Collection: Tuna Tackle

Cedar plugs, trolling lures and vertical jigs for blackfin and yellowfin tuna.

The cedar plug is the strangest thing in this collection and the one most worth your attention. It is a shaped block of wood with a hook in it, it costs a fraction of a skirted lure, and commercial boats still troll them because they out-fish expensive tackle with dispiriting regularity.

The wood is the reason. Cedar has a density and surface that make the plug swim with a slightly erratic roll rather than tracking perfectly straight, and it holds a wet trail plastic does not. Run it naked and close to the transom, right in the prop wash where the whitewater hides the leader.

The other productive approach is vertical jigging. Blackfin in particular stack up over structure and will crush a fast-retrieved jig ripped up through the column — often when they have refused everything you trolled past them.

Tuna feed hardest at first and last light. Look for birds, bait showers and temperature breaks along the Gulf edge and the Atlantic stream.

Fluorocarbon leader matters here. Tuna in clear blue water are genuinely leader-shy.