelm standard tackle and technique. Captain Josh Howard explains how live bait selection matches trawler discharge, why hook and drag specifications prevent lost fish around moving vessels, and when these mobile feeding situations produce versus platform fishing.
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Top 5 Yellowfin Tuna Fishing Surface Lures - Venice
14:06 · Josh HowardYellowfin tuna around Venice, Louisiana oil platforms reject surface lures that work elsewhere in the Gulf. Captain Josh Howard explains how Mississippi River discharge affects baitfish profiles, why popper and swimming bait selection must match local forage size and behavior, and when surface presentations outperform subsurface approaches around Louisiana oil structures.
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Yellowfin Tuna Fishing Seminar
1:48:07 · RJ BoyleYellowfin tuna in the Bahamas punish anglers who rely on yesterday's patterns. RJ Boyle, Mark Hamilton, Triston Hunt, and Chip Sheehan explain how bird behavior interpretation, real-time chumming adjustments, and trip planning decisions separate productive offshore days from expensive fuel burns with minimal fish contact.
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Chunking Drifting and Live Bait Fishing Yellowfin Tuna
1:21:39 · RJ BoyleYellowfin tuna reject more baits than they strike when chunking and drifting. RJ Boyle explains how chum distribution rate, bait matching, and drift positioning determine whether competitive feeding behavior triggers or fish simply feed selectively on free chunks without committing to hooked offerings.
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Tuna Fishing - Chunking and Chumming Yellowfin
2:10:57 · Josh HowardVenice, Louisiana is known for its abundant yellowfin tuna fishing, with captains and crews using advanced tactics and techniques. Capt. Josh Howard utilizes trawl boat by-catch to create a healthy chum slick, while In The Spread fishing video teaches ideal baits, chumming, and chunking. Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico relies on working fixed or mobile fish aggregators, making trowl boats an excellent fishing opportunity.
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Where is the best yellowfin tuna fishing?
Off Venice, Louisiana, the fishery is structure: oil rigs in summer, and shrimp trawlers 20 to 30 miles off the river in the fall. In the Bahamas, the boats run to the birds in the Northwest Providence Channel. Off Costa Rica, yellowfin travel with dolphin schools, and in Kona they stack on ledges where the current hits. Our article on Venice, Louisiana yellowfin tuna fishing on trawlers and rigs shows how much one fishery can change between seasons.
When is yellowfin tuna season?
There is no single yellowfin tuna season. In most fisheries yellowfin are present for much of the year, with a peak set by bait, water temperature and migration. Late spring through fall is busiest in U.S. and Caribbean waters, while the tropical Pacific produces fish in most months.
Venice runs two seasons: rigs from late spring through summer, and trawlers from August or September into November, peaking in October. The Bahamas runs from April to October. Costa Rica's southern zone holds yellowfin most of the year, building through March, and Kona sees a push of fresh fish in early summer.
How do you find yellowfin tuna offshore?
Yellowfin are found by their signals: diving birds, feeding dolphins, bait on the sounder, temperature breaks and structure such as rigs, ledges and shrimp trawlers. Experienced captains combine radar, the sounder and sea surface temperature to narrow the search, then read the signal they find before committing to a presentation.
In the Bahamas, birds that stay in one area are over yellowfin, while birds you cannot catch are over skipjack. Off Costa Rica, read the birds rather than the dolphins, because the tuna sit in front of the pod, and each dolphin species holds a different size of fish. At a Venice rig, circle the platform with the sounder and the bait marks show the up-current side. Our article on fishing yellowfin tuna on dolphin schools in Costa Rica covers each species.
What is the best bait for yellowfin tuna?
The best bait for yellowfin tuna is live bait that matches the local forage, such as pilchards and sardines, goggle eyes, hardtail, threadfin, pogies and small skipjack, along with fresh chunks of oily fish for chumming. Squid and flying fish are natural prey, and fresh dead bait works in a steady chum line.
Behind a Venice trawler, bonito and blackfin take nearly everything first, so the hook bait is the biggest piece of bycatch, the one they cannot eat. In the Bahamas, dead sardines alone will raise a school; it just takes 15 to 20 minutes longer than live pilchards. Our article on chunking yellowfin tuna covers the chum line in detail.
How fast should you troll for yellowfin tuna?
Most yellowfin are trolled at 6 to 8 knots with skirted lures, cedar plugs, small bullets and squid chains, run in a spread behind the boat. Rigged ballyhoo is pulled slower. Lure size usually matches the bait the tuna are eating that week.
In Kona, the spread runs at 7.5 to 8 knots and imitates a feeding school of skipjack, and most tuna bites come on the far center, not in the white water behind the boat. On Costa Rica's porpoise schools, ballyhoo under a sea witch is trolled at three to five knots. In the Bahamas, small jets at 8 to 10 knots hook skipjack on purpose, and the hooked skipjack bring the yellowfin up. Our article on running tuna trolling lures that raise fish covers the spread.
Are yellowfin tuna hard to catch?
Yellowfin are considered one of the harder tuna to hook consistently, because they are leader-shy and hook-shy in clear water, feed selectively, and fight hard enough to break poorly rigged tackle. Fluorocarbon leaders, circle hooks hidden in the bait and smooth drags are the standard answers.
Captains disagree on how shy they are. In Venice, if yellowfin eat every free bait but not the hooked one, the leader or hook comes down a size, yet fall trawler fish eat 130 lb fluorocarbon. Casting to surface fish in the tropics, yellowfin are rarely line-shy at all, and a 120 lb bite leader is standard. Our article on tuna hook size compares how each fishery rigs.
Yellowfin Tuna Fishing Questions
Can you catch yellowfin tuna on poppers?
Yellowfin tuna eat poppers and stickbaits wherever they feed on the surface under birds or ahead of dolphins. Fish the popper with a pop and a pause, since the strike often comes on the pause. Switch to a sinking stickbait when the fish ignore the popper, when birds keep grabbing it, or in big seas.
Does the moon affect yellowfin tuna fishing?
The moon's effect on yellowfin tuna fishing depends on the fishery. Venice rig fishing tends to slow around the full moon, while yellowfin on the fall shrimp trawlers show no moon trend at all. Bahamas captains split: some see a better bite with no moon, others favor the days before the full moon.
How much drag do you need for yellowfin tuna?
Less than many anglers set at strike. Captains in these videos set roughly 15 lb at strike on conventional tackle, around 20 lb in the Bahamas, and 15 to 18 lb on spinning gear for popper fishing, then add drag once the first run ends. Too much drag on the first run breaks fish off.
Who teaches In The Spread's yellowfin tuna fishing videos?
In The Spread's yellowfin tuna fishing videos are taught by working captains and anglers who fish these waters, filmed on their own boats during real days of fishing. Each video shows their own decisions on the water, from finding the fish to the gaff, rather than a studio demonstration.
How are these videos different from free yellowfin videos online?
Most free yellowfin tuna videos online are fishing highlights or catch-and-cook clips. In The Spread's yellowfin tuna fishing videos are full instruction from the captain: how to find the fish, set up, rig, hook, fight and land them, and why each choice changes with conditions. Some run more than two hours.
Do the videos cover the fishery I fish?
In The Spread's yellowfin tuna fishing videos are filmed in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and Caribbean, and the Pacific, on rigs, trawlers, birds, dolphin schools and ledges. The methods carry across fisheries: chunking, live bait, trolling spreads and casting work wherever yellowfin feed on the same signals.
Go deeper on yellowfin tuna
For the complete how-to, read our yellowfin tuna fishing tips for offshore anglers.