Pat Williams chases northern bluefin tuna on the north coast of New South Wales.

A lot of anglers have one or two species that are particularly close to their hearts. Bass, trout, marlin, bream and flathead all drive men to do funny things; however, for me, it’s the northern bluefin tuna.
I recently knocked off work on a Friday evening, loaded the car and drove for six hours up the coast to a spot where I thought I might encounter some blues. I arrived at 3:00am, grabbed my gear and hiked through the bush for a couple of kilometres before claiming prime position on the headland to sit and wait for the sun to come up.
I spun lures all morning, slept in the back of the car that night and did it all again the next day. I didn’t hook a bluefin all weekend, and neither did the dozen or so other guys I shared the ledge with, but what kept us there and keeps us planning these crazy missions all season is the possibility that we might.
Fishing for northern blues from the rocks is anything but a numbers game. Once you know what you’re doing, you can still put in plenty of days over the course of a season for a handful of runs, which might be converted to a few landed fish if you’re lucky.
I think a big part of the appeal of chasing these fish from land is the amount of work that goes into figuring them out. Getting an idea of where they might be and when, and then actually putting a plan in motion and pulling the trigger means that when you do actually land a fish it feels like a serious achievement.
When targeting most species you will most likely check what conditions are like on a given day, matching up tide, water temperature and whatever other variables you take into account. When you’re targeting bluefin from the rocks, you’re really looking at the bigger picture; you target these fish over a season rather than just a single session.
It’s a given that you won’t catch a bluefin each day that you fish for them, but if you put in the work to track them up and down the coast, targeting them at strategic intervals, your hard work will pay off.

Double your chances by spinning a lure with live bait deployed.

BAIT
The presence of bait in the water you’re fishing is a make or break indicator. Its importance can’t be understated. A bluefin tuna will happily chow down on yakka, tailor, hardyhead or even a mullet if hungry enough, but its idea of a five-star feed is a juicy slimy mackerel, or better yet a nice tender garfish. Sea gars are like candy to bluefin tuna, so when conditions are right and there are schools of gar holding in an area, you know the blues can’t be far away.
While northern bluefin tuna present as a high order pelagic predator, what separates them from a lot of gamefish in their fighting weight is their readiness to throw down in the inshore arena. Blues are willing to chase schools of baitfish into shallow, turbid, fresh-affected inshore waters that most other proper gamefish species would turn their noses up at. As a result, they’re the heavyweight champs of the north coast landbased fishery. Watching a rampaging pack of blues have their way with a hapless ball of garfish in five metres of water at a NSW north coast river mouth is truly a sight to behold.

A solid 17kg northern blue hooked north of the QLD border.

TECHNIQUE
There are essentially two methods of securing a slice of the bluefin pie each season, and those are live baiting and high-speed spin. Both methods entail positioning yourself on a prominent headland or breakwall and proffering a tempting presentation into adjacent deep water. Live baiting is a little more simplistic, while spinning is somewhat more appealing to lure purists or those who’ve tallied their share of blues on bait. Both are equally valid methods of securing your ticket to the Northern Blue Express.
The type of ledge or platform you’re fishing tends to dictate the method you’ll employ. River mouth breakwalls tend to offer up a variety of fishable platforms that can spread anglers out and allow a lot of livebaits to be presented at once, whereas a lot of the most productive headlands tend to work best if everyone spins lures in order to prevent crossed lines.
PRESENTING A BAIT
If you’re new to targeting tuna from the rocks, the best way to get some runs on the board is to learn how to livebait. While crowds of fishermen can be annoying, they can also present a good opportunity for novice anglers to shorten their learning curve. Watching experienced fishos catch and present livebaits, hook, fight and gaff fish is the best way to learn. It can also be handy to have a couple of experienced tuna anglers around when you’re hooked up to offer advice and to gaff your fish.
The first couple of bluefin I landed came from crowded ledges and it definitely helped to have some experienced guys around to ensure everyone cleared their lines and to help direct the fish into the best spot to make a clear gaff shot.
When livebaiting for tuna, most anglers stick to the tried and true method of presenting a live garfish or slimy mackerel on 10 or 15kg tackle, while those looking for an extra challenge might drop their line class down to 8 or even 6 kilograms. The standard approach is to load around 500m of your chosen line class onto a mid-sized overhead real matched to a 7 to 8 ftland based game (LBG) rod.
Mid-priced overhead lever drag reels like the Shimano TLD and Tyrnos series provide plenty of reel for this type of fishing, while top shelf options like Shimano Tiagras and Penn Internationals are beautiful to use, they’re not really necessary when fishing these relatively light line classes.
Monofilament line is standard for this type of fishing as it offers a little stretch which has proven to help stop hooks from falling out during direction changes, although it can be a good idea to load your reel with braid backing and a mono top shot if you’re worried about capacity. A fairly simple rig is employed, involving a plaited double connected to around a rod’s length of 40 to 60lbleader.
A single light gauge hook such as a Gamakatsu Octopus pattern in about a 5/0 or 6/0 is perfect for presenting gars and slimies while reducing trauma to the bait, keeping them healthy and kicking in the current for longer. A slim cigar or torpedo float is also a good idea as they bounce around less than a balloon in the waves and will stop your baits from dying quickly. Present your bait at least two metres under your float so that they can’t be attacked from above by gannets or other seabirds.

Mackerel tuna make up the bulk of bycatch when spinning for northern blues. While they’re a welcome distraction on slow days, they lack the stamina of the main target species and are generally done after one good run.

SPINNING
Spinning lures is a great way to simplify your approach when fishing out of the way locations that don’t have an on-site bait supply. It also allows a lot of anglers to fish a small area. The classic approach is to cast 60 to 100 g metal lures out on either an overhead or spin setup, allow them to sink and then rip them back as quickly as possible. Chunky brass cut lures like the Sure catch range of Knights and Bishops are reliable and effective. Many, many bluefin and other pelagics have been taken on these lures over the decades, and using them is certainly an effective way to fish and a great way to hone your technique.

Another mac tuna spun up on the trusty 65g Surecatch Knight.

Mid-sized metals around 65 g present a very tempting baitfish profile and account for plenty of hookups, although depending on the location you’re fishing, and how far out the fish are holding, it may be necessary to use 85 g or bigger lures to improve casting range.
If you like to mix up lure styles, there are plenty of other options favoured by spin anglers in recent years. Some of the most popular are shallow diving bibbed minnows like the Rapala X-Rap weighted Slashbaits, and bibless minnows like the Halco Maxs and Lively Lures Mackbaits. You might achieve a little less casting distance using minnows as opposed to metals due to their lower weight to surface area ratio, but their built-in action means they’re liable to get smashed through your entire retrieve.
One issue to keep in mind when using minnows is that they can be a little more difficult to effectively retrieve from the water when fishing sloped ledges fringed by cunje beds that can tend to claim a lot of lures.
Braid is the way to go when chucking lures and 15kg is a good starting point. You’ll want to aim to fit 400m or more onto your spin reel to prevent the possibility of a spooling. Some fishos like to upgrade to 24kg or even heavier tackle when fishing ledges where sharks are a known problem, as the heavier tackle allows fish to be landed much faster.
LOCATION GUIDE
A big part of the LBG experience is researching and recon-ing your fishing spots. While crowds of anglers might help you learn how to fish as a beginner, they’ll quickly become irritating as you figure out what you’re doing. That said, crowds are an inherent part of this style of fishing so it’s best not to let them bother you where possible.
When learning when and where to target bluefin, remember that early on in the season they are making their way down the coast from more northerly waters, so are likely to begin showing up in far northern NSW spots around areas such as Ballina and Iluka first. By mid season fish will be showing further south around Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie and will eventually work their way down to Port Stephens. Blues are caught a long way south of Port Stephens each season, but the schools are often patchy and hard to pinpoint.
It’s a great idea to base your early season missions further north, focusing on the breakwalls fronting river mouths around Tweed Heads and Ballina. Later on in the season it’s worth putting in some time at breakwalls further south between Coffs Harbour and Port Stephens. A lot of the biggest northern blues are caught really late each season at some of the ledges towards the southern limit of their range either side of Port Stephens.
There are plenty of popular headlands in between the well-known breakwalls that produce blues each year. The best spots are usually north facing ledges on very prominent headlands at the southern ends of long southeast facing beaches. These types of location offer up some protection from the dominant southerly swell trains that are prevalent in season and invariably offer access to fairly deep water.

Locked and loaded on a healthy blue, with gaff man at the ready.

Google Earth is your friend when researching more out of the way spots to soak a bait or chuck a lure, and you’ll certainly find that it’s still more than possible to escape the crowds if you’re willing to use your imagination and stretch your legs. Most of the more low key bluefin spots won’t fish as consistently as the really well known hotspots, but if you value having your own space it’s certainly worth putting in the effort to research these areas.
Learning to chase northern bluefin tuna from the rocks is a long process with a steep learning curve, but it’s one that ultimately rewards those most dedicated to the chase. Those anglers willing to wholly throw themselves into the pursuit of these endlessly challenging gamefish might find themselves hooking more than they bargained for.
Pat Williams is a Sydney-based photojournalist with a love for all things fishing. He’ll try his hand at targeting just about anything that swims, but his true passion is chasing big, hard-fighting fish from the ocean rocks. In Summer and Autumn he can be found spinning for pelagics on the New South Wales north coast and livebaiting for kingfish in Sydney. Over the cooler months he can usually be found on the south coast in pursuit of hard-fighting black drummer, groper and snapper.