SportFishing and Charters Forum - How to prepare hook for tuna chunking

I am wondering how you guys prepare the chunk meat to place the hook inside it when tuna chunking? I know you have to hide the hook. Any advice? Pics? thanks!

All depends. Most of the time I don't bother. When the tuna get in the slick at the boat and old sock drapped over the hook will do.
What I do is first is use a non-offset circle hook. Feed it in the mouth of the butter fish or sardine and out the gills and through the back with the point sticking out through the skin. Squid I usually hook through the mantle. I sometimes pre rig a few (in case the bite is slow).

Use google to get pics of how.

What about when your using bonito chunks? Somebody said you cut a slit into the chunk, and just stick the hook in the slit. as long as your line doesnt get tight, the bait will not fall off???

just bury it in the meat. We usually use bonito or blackfin and cut a chunk about the size of a golf ball to the size of a racquet ball and use a 5/0 or 6/0 circle hook. Then take the hook and completely bury it in the meat (not the skin). Works for me.

What do you mean by bury it, are you hooking it? or just cutting s slash mark in it, then placing hook into the slash mark?

literally just stuff it into the flesh until hidden. Then you toss the hooked chunk into the water and strip line so that it falls naturally. when it is too far out, reel in very slowly and repeat. sometimes when you reel it in, it will fall of the hook. if it does, who cares, just re-bait and do it again.

it is a very un-scientific method and it works great.

So dont hook it, just kinda jam it into the flesh chunks?

So dont hook it, just kinda jam it into the flesh chunks?

That's what I do. It works better when you thread the hook point into the flesh first as opposed to just jamming the curve of the hook into flesh, but the hook is not really "hooked" to anything. you'd be able to pull it out very easily.

now if you are lazy chunking (not threading the line out of the spool by hand to allow the chunk to fall naturally) and you just want a chunk suspending in the water column, you'd have to secure it better or the water current combined with the tightness in your line will pull it off the hook. in that situation, I pierce the skin of the chunk with the hook and THEN hide the hook in the flesh.

Just shoving it in there definitely works fine but to start i would do like suggested and cut a slit just big enough to completely hide your non offset circle hook. You actually want the met to come off the hook with very little resistance. This allows the hook hopefully slide in the corner of the tunas mouth without anything in the way. Also when you real in we prefer to real fast so the bait does fall off. If the bait stays on the hook it will most likely spin on the way back to the boat, one or two drifts and your line will be so twisted you can't even pull from the rod tip(will twist around the tip). and having the line free to strip when a fish hits is very important.

Thanks for the replies ! I really appreciate it

That's what I do. It works better when you thread the hook point into the flesh first as opposed to just jamming the curve of the hook into flesh, but the hook is not really "hooked" to anything. you'd be able to pull it out very easily.

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What he said, start the hook point into the meat and progress it in until it is completely hidden.

It is very important how your chunk is prpaired and how you drift it. If you are using a pogie, sardine, or any type of dead bait fish, I like to run the hook through both eyeballs and then take the hook insert it into the fish on the top of his spine. When you start to put the hook in the bait have the open side of the hookfacing down with the loop of the hook facing the tail of the bait and then insert it in the bait so that the knot is back towards the eyeballs, hope I explained it ok. As far as the chunks of bonita go there is 2 ways to go about it. If the current is running fast take a filet knife make a small slice through the chunk (the size of the hook you are using) insert the hook all the way through the hole and turn it just a little so that it catches a piece of meat, then pull the line so that the hook is hidden inside the meat, if there is no current sometimes I just place the hook in the slice I made with the filet knife. I have very good succes rates using these methods. I run 3 lines when I'm chumming. Make sure you don't stop the bait until you are ready to reel in and reset. I get 99% of my bites while letting the bait out. Hope this helps, Good luck on the water.

Thanks, Capt. Lance Walker
www.fishcommander.com