Hunting Dogtooth Tuna with Taylor Slattery
Any experienced spearo will tell you what a challenge it can be to hunt dogtooth tuna. Reaching over two metres in length and weighing up to 130kg, there’s no doubt these aren’t your beginner spearo’s target fish. To make the experience the enjoyable time it should be, here are some key tips provided by Taylor that’ll make everything that much easier.
1 - Dive Buddies!
“You can’t just land them on your own”, pretty well sums up one of the biggest key points of this video. It’s always important that you have a dive buddy, even more so when you’re targeting a fish as powerful and difficult to land as the dogtooth tuna. Having a dive buddy gives you that added safety in the water when you’re risking shallow water blackouts and can place that extra shot needed to subdue the fish at the surface. We all want to finish the day with a tuna in the boat, and a dive buddy is going to be a huge help in doing it.
High fives always make sense when you've landed a fish and avoided drowning.
2 - Invest in quality gear
When it comes to gear, don’t let yourself be content with anything of subpar standard. If there’s something in your set up that isn’t up to scratch you’re going to find out about it when you spear a dogtooth tuna. The pressure they’ll put on your gear plus the risk of your catch biting back means that any weak link could mean losing the fish.
Taylor lining up a shot at a tuna about to test the durability of his set up. Deep breaths (or not).
2 - Bring the fish to you
Despite what many of us spearo’s believe, we aren’t all tens, and dogtooth tuna concur. They aren’t going to swim within shooting range by choice very often, so to give yourself the best chance of getting a shot a little assistance from some burley and a flasher makes all the difference. The scent of the burley and the reflections from the flasher might convince a tuna to stick around long enough to give you the opportunity at a shot. Split the work between you and your dive buddies to spear the fish, controlling the flasher and the burley.
4- “Put the hurt on em”
Dogtooth tuna are renowned for running hard as soon as you put a spear in them, often heading straight for the reef where they can sever your line. Pulling in the line and reducing the slack that might allow the tuna to build up steam will improve your chances of avoiding disaster. Once you get them close enough, if you have a spare speargun in the water put another spear into them.
