A Pennsylvania angler moved here to enjoy N.C.’s offshore fishing. Now nobody does it better for winter yellowfins.
Many Tar Heel anglers recognize Capt. Stan “Stanman” Jarusinski as one of the top king mackerel tournament fishermen in the region, winning and placing in numerous tournaments as well as winning the 2005 SKA championship for boats 23-feet-and-under. Nevertheless, it was offshore big-game fishing that brought him North Carolina 11 years ago.
“I decided to move here from Pennsylvania because of the offshore fishing,” he said. “I really enjoy fishing for yellowfin tuna and wahoo. When I discovered the tuna fishing was great all year, I made my mind up to move here.”
“Here” for Jarusinski is Stella, the home from which he travels to fish distant destinations, or in his home waters offshore of Bogue Inlet.
But when it comes to yellowfin tuna, he drives to Morehead City to launch his 23-foot Regulator Classic center-console Mister Stanman with twin 200-hp Yamaha outboards.
“I found out the yellowfins are out there all winter long at the northeast corner of the Big Rock,” Jarusinski said, “or else they are along the ledge at the 90-Foot Drop, where I head out to 20 fathoms (120 feet) and work my way south, following the reef all the way out, moving out to 40 fathoms (240 feet) and back up to 20 fathoms until I find the fish. I might even have to run as far back south as the Swansboro Hole in 50 fathoms (150 feet) to find them.”
While the fish will stay in that general area, which may look small on a nautical chart, it’s one big stretch of the Atlantic Ocean once an angler gets out there.
And not as many boats venture offshore during February and March as there are when the air temperature warms up during springtime. Without radio contact to help locate the fish, doing some homework before he goes helps Jarusinski save time and fuel looking for tuna schools.
“I look at temperature charts before I go, and one I really like is Thomas Hilton’s. He’s out of Texas and the web address for his web site is realtime-navigator.com.
“I look for temperature breaks. Any 2- or 3-degree break in the water with a temperature of 68 to 72 degrees will hold tunas that time of year.
“Hilton’s temperature charts have color changes, so the breaks are easy to see. All you have to do is click your cursor at Beaufort Inlet, than move it onto the temperature break. It’ll tell you how far you need to run, the compass direction and the GPS coordinates.
“Having a good positioning system like that is even more important because of the price of gasoline. His system is only $125 a year, and it’ll save you that much money in one trip with the cost of gas now. I look at it the day before I head out; it doesn’t change that much overnight.”
During February there are some nice days when the water is slick enough to head offshore for tuna fishing. But since so few people even consider it, it pays to buddy up with another boat whenever possible. If more anglers knew the fishing is just as good as it is in what others believe are the “peak” months in April and May, more anglers would take advantage of the calm days to catch yellowfin.
But they’re too busy catching striped bass and bluefin tunas to make the run to the Gulf Stream. Never mind the fact that no matter how cold it may be close to shore, the water temperature out in the Stream keeps the air temperature a balmy 70 degrees or so all winter long.
You can leave the dock all bundled up, but wind up taking off clothing layers down to you T-shirt once you get into the action.
“Once you arrive at your fishing location, you begin looking for bait on the depth-finder,” Jarusinski said. “Occasionally there is some activity on the surface. If you find a rip, that means there’s a temperature break, and you’ll find the bait concentrated there and the predators will be feeding on the bait.”
While most anglers troll with skirts and ballyhoos to catch yellowfin tuna, Jarusinski likes to use swimming lures. He may use a combination of skirts and lures, but there’ll always be some Yo-zuri Deep Diver lures in the spread when he’s looking for yellowfin tuna.
“I like the Yo-zuri Deep Divers, the Model 540 in 5 ¼-inch,” he said. “My favorite colors are the ones the fish like — OG (orange-and-gold), LM (lime green), B (blue-and-silver), CL (chartreuse) and BTCL (banana-peel).”
Jarusinski chuckled about the last color, since everyone knows fish won’t have anything to do with anything to do with bananas. But he swears by the new color.
“Yo-zuri is one of my sponsors,” he said “They sent some new Deep Divers for testing. They asked me to play around with them back in 2004.
“Paul Michele, Yo-zuri’s vice president, said it was the biggest-selling lure in the company’s history. I gave some to a couple of guys and one guy soon caught a yellowfin on one.
“I also gave them to some charter captains and they started catching yellowfin. The first time I got out with them after that, I started using them for yellowfin.”
Now Jarusinski preaches like the guy on the American Express commercial — “Never leave home without them.”
“Anyone can use them because they mix right in the same trolling spread with ballyhoos,” he said. “They pull nicely at 6 or 7 miles per hour.”
Everybody knows yellowfin are spooked by boats and shy of leaders. Right? Not necessarily the case with lures because Jarusinski finds a different situation.
“I pull these things (the Yo-zuri Deep Divers) only 35 feet behind the boat and about 20 feet down,” he said. “The shine of the holographic sides really lights up and the vibration brings the fish close to the boat to strike.
“I just let out line until I feel the lure digging then I set the rod in the holder. If you don’t let out enough line, the lure will pop to the surface. If you let out too much line, the lure will pop to the surface. I doesn’t take long to figure out the correct distance and speed for running them.”
Jarusinski also uses more conventional rigs, pulling one each from his T-top outriggers and one on his center long line for a total of five lines. Two Yo-zuri Deep Divers off the transom, two Islander Outrider trolling lures with ballyhoo tied onto the hooks with copper wire on the outriggers and a Yo-zuri Tracker with a ballyhoo on the long line. Since he has a small boat and can only fish three or four anglers, he doesn’t want to hook up too many fish at one time. When you run over a school of tuna, all the lines can get hit at the same time so five lines is enough.
“Andy Marandino is one of the best yellowfin tuna fishermen in Cape May, N.J.,” Jarusinski said. “He told me years ago you have to have something with yellow in it. So I use the 4 3/4-inch green-and-yellow Islander Outriders or Z Wings on the down-riggers because they stay close to the top.
“I use a 4 ¾-inch blue-and-white Ilander Tracker on the long line, and it digs deeper. I downsize the lures over what most fishermen use because of the way the fish’s mouth is shaped. A yellowfin tuna’s mouth is narrow and high on the head. Therefore a smaller bait is easier to get it in his mouth.
“I also use the smallest ballyhoo I can find and rig it on a 6/0 Gamakatsu tuna hook. Most fishermen use a 9/0 hook and that’s too big.”
Jarusinski uses Shimano Tiagra WLRAS 30 reels mated tp Shimano 6-foot 30- to 60-pound-class rods with roller guides. The wide reels have lots of line capacity. He spools them with 600 yards of 80-pound (20-pound diameter) Western Filament Tuf Line XP, 200 to 300 yards of Yo-zuri Hi Vis yellow 80-pound mono tied onto the 80-pound line with an Albright knot, and 50 yards of 30- to 50-pound of Yo-zuri pink fluorocarbon tied with a surgeon’s knot.
“I don’t put any wire leaders on the lures,” he said. “Tuna are line shy and wire shy, so I stay away from wire as long as there are no wahoo.
“I use the mono until I have a lure get eaten off by a wahoo. Then I add a leader of 50-pound American Fishing Wire titanium wire leader about 8- to 14-inches long.
“The titanium is black, which is hard for a tuna to see. I hate to lose lures and I also hate to lose a wahoo. With the titanium leader, you can catch tuna and wahoo at the same time.
“I tie the leader directly to the lure or use an 80-pound Spro swivel. The short leader works for wahoo because they usually hit the Yo-zuri Deep Divers in the middle of the body. Most of the time, they only have the back treble hook in their mouths.”
The tuna can range in weight from 30 to 90 pounds. The fish in any school will all run about the same size. But even a small tuna makes a hard-pitched battle of 15 or 20 minutes before it can be gaffed and brought aboard.
“You have to be in shape to make the trip, then win a fight with a tuna that far out,” Jarusinski said. “When you hook one up, you grab the rod and hang on until you feel him give up before you start pumping. You keep the boat going in a straight line. You don’t want to slow or stop.
“When you hook one, you are usually going to hook others that are following along, so you keep going for a quarter of a mile. You can fill all five rods up with tuna.”
But if only one or two rods are struck, Jarusinski heads back for another shot at the fish. He tries to find the middle of the school instead of just the edge.
“There’s no such thing as a school of one or two yellowfin tunas,” he said. “You hit the Man Overboard on the GPS and head back to the same spot from a different direction if you only hook one or two fish.
“If you were trolling north to south, head back to the Man Overboard location where you hooked the fish from east to west. You keep moving in and out in different directions from the strike location until you find the main part of the school. It’s something else when all the rods finally go off at the same time.”
When fighting multiple fish, everyone has to be aware of what his fish is doing in relation to other hooked fish. Tuna can spin fishing lines into knots Houdini couldn’t untie.
“Reel him until you find out if you’re going to cross lines with another angler,” he said. “You’ve got to keep trying to keep the lines from tangling.
“You might have to pass them around each other. Get only one fish close enough to gaff at one time.
“Most of the time, you’re going to fight that fish for at least 10 to 20 minutes. Once he gets beside the boat, you have to lift his head to get it up so you can get a clean shot and gaff him.”
When the fish is finally landed, the angler sometimes can revel in the afterglow of one of the most exciting experiences in saltwater fishing, unless there is still a rod stuck in a holder with a tuna on the other end that still needs an angler.
In no other saltwater fishing can so many powerful fish be battled and boated at the same time.
Once any angler experiences a good day of tuna fishing, he’s addicted, sometimes severely enough to move all the way from Pennsylvania to be closer to the year-round action.
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