1st Tuna trip

[Captain Decent]

2nd to what most people said.

I prefer to launch in the evening overnight, and move ice in large fish bags (18”x48” 5mm). two or three trips with the hand truck while everyone else is getting ready. (Much easier to move the ice around when it comes time to packing fish holds or kill bag. Plus any unused ice will be kept clean for the drive home.). Bags get reused several years and good for tossing crab into once they get holes.

Don’t bother with IQF blocks. Half of the chovies will be blown out, and you’ll spend more time breaking down the block and melting it down. - Instead just get a live scope, into a 5gal (or 3gal) bucket with a good ice/water/salt slurry. —. You’ll have much fresher bait and something you can actually fish with. You’ll have cold hands picking them out early in the morning so bring a SS mesh scoop with a handle (straight out of the kitchen).

IQFs are not a frozen block they are a bag of individually frozen (hence the acronym) anchovies.

There was one year where they didn’t have IQFs and all they had was the frozen brick but the IQFs are back

 

[kwik_wurk]

IQFs are not a frozen block they are a bag of individually frozen (hence the acronym) anchovies.

There was one year where they didn’t have IQFs and all they had was the frozen brick but the IQFs are back

Not talking about straight block bait either. —. The last two times i got “IQF” the bags of bait had been “re”-frozen into “blocks” (square on 3 sides). It was easy to tell the bait had started as tray/rack frozen bait (all nice and straight tails, granted cloudy eyes). However they were packaged in a manner that had the interior frozen solid together. At first glance they looked normal as the bait is all nice and straight, exterior layer flaked off ok with a little sea water, the rest just gets torn and as you attempt to thaw/soak it.

Maybe mis-handled sequential batch(s), who knows. And not saying anything bad about Westport Seafoods, they’ve been. very accommodating to the sport fishers. —. However other times i’ve gotten IQF it was straight off the racks or it was loose in plastic bins, granted that was years ago.

Anyways, if there is a chance to buy live fresh bait vs frozen bait for a day of fishing; buy the live stuff and treat it properly and you’ll have better stuff to use. (scoped a lot of live bait for people to use in a past life)

 

[GregE]

Hope your trip went well- post your results and pictures for those of us who didn't make it out.

And welcome to the Tuna addiction.

 

[jonbackman]

Report posted in report section. Thanks again for all the info guys!