I have exactly 1 FF day for albacore, so take that for what it's worth.
Our day was rough and windy, so mostly I tried to sit on the gunwale and brace myself to avoid falling into the water, both while fishing and while reeling them in. Leverage is tricky doing this, especially as the tuna get into gaffing range. I also wished for shortish leaders to more easily get the tuna right to the top to the gaff, as the sound and feel of the leader knot getting into the guides (and going out again rapidly if they ran) made me worry about breaking the rod tip, especially because I was using someone else's rod. But if they are leader shy, you are going to need the leader length. With time, I hope we all figure out how much leader length is really needed. I think I had 4' of 25 lb fluoro.
Ralph Cutter (wrote Trout Food book) is basically positive there is no such thing as fish not seeing your leader and fly line perfectly always, no matter what you do or what you use. Mostly he thinks fish typically just don't care about it, and the longer leader aspect is a myth with respect to actual visibility (but not presentation). It might be true then that very short leaders will work just fine, if they don't actually care. Commercial fishing setups can illustrate this point very well at times.
I liked the wind drift, it helped me to stack mend until 70-90' of the fly line was out, providing a decent length of line to strip back in. That also got my fly deep, as it might take a minute or two to get that line out during the drift. Mostly I used coho style retrieves, fast and erratic, which were rising to the top. Seemed to work. Got fish both early in the strip (so deep, at first movement) and next to the boat as I was lifting to roll out again. Fish it all the way in.
BK's success with Dennis's fly in the late morning troll time makes me think fly selection matters, at least for the troll. I think he got 3, or maybe even 4, hookups in a row although 4 of us were dragging our junk. That's too much to be random chance, I got one bump in the same period. Fish different flies on the troll for sure.
Pay attention to BKs "short pump" advice. I had to see him do it to understand what it was. Watch a video. Will integrate that into the system now.
I was worried about fly size initially, went with 3-4" ties, but am sort of thinking even 1-2" bait fish probably might work on the right day or many days. Silverfly has the Kraken, and I respect that, but I am curious to know how small we can go. The good thing about small bait is that fish know they need to eat alot of it, so it can keep them thoughtless. Curious what is actually in stomachs, not including chum fish/pieces, wish that data was out there.
I can't wait to go again next summer. I bought a 12wt reel, will pick up a rod one of these days. Seeing how tight everyone is, with 6 people on the back deck, and how chaotic it can be during the bite, makes me think I want to avoid overspending on the rod, because rods are going to routinely get broken. Make sure the boat has some backups rigged and ready.
Can't wait to fish the bow on a clean day and watch the tuna movie below.
